Moneypenny's 2019 ROOT Log

Hi there!

Welcome to my 2019 ROOT log! I'm a cybersecurity project manager and am married to a lovely man who works long, intense hours as a Toyota finance manager. We've got a feisty French bulldog (Bibi) and a sweet kitty boy (Poptart). If I'm not with them, I've got my nose in a book! I'll read anything and everything you hand me but am most at home in the fantasy/sci-fi realm.

I originally started tracking my reading here as a way to recover from the burnout of a particularly intense graduate program but quickly discovered that this is one of the best places on the entire internet. I started ROOTing in 2018 and came in at 32 out of 60 ROOTs read. I'm hopeful that I can hit 50 this year.

I deliberately set it lower this year because I'm anticipating a particularly grueling year at work and most excitingly Mr. Moneypenny and I are moving to my home state of Colorado! Despite being born and raised in New Orleans, Colorado has been my home since 2007 and has always had my heart. I left in 2014 to work on my master's degree in Indiana and somehow wound up with a Hoosier husband and a job in Ohio. I'm definitely not a midwest kind of girl: I need mountains and low humidity to thrive and I couldn't be more excited to be moving my little family back to the most beautiful place on earth. It also helps that my parents, brother, and sister all still there :D

Mr. M is also an avid reader and between the two of us we have enough books to start our own public library. We went a little crazy buying classics this holiday season as our favorite used bookstore had a bananas sale. So you'll see a lot of classics on my list below in addition to my comfort genre of fantasy/sci-fi. Right hand to god, this will also be the year I finally finish Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series!

Thanks for stopping by! Drop a note so I can follow along with what you're reading!

Welcome back and have a great reading year! Good luck with the move as well :)

Book List

1. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (paper)
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (paper) finished 2/6; 4 stars
3. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (paper)
4. Jane Eyre by Jane Austen (paper)
5. Middlemarch by George Elliot (paper)
6. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (paper)
7. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott (paper)
8. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset (paper)
9. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo (paper)
10. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Kindle) finished 1/30; 5 stars

11. The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan (paper) finished 3/3; 4 stars
12. Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan (paper) finished 4/2; 4 stars
13. A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan (paper) finished 4/5; 3 stars
14. The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan (paper) finished 4/7; 4 stars
15. Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan (paper) finished 4/9; 4 stars
16. Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan (paper) finished 4/10; 4 stars
17. Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan (paper) finished 4/12; 4 stars
18. The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan (paper) finished 4/15; 5 stars
19. Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan (paper) finished 4/18; 4 stars
20. A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan (paper) finished 4/20; 3 stars

21. New Spring by Robert Jordan (paper)
22. La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman (paper)
23. Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien (paper) finished 5/19; 4 stars
24. The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien (paper)
25. The Return of the King by JRR Tolkien (paper)
26. Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan (Kindle)
27. The Witches of Blackbrook by Tish Thawer (Kindle)
28. Dangerous Liasons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (Kindle)
29. 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam (Kindle) finished 2/26; 4 stars
30. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas (Kindle)

31. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas (Kindle)
32. A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab (Kindle)
33. The Stand by Stephen King (Kindle)
34. Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (Kindle)
35. The Rose Garden by Susana Kearsley (Kindle)
36. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (Kindle)
37. The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty finished 5/28; 3 stars
38. Version Control by Dexter Palmer (paper)
39. Rebecca by Daphne du Marier (paper)
40. The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan (paper) finished 5/6; 4 stars

41. All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders (paper)
42. The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natalia Sanmartin Fenoliera (paper)
43. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (Kindle)
44. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (Kindle) finished 10/20; 5 stars
45. The Line by J.D. Horn (Kindle)
47. The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker (Kindle)
48. Matchmaking for Beginners by Maddie Dawson (Kindle)
49. Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan (Kindle)
50. The Bees by Laline Paull (Kindle)

Bonus books in the event that one of the above turn out to be DNF books:
1. Aztec by Gary Jennings (Kindle)
2. Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones (Kindle)
3. Belgravia by Julian Fellowes (Kindle)
4. The Cafe by the Sea by Jenny Colgan (Kindle)
5. Perennials by Julie Cantrell (Kindle)
6. The Lake House by Kate Morton (Kindle)
7. A Memory of Violets by Hazel Gaynor (Kindle)
8. Circe by Madeline Miller (Kindle) finished 5/3; 5 stars
9. The Secret Language of Stones by MJ Rose (paper)
10. The Rook Daniel O'Malley (Kindle)
11. The Passage by Justin Cronin (Kindle) finished 5/8; 4 stars
12. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Kindle) finished 5/22; 5 stars
13. Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee (Kindle)
14. Game of Thrones by George R.R. Miller (Kindle) finished 5/16; 5 stars
15. The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsely (Kindle)
16. The Wondering Years by Knox McCoy (Kindle) finished 2/3; 3 stars
17. The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth (Kindle)
18. Birth of an Empire by Conn Iggulden (Kindle)
19. You Need a Budget by Jesse Mecham (Kindle) finished 5/8; 4 stars
20. Artisan Pizza and Flatbread by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Framboise finished 5/11; 4 stars
21. The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn (Kindle) finished 5/4; 3 stars
22. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah (Kindle) finished 5/23; 4 stars
23. Bird Box by Josh Mallerman (Kindle) finished 5/24; 4 stars
24. Story of a Soul by St. Therese of Lisieux finished 2/8; 5 stars
25. The Likeness by Tana French
26. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin
27. The Quick by Lauren Owen
28. If Nuns Ruled the World by Jo Piazza finished 5/7; 3 stars
29. The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson
30. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
31. Women & Power by Mary Beard finished 5/8; 4 stars
32. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid finished 5/20; 4 stars

Acquisitions in 2019

I successfully completed a total no-buy of books in 2017 and relied only on what I had in my Kindle/on my bookshelf and our local library. It was eye opening to me to see just how much of what I read that year was merely "ok." So for 2019, my goal was to spend no more than $15 a month on books or 5 books per month, which ever came first. I'll be keeping track of those here!

January
1. Bird Box by Josh Malerman: Kindle via Bookbub, $2
2. The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn: Kindle, $0 (Christmas gift card)
3. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah: Kindle, $0 (Christmas gift card)
Not bad from a financial standpoint, but I only read 1 ROOT in January while adding 3 more! Mount TBR will never diminish in size, I think.

February
1. The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth: Kindle, $8
2. East of Eden by John Steinbeck: Kindle via Bookbub, $2
3. Birth of an Empire by Conn Iggulden: Kindle via Bookbub, $2
Not too shabby! But again, I need to read more than I buy.

March
No expenditures, too busy moving and starting a new job!

April
1. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin: Kindle, $0 (gift)
2. The Quick by Lauren Owen: Kindle, $9
3. If Nuns Ruled the World by Jo Piazza: Kindle, $2
4. The Likeness by Tana French: Kindle, $2

May
1. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron: Kindle, $2
2. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson: Kindle, $2
3. The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson: Kindle, $2
4. The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes: Kindle, $2

June
No purchases! I'm amazed at my self control :D

July
My birthday month, so gift books abound!
1. Batman Hush by Jeph Loeb: paper, $0 (gift)
2. Helen of Troy by Margaret George: paper, $0 (gift)
3. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden: paper, $0 (gift)
4. The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden: paper, $0 (gift)
5. The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden: paper, $0 (gift)

August
No purchases again! Who even am I?

September
Women Talking by Miriam Toews: Kindle, $2

October
The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman: paper hardcover, $18 (preordered in April)
The Once and Future King by T.H. White: Kindle, $2

>2 rabbitprincess: Thank you so much! This is definitely one of the nicest places on the internet :)

Hope your reading, your move and your job all work out for the best.

Welcome back, and good luck for the move!

I'm planning on a similar strategy of a monthly budget for books, to see if that helps me make a dent in Mt TBR.

Welcome back, MissP and I'm so glad you move back to where you'r most at ease. Happy ROOTing in 2019.

>6 majkia: and >8 connie53: Thank you! It'll be a busy year for sure so I'm glad to have reading/this site as a place of calm!

>7 Jackie_K: Thank you!

Sounds like you will have a lot of books to move with you. Good luck with your reading goal.

Glad you're back! Don't forget to officially join the group!

Good luck with your list and best wishes for a hassle-free move!

Hi and happy new year.

Good luck with your reading and your move back to CO.

January Catch Up

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
What a revelation! I did not expect this book to be compulsively readable or that it would suck me in, but it totally did. I was totally immersed in this and really, really loved it. Even Tolstoy's long-winded musings on Russian farming sucked me in. If even half of the classics I've got on my list this year are as good as this, it's gonna be a good year!
5 stars

Sadly, this was the only ROOT I wound up finishing this month. 2019 started off completely bananas and hasn't slowed down one bit. I've got 3 others in progress (Pride and Prejudice, The Wondering Years, and Circe) so fingers crossed that February is a little kinder!

>14 Miss_Moneypenny: I think starting off the year with Anna Karenina is pretty darn impressive! :)

>14 Miss_Moneypenny: I really enjoyed (most of) Anna Karenina as well, although I admit that I found the farming digressions tiresome... Still, it was very readable and I was surprised at how fast the pages flew!

>15 rabbitprincess: Thank you! It really took me by surprise how good it was, so it didn't feel like a slog at all. I had a similar experience with Austen as you'll see below, so hopefully this is a good portent!

>16 Caramellunacy: My husband had the same reaction: he told me multiple times that if he could just edit out all the farming bits, it would be in his top 10.

February



And just like that, we're in February! In a week, I've managed to knock off 2 more ROOTs.

2. The Wondering Years by Knox McCoy
I wanted to flat out love this book. Knox McCoy is one half of the podcast "The Popcast with Knox and Jamie" and he is hilarious on the show. When he announced he had a book coming out, I figured it would be equally hilarious and that I would be in for a good time. And there are parts that had me absolutely laughing out loud: when he compares Jesus to Michael Jordan, the entire chapter on his attempts to force his family dog to accept Jesus as the dog's own personal lord and savior, his recounting of his crusade to get his neighborhood to boycott The Simpsons. All of these were hilarious and tied back to the thesis (his life-long struggle to understand faith and God) beautifully. But too much of this book was anecdotes (getting drunk for the first time, causing one of his business partners to have a heart attack) that were clumsily tied onto the thesis and had me going "Huh?" Even the transition sentences he uses to go from one of these anecdotes to the God points were clumsy and reminded me of being back in the 10th grade and having to write essays for school. This gets 3 stars because the funny/poignant parts are definitely worth the price of admission, but I was disappointed overall.
3 stars

3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
I'm not sure how I made it to almost 33 without reading a book by Jane Austen, but for years I was a snob about it and about how much I hated the premise of this book and dismissed it as a stupid romance novel. My sister called me out on this in 2018, and it lead to a revelation that, just like any other genre, romance isn't always trashy and poorly written. I'm so grateful to her for that because this is a terrific book (she said, surprising exactly no one). It really is all the things I've heard about it: witty, tender, a clear-eyed look at marriage and love and class, absolutely terrific.
4 stars

4. Story of a Soul by St. Therese of Lisieux
On the topic of soppy sentimentality, a lot of people accuse St. Therese and her writings as being too twee and sugary sweet to be of any use in daily life. I'm following along with Haley Stewart (of Carrots for Michaelmas) and her CathLIT 2019 reading challenge and read this for the "Classic spiritual work" category. I probably wouldn't have picked this up because of the aforementioned criticisms but again, I'm so glad I did. I didn't find this to be overly sentimental at all and instead found a treasure trove of spiritual practices to put into place in my own life. Therese challenges those of us who are called to live a normal life and fill it with a radical love of other and true charity. It's been a long time since I read something spiritual that fired me up like this.
5 stars

5. 168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam
Productivity and organization have always fascinated me (in high school, my dream job was basically Joan's job in the series Mad Men) and when this came up in a BookBub email in 2017 I jumped at it. This was pretty fascinating. I love Vanderkam's insistence that we look dispassionately at how we're spending our time and forcing ourselves to account for each minute. When doing her time log, I was unbelievably shocked to see how much time I spend scrolling through my phone instead of reading, working on orders for my calligraphy shop, or spending time with my family. I've got some big goals for 2019 and if I want to get them completed, I have to get real with how I'm spending my time. I wasn't thrilled with her solution for freeing up more time, which basically comes down to focusing on your core competencies and outsourcing everything else. This smacks of privilege to me and doesn't really feel workable for anyone not in the upper middle class. She notes that everyone has somehow found a way to pay for a $200 a month cell phone bill and as such can find a way to pay for housecleaning, laundry service, a meal service, etc. I would argue that the cell phone bill is a necessity in today's life in a way that laundry service isn't. Other than that, it was a solid productivity book.
4 stars

>18 Miss_Moneypenny:
I am so glad you enjoyed Pride and Prejudice. I first read when required in high school and was pleasantly surprised by how funny I found it - not at all soppy.

>19 Caramellunacy: Yes, that's exactly what I excepted! A grossly sentimental piece of fluff; I was shocked to find how very much the opposite of that it was. Thank goodness for sisters who push me out of my comfort zone!

Another voice in praise of P&P here - I'm glad you liked it. It's one of my few 5* reads.

April



Holy cow. March was both the quickest and longest month of my life. By February 15, I had three job offers: one in Ohio, one in Chicago, and one in my hometown in Colorado. By February 18, I had accepted the job in Colorado. By February 20, we had signed a lease on our first actual house (not an apartment!) and had paid a deposit for movers. We drove out of Ohio on March 8 and did a slow road trip across the country. We moved into the new house on March 18 and both started new jobs on March 25. That's a lot of life in one month!

I've been in the new job for a week and a half now and am loving it. I'm especially loving that since it's working for the county, the hours and workload are incredibly more manageable. I've been able to actually take breaks for lunch! I take walking breaks during the work day now! I don't recognize this new, laid-back Moneypenny but I like her.
Needless to say, March disappeared with only one ROOT read.

With that out of the way, here's what I've been reading.

6. The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan
Wheel of Time 5 done! Jordan starts to overuse certain mannerisms (braid tugging, skirt smoothing, mustache knuckling, etc), and you can see the beginning of the plot being driven by characters' refusal to talk to each other, but it was still a good ride.
4 stars

7. Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan
Wheel of Time 6 done! The Dragon Reborn has long been my favorite WoT book, but this and The Shadow Rising definitely give it a run for it's money. So much happened in this book and the concluding battle scene was truly fantastically written. I really enjoyed this one.
4 stars

8. A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan
WoT 7 is in the bag! There's a lot that jumped out at me in a negative way this go-round: there's an awful lot of physical punishment for women, the male/female bickering and nonsense is intensified, and Mat is sexually assaulted at least twice. I think this last bit is written for laughs or maybe a weird/twisted bid for female empowerment, but I'm not sure if that makes it worse or not. I really, really wish that this series had been written by someone who didn't have such weird issues with women and male/female relationships. I've heard that a WoT tv series is being worked on by Amazon and am more than a little leery of how this will translate especially in today's climate. Putting that aside, quite a bit happened in this book and despite its length didn't really drag. I've already got the eighth book queued up and am excited to see what happens next!
3 stars

Congratulations on the new job and the big move! Glad to hear your work schedule is more manageable and that you have time for walking breaks as well :)

Congrats on what seems to be a fortunate decision! Happy ROOTing.

>22 Miss_Moneypenny: That sounds like an awesome move, and that you've handled a series of stressful scenarios (new job, new house, moving across country) like a pro!

>23 rabbitprincess: >24 MissWatson: >25 Jackie_K: Thank you so much! It was a bananas month but I couldn't be happier to be back!

9. Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan
WoT 8! Again, a solid entry. A lot happened in this book and thankfully there was a LOT less weirdness in the male/female relationship department. I missed Mat and am hoping that he shows up in the next book. Egwene's chapters are a standout for me. I think she's a fascinating character and I love seeing how the White Tower works (it's reminding me quite a bit of the Catholic church, now that I think about it). Hopefully the siege on Tar Valon starts in the next book!
4 stars

10. Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan
WoT 9! I can't believe I'm more than halfway through this series. The internet says that books 8-11 are a slog and boring, but I'm not finding them that way at all. Could each book be cut down by at least 50% with a stronger editing hand removing most of the clothing descriptions, furniture descriptions, and insistence on switching the viewpoint to named characters we're never going to see again? Yes. But Jordan is a master at world building and that's exactly what this all is. His descriptions are vivid and detailed and they're going a long way toward making me be invested in the series and these characters. And the plot continues to move; there was so much that happened in this book! Sadly, the Tar Valon siege didn't happen yet, but it was another solid entry in the series.
4 stars

11. Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan
WoT 10! This book is notorious for being the worst out of all 14 books, but I truly didn't find it that bad. Yes, the plot doesn't move forward by a whole lot; but after the world-altering end of Winter's Heart, I think it makes sense to go back to the main characters and see their reactions to it and how that changes all of their individual plans.
4 stars

12. Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan
WoT 11! This was the last book written by Jordan before his death and finishing it was bittersweet. I know that Sanderson finished it using Jordan's copious notes, but I'm afraid that he won't be able to truly capture the characters' dialogues. Bless him and Harriet Jordan for finishing the story though. This was a true return to form: major plot points happening in nearly every chapter and a wrapping up of a lot of dragging plots (Elayne's seemingly never-ending campaign to win the throne of Andor; she's also my least favorite character in the entire series so that might have something to do with my distaste for her plot). The Last Battle is surely coming and I'm so ready to see what happens next. I can't believe I let finishing this series drag on so long!
4 stars

13. The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
WoT 12! So close! I'm so thrilled with how this book turned out. Sanderson did an excellent job of taking Jordan's world and running with it. You can tell that someone else is writing, but it's not a bad thing at all and a sight better than leaving the series unfinished. Sanderson picks up the pace enormously and shit starts to get real as the characters begin the march to the Last Battle. I loved this and am sprinting through the next book.
5 stars

14. Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
WoT 13! Man, this book started with a bang and didn't let up for nearly the entire 900+ pages. Sanderson was the best choice to finish up this series. I finished this book and it ended on such a cliffhanger that I immediately had to start the next one. I can't even imagine reading this series as it was released; what sweet agony that must have been!
4 stars

15. A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
WoT 14! And just like that, I'm finished. I originally started reading Wheel of Time in 2008 and left off around book 5. Eleven years later, I've closed the book for the last time and said goodbye to a (huge) cast of characters that I really wound up loving. I really loved how Rand's story ended, but I have some pretty big critiques. Over 95% of this nearly 1100 page book is battle scenes. Reading this, I suffered from the same fatigue I felt while watching the third movie in The Hobbit trilogy: constant battle is wearying to the reader/viewer and I found myself skimming pages upon pages. There were two new characters introduced in this book that stole attention from the already huge cast. Several characters were mentioned in passing and their storylines never totally wrapped up. I get that Sanderson was working from notes and that it would have been impossible to give a cast of hundreds of named characters their due end, but it was deeply irritating to continue to reading about the new characters plot when I just wanted to know what Morgase was up to, damn it. All total, I'm so glad this book exists but I can't help but being a little disappointed.
3 stars

>22 Miss_Moneypenny: Such a lot of positive changes. Good thing that your work now is at a more relaxed pace since you have so much to get used to.

Congratulations on the new job and move!

Congrats on the new job, the new house and the successful move! And finishing the Robert Jordan books! Something that is a work in progress for me.

May



The days are truly zipping by and I can't believe we're in May already! I feel like I'm going to blink and it'll be Halloween.

April was a super great month on all fronts: settling into our new house/town, getting into the groove at work, and FINALLY finishing the Wheel of Time series! I will admit that when I closed the last book, I was more than a little sad and didn't know what to read next. I've been traveling along with Rand and his companions since 2009 and honestly can't imagine devoting that much time and head/heart space to another long fantasy series. So let's see what I can read that's not traditional fantasy this month!

16. Circe by Madeline Miller
Yowza, this book! I saw it on a lot of "best of 2018" lists in December and am kicking myself for not picking it up before now. This was unbelievably good. I have only a passing interest in Greek mythology and have never read The Odyssey, so Circe was a brand new character for me. I was immediately sucked into her world and her struggle of finding out exactly who she is and where she fits in this bizarre realm of Olympian vs titan vs human. Miller's narrative voice is pitch perfect here: it's calm and kind of lyrical and I'm tempted to get the audio book because I think it'll shine even more in that format. Love, love, love and highly recommended.
5 stars

>31 Miss_Moneypenny: I've heard nothing but good things about Circe. I think it's one for when Mt TBR is a bit lower...

>31 Miss_Moneypenny: Ooh, that's a good idea! I should have saved it as a reward for getting through some of my stack. I might do that with her first book, Song of Achilles, now that I know how much I love her writing.

17. The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn
I got pretty burnt out on suburban suspense last year but figured with the near universal praise for this that I'd be safe. For a good half of the book, I thought it was really well done: tightly written, a super unreliable narrator, and creepy enough that I turned on the lights in the rest of my house. Then one of the twists happen and it looked like the book was going to end with the narrator realizing she did in fact hallucinate the whole thing and wind up killing herself because she couldn't handle the shame/her grief/her mental illness. And while that wouldn't have been a great ending, it would have at least been surprising and different from the rest of the pack. Instead, we get a pat ending about psychopaths hiding in plain sight. Meh.
3 stars

18. The Royal We by Heather Cox and Jessica Morgan
Continuing in the vein of disappointing third acts, I wanted to really love this. The authors take the beats from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's dating relationship (meeting at school, dating forever, breaking up, and eventually marrying) and fictionalize it. The first 75% of the book was funny, touching, and just romantic enough. It did drag a little and could have used a tighter editing hand but I was invested in the characters enough that I didn't particularly mind. But then the last act felt rushed and had a villain who popped up out of nowhere and was unbelievably cartoonishly drawn with an ending that didn't resolve anything. I turned the last page and went "is that it?!" Still worth a read but I definitely won't be reading their next book.
3 stars

19. If Nuns Ruled the World by Jo Piazza
This is a quick little book that focuses on the remarkable accomplishments of 10 nuns in the United States written by an agnostic journalist. I've been incredibly blessed to know only the types of nuns Piazza describes here: joy-filled, loving, warm, and generally the best of humanity. Still, reading about the accomplishments of these women was a lovely pick-me-up on a day when I was feeling particularly pessimistic about being a woman in today's world.
3 stars

20. The Passage by Justin Cronin
I'm conflicted about this book: on the one hand, it's a really well-written and supremely scary story about how society breaks down in the face of the human-engineered apocalypse. If that's your thing, you're going to love this. On the other hand, it scared the pants right off me and threw my anxiety into a tailspin. So read at your own caution I suppose? I wouldn't say I loved this, but it admirably performed the primary job of all literature: to provoke emotions in the audience.
4 stars

21. You Need a Budget by Jesse Mecham
Financial planning has long been one of my interests and I've been following the You Need A Budget rules since 2012. YNAB is what let Mr. M and I have the financial freedom to move across the country in less than 3 months and it's how we managed to have a debt free wedding. I can't recommend the system highly enough and if you're new to budgeting or personal finance, you need this book. This was mostly a retread for me but still worthwhile.
4 stars

>31 Miss_Moneypenny: Circe is the book my RL bookclub choose to read for May and June. I did not vote for it since I don't own it, but your review made me think again. Let's see if I can get an ebook somewhere.

>35 connie53: Good luck! I managed to get it for a steal at a used bookstore but now I would definitely pay full price for it. I can't say enough good things about it!

Update for my weekend reading!

22. Women & Power by Mary Beard
This book is an adaptation of lectures given by Beard examining the "problem" of women in power and how negatively women in power or women who ask for power are perceived. She traces these issues all the way back to the Greeks and Romans and then jumps forward in time to tie this classical portrayal of women to what we see played out writ large today. It was fascinating, especially coming so soon after my read of Madeline Miller's Circe.
5 stars

23. Artisan Pizza and Flatbread by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Framboise
Ever since reading the original Bread in 5 Minutes last year, I've made all the bread and pizza my family consumes. It's a truly fantastic bread book and making homemade bread makes me feel like I'm absolutely killing the wife game (we'll ignore the three baskets of clean clothes languishing in my laundry room for going on two weeks now). The basic pizza dough recipe in this book isn't different from the master recipe in their original, but it does include several riffs on it, including a sweet brioche/dessert pizza dough. Where this really shines is the plethora of different pizza recipes and I found myself flagging nearly every one. It's been a full year since I started making our weekly pizza at home and this provided the new inspiration I've been needing. Definitely recommended!
4 stars

24. Game of Thrones by George RR Martin
What else is there to add to this book's reputation? I originally read it in 2011 to get primed on the first season of the HBO show and it shocked me to no end when Ned died. I haven't read past this installment (although I hope to remedy that this year) and am unsure that Martin's theme of deconstructing the traditional fantasy narrative is something I'm on board for. It worked here for me because it was new and flashy, but as the series progresses I want characters I can root for wholeheartedly without being afraid to get attached to them. Here though, it was shocking and I loved it.
5 stars

25. The Fellowship of The Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Wheel of Time definitely left me with a hole in my heart for sprawling, immersive fantasy. A Song of Ice and Fire and The Lord of the Rings are definitely helping to fill it. As an aside, I was super shocked when this book didn't end with Boromir's death.
4 stars

26. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
I've read one other book by this author and wasn't thrilled with it. My main problem with that book bled over to this one as well: Jenkins Reid has a stilted way of writing dialogue that makes it hard for me to distinguish between her characters. But once I got accustomed to her writing style, I really loved the main story. Evelyn Hugo is a retired Hollywood star with an infamous personal life who decides to give her life story to a struggling journalist. I really wish Jenkins Reid had let the framing device of the journalist go: she was the worst part about the entire book and was such a bland character that I found myself flipping through her parts to read more about Evelyn's life, which was juicy and gossipy and like the best parts of a soap opera. It might just be that I've inhaled several huge, immersive fantasy worlds, but I found myself wishing for more detail and expanded story lines while I read this. Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin, what have you done to me?
4 stars

27. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
After loving Circe so much, I figured Miller's first book would be a safe bet. Reader, I was right: this was so so so good. I still think I connected with Circe more and would rate that as higher, but this one was almost as good. Miller follows the life of Achilles through the eyes of Patroclus and despite knowing exactly how this story ends, I was tense as all get out. Plus, the very end of the book is just pitch perfect and made my eyes well up with tears. Beautiful, well done, and highly recommended.
5 stars

Wrapping up this week with 2 more ROOTs! It's Memorial Day weekend here in the States and I think between the cook outs and pool time I'll be pretty light on the reading.

28. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
This was the first book I've read by Hannah and it was quite a doozy. Leni's Vietnam POW father moves their family up to the remotest part of Alaska in an effort to outrun his PTSD and alcoholism. Leni loves Alaska immediately but her father is unprepared for the harshness and oppressive dark and cold of their new home. This book was excellently written and I really felt Leni's fear and anxiety in a visceral way, but so much misery happens to poor Leni that I had a hard time finishing this (it actually reminded me of Tess of the d'Urbervilles in that the main character lives a life of pretty much unrelenting misery while still managing to find a little hope and joy). The graphic depiction of domestic violence was difficult for me to read, especially since it was repeated over and over. In the end I'm glad I read this but hesitate to recommend it without a giant "trigger warning" notice.
4 stars

29. Bird Box by Josh Malerman
I was more than a little wary of reading this after my rough reaction to The Passage. This is a post-apocalyptic horror novel detailing a mother's journey with her two children to safety while blindfolded. This was super, super creepy and really well written but after giving myself nightmares about this book, I'm putting myself on a horror and post-apocalyptic time-out. Recommended if you're not a wimp like me!
4 stars

30. The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
This is maybe the third or fourth of Moriarty's books that I've read and my reaction is the same every time: why do I bother? Her characters are all shallow and unsympathetic people who mess up their lives and the lives of the people they love. This was more of the same and I really need to learn my lesson and stop reading her books. It wasn't terrible by any stretch of the imagination. It's just meh and not my thing.
3 stars

31. Inheritance by Dani Shapiro
I'm pretty conflicted about this book. On the one hand, this was an intensely personal story and I don't want to harshly rate someone's lived experience. But there was just SO much about this that was either over the top histrionic or over-dramatized that by the end I was shaking my head at this grown ass woman. Dani Shapiro is 54 when she discovers through the magic of modern ancestry tests that her father isn't her biological father. This is a shocking revelation to her because her father was part of a deeply connected Orthodox Jewish family whose roots stretch back for hundreds of years. Shapiro makes no bones about how much pride she took in her father's ancestry and the struggle between that and the revelations about her bio-father makes up the bulk of the book.

Let's get my biases out of the way first. Due to drug addiction in my father's family and immigration on my mother's, I have very little family ties extending beyond my immediate, nuclear family. Additionally, my husband was adopted at the age of 5 and while he knows the names and general history of his biological family, he's never had any desire to know anything further about them because they aren't his parents. As Guardians of the Galaxy 2 so eloquently put it: "He might have been your father, boy, but he ain't your daddy."

So to me, through this lens, Shapiro's hysteria about the "trauma" of finding out she's not actually her father's daughter is overblown and kind of silly. Yes, I imagine that finding out I'm not my father's daughter would be a shock and disorienting and dramatic. But the people in my life have shown me time and again that family isn't about DNA. Shapiro's Aunt Shirley tries to show her this, explaining that Dani was his father's child no matter the circumstances of her conception because he chose to love her. This seems to fall on deaf ears though, because Shapiro spends the rest of the book detailing how this revelation traumatized her deeply. The author has had actual trauma in her life: her parents' car crash, the illness of her infant son. Does the revelation of her paternity really rate among those events?

I also think part of my issue with this book is that I'm getting deeply tired of privileged white women writing multiple memoirs about their lives (Anna Quindlen, Joan Didion, Gretchen Rubin). Shapiro doesn't seem to understand or acknowledge how lucky she is to be able to drop what seems like literally everything else to go hunting for her biological father and do endless research on artificial insemination and infertility in the 1960s. The investigative parts of the book detailing this research were far and away the best parts of the book.

In short, I had a lot of problems with this book. I acknowledge that my own biases are coloring this a lot, but I don't think I'd recommend this.
2 stars

>37 Miss_Moneypenny: On Game of Thrones: Do continue! It's so good and yes, sometimes shocking but I loved it.

The touchstone of Inheritance brings me to the book of Christopher Paolini, I don't think that what you meant it to do.

I read your thoughts on inheritance with interest. I will let it rest for a while, because I'm not clear what my thoughts are right now. But you made me think about the issue.

June



Man, how is it June already?! These weeks are just flying by and I really can't believe we're at the halfway point of the year already. May was super good to me and mine, and I hope it was good to you as well! At this point (June 5), I've got another 2 ROOTs in the bag already.

32. Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
This is the third book I've read by Reid. I was super unimpressed with her first book but really enjoyed The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. So when this one was recommended highly by a friend, I thought it would be a slam dunk. And weirdly, it both was and wasn't.

I really liked the format of the book: it's an oral history of a rock band in the 1970s and there's almost no world building: no details of the setting or what people look like (beyond a groan inducing Mary Sue-ish description of Daisy in the first five pages), nothing. Literally just DAISY: her words. This took a little getting used to, but it reminded me of watching VH1's Behind the Music series with the captions on so my mother wouldn't find out what I was watching! And I really enjoyed most of the characters, who I found surprisingly fleshed out and real despite the limitations of the format. Most of all, I was really taken by the descriptions of the band's songs and found myself getting mad that they weren't real and that this wasn't an album I could pull up on Spotify.

But the big climax of the book turned out to be a nonstarter. Despite all the build up to "what happened on that fateful night" turned out to be nothing more than an electric performance and characters deciding to walk away. There wasn't even a big scene between the two main characters. I was left wanting a lot more than what I got. This had so much promise and I wound up being kind of disappointed at the end, going "is that it?!" I think in the hands of a more skilled writer, this could have been an absolutely incredible book. As it was, it was a decent pool read
3 stars

33. The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin
I'm a sucker for dysfunctional family stories and this hit all the boxes: brothers and sisters, a dead parent, family secrets, a nice long time span. The Skinner siblings are very young when their father dies unexpectedly. Their mother can't handle her grief and pretty much abandons her children mentally, leaving them to fend completely for themselves in a 3 year span they call The Pause. This has a deep effect on each child and their relationships with each other and the world, and the book spends most of the pages exploring it. The second traumatic event for this family is the accidental death of golden child/drug addict Joe, which sends the remaining 3 Skinner sisters into a tailspin.

I really wanted to like this, but I wound up comparing it (unconsciously) unfavorably with A Place for Us which is a truly excellent family saga dealing with addiction and familial expectations versus how they play out in real life. This was uneven and seemed to falter in places. Like the narrator of this book, my younger brother and sister are my first loves, but I just couldn't find a reason to really care about the Skinner siblings like I did for Hadia and her family. If you're in the market for a sweeping family saga that will break your heart and then knit it back together, read A Place for Us instead of this.
3 stars

>40 connie53: I literally laughed out loud, thank you for that! I hesitated to write that review because honestly, it's not for me to judge what another person finds traumatic. But when I think about the ways non-blood related people have become my family and informed who I am as a person, I just can't make sense of her writing about how this information caused her to lose her sense of self. She even calls into question her Judaism, which is extra ridiculous to me because (someone please correct me if I'm wrong!), I'm fairly certain that it's handed down through the maternal line. Overall, I wanted more research into the field of assisted reproduction and how medical ethics have changed over the decades and less whining about her feelings. If you read it, I'd be super interested to hear your thoughts!

34. It by Stephen King
Yowza, what a ride! I'm typically not one for horror novels, but my sister is a huge horror fan. She ranks this as in her top 10 favorite horror stories of all time and now I can see why. I didn't find it scary as much as creepy and parts of it were very gross. Yes, the end scene with Bev was probably unnecessary and I wish King had found a better way to resolve that particular plot point. But other than that, it was a wild, creepy, fast 1200 pages.
4 stars

35. Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake
I typically don't read a lot of YA novels, but this came highly recommended by my sister. To my surprise, I couldn't put it down! Fennbirn is an island where all people have one of 5 distinct powers and are organized into tribes accordingly. The rulers of this island are always women and are always born as triplets. Once the triplets reach sixteen, they're forced to kill the others in order to ascend the throne. This is a really neat concept and Blake develops it masterfully. It's missing most of the "hallmarks" of YA fiction and is much stronger for it. I devoured this in one sitting and have already started on the next two installments (there are supposed to be 4 total). The world building was really well done and I found myself racing through the pages to see what happens to each of these remarkably well drawn girls.
4 stars

36. One Dark Throne by Kendare Blake
The sequel to Three Dark Crowns was just as whip-crackingly fast and enthralling as the first one. Another enthusiastic recommendation for fans of YA fantasy.
4 stars

37. Two Dark Reigns by Kendare Blake
The third in this tetralogy and unfortunately the author is losing her way. All three girls are still alive and for some reason Blake decided to ham-handedly add another protagonist, a rebellion, and some pretty unnecessary magical lore. Unfortunately, the shine on these is wearing off and in the author's note, she points out that she always meant to leave this story as only 2 novels. Reading between the lines, she definitely succumbed to publisher pressure or the lure of more cash and it definitely shows. Two Dark Reigns doesn't have the same thrill or heart as the first two and that's a damn shame.
3 stars

38. Recursion by Blake Crouch
This was published on June 11, but I've had it preordered for months and managed to keep myself from starting it until yesterday, so that counts as a ROOT to my mind :D I really loved Crouch's previous book Dark Matter and loved this one just as much. Barry Sutton is a NYPD detective who's still grieving the death of his young daughter 11 years earlier when False Memory Syndrome starts plaguing people across the world. From this kind of slow start, the story rockets into high gear as Barry meets Helena, a neuroscientist who's work is intimately bound into FMS, and they race to save the world.

I'm not sure if the science in this checks out or not, but I don't read sci-fi for detailed scientific explanations (one of the reasons I didn't really love The Martian I suspect). What I care about more are characters and the emotional journey the plot propels them on. For me, this ticked all my boxes and I devoured it in one sitting. Highly recommended!
4 stars

>42 Miss_Moneypenny: To come back to the inheritance thing, I read your post again and do agree with your idea's about Dani's reaction. It is over the top. Especially when I see what she had to coop with (the car crash, her son's illness). I think I would be shocked but not that frantic about it.

ps. The touchstone still brings me to Inheritance by Christopher Paolini !!

>39 Miss_Moneypenny: I just finished reading Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity and Love by Dani Shapiro and her reaction to finding out about her unexpected DNA results did seem over the top at first. As I read deeper into the story, however, I could see how being a part of her father's family was so much a part of not just her personal background but her life's work as her life and family were what she wrote about.

My reaction to finding out similar news would be more along the lines of The Stranger in my Genes, where a genealogist finds that he was not his father's son.

July



Moneypenny, checking in late for July! In fairness to myself, budget season has kicked off at work; in addition, July has 30% of our family birthdays and Mr. M and my dating anniversary. We've been married for 2 years now but I still like to celebrate this one for sheer nostalgia factor :D It's also beastly hot here in the Western Slope and we've been spending an inordinate amount of time in the pool to cool off.

39. The Little Oratory by David Clayton and Leila Marie Lawler
This is a quick little guide to praying in the home and working to fully integrate your faith beyond just showing up at Sunday Mass. Mr. M and I do a surprising amount of these already but it was still helpful to see ways we can increase our devotions. The idea of a prayer table is a good one: we have a little hook thing for our rosaries but I really like the idea of expanding it into a full prayer table. Highly recommended.
5 stars

>45 connie53: Oops, thank you for pointing that out!

>46 Familyhistorian: I can see that, and I still think that a lot of my reaction to her story was colored by my own lack of a deep extended family. I'll have to find the book you mentioned for another perspective on finding out genetic secrets.

>48 Miss_Moneypenny: The Stranger in my Genes was an interesting one. I hope you are able to find it.

40. Watership Down by Richard Adams
This has been in my TBR pile for literal years and I'm kicking myself for waiting this long to read it. I was enchanted the whole way through and especially loved the care and thought Adams put into the rabbits' language.
4 stars

41. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
I have a large soft spot for magical realism and this was right up my alley! The people of Bascom, NC are all a little strange but none are quite so strange as the magical Waverly sisters and their incredible garden. This was a mellow book that I devoured in one sitting. The story was not slow but definitely not action packed: it was more of a character and place study and Allen did an excellent job. This was a beautiful little story and I'm so glad that I have more of her books in my TBR pile.
4 stars

42. First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen
An enchanting sequel to Garden Spells; this picks up 10 years after the first book ends and continues exploring the first book's themes of family, what it means to belong, and trust. Loved this just as much as the first one.
4 stars

43. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
I first read this for AP English my senior year of high school (2004, how is that even possible?!) and remember being absolutely enchanted with it. Fifteen years later, the shine is off this one a little. I found it a lot slower and the characters less sympathetic. Johnny in particular just made me grind my teeth every 10 or so pages. I've been carting around this copy since I bought it in 2004 and I think now I can let this go during our annual book purge in December.
4 stars

44. The Shining by Stephen King
For years, I wouldn't read King's books. I am a massive horror wimp when it comes to movies and figured that books would send me into a tailspin as well. My sister (also a wimp) sagely pointed out this spring that with a book, you can choose to imagine the story in great detail or you can flip past the scariest parts. That was enough to get me started reading King (a favorite author of not only my sister, but my parents and husband too). I absolutely loved It and was hopeful that I would love this as well. Reader, I did. This was terrific. I didn't find this anywhere near as scary as It, but it was suspenseful and creepy and just thrilling. Love, love, love.
5 stars

45. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Magical realism is one of my favorite genres and I have an enormous soft spot for Latin American authors. This is thanks to my excellent AP English teacher and her insistence on taking an entire semester to explore their works. Like Water is the first book we read for Mrs. Jasper's class and it's stuck with me for more than 15 years. I bought my own copy and have pulled it out every couple of years to reread. Esquivel tells the story of Tita, who is a gifted cook and deeply in love with Pedro but is forced to a life of spinsterhood as she tends to her domineering and tyrannical mother per family tradition. It's funny and wistful and brimming with magical realism. It's a short, quick read that nevertheless lingers long after I turn the final page. Highly recommended.
4 stars

46. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
I had previously read this on the recommendation of my oldest sister in 2005 and while it was interesting, it didn't particularly speak to me. Now, nearly 15 years later and in a completely different political climate, this book scared the pants off me. Atwood was ahead of her time when she wrote this.
4 stars

My final 2 ROOTs for July! I snuck these in right under the wire, finishing at 11:49 PM on July 31, lol!

47. Saga of the Swamp Thing: Vol 1 by Alan Moore
Alan Moore can be tricky for me. He's got a wild imagination and I don't agree with him on a lot, but if there's one thing he's great at, it's horror comics that also manage to be biting social commentary. Swamp Thing is no different. He took what had always been a faintly ridiculous character, totally reimagines his origins in a very twisted and horrifying way, and manages to imbue him with pathos and heart. My only criticism of this is the way that Swamp Thing's speech is written. "Abby...you must...run...and not...LOOK BACK!" It's irritating enough that I dropped an entire star for it. Those ellipses slow down my reading and began to take me out of the story as I saw that Moore was going to keep them in ST's speech. My husband has had the first 5 volumes of Moore's Swamp Thing run for years now but I've always passed it over. Surprisingly, I loved this and can't wait to see what happens next.
4 stars

48. Batman Year One by Frank Miller
A classic and for good reason. When Miller originally wrote this, his gritty take on Bruce Wayne's evolution into Batman (and Jim Gordon's evolution into Commissioner Gordon, for that matter) revolutionized the Batman mythology. Not surprisingly, it's held up even decades later and you can still clearly see Miller's imprint on today's Batman. I wasn't a fan of the illustration used throughout the book but can still appreciate that it's very of it's time. Had I been reading comics in 1986 (the year I was born!), I probably would have loved the artwork.
4 stars

August



And just like that, we are (unbelievably) in August! This year has been the wildest rollercoaster I've ever experienced. My hopes are high to hit 60 ROOTs this month. The heat is starting to cool down a little here in colorful Colorado and my husband will be traveling for all but the last three days of this month, so my goal is to read, read, read.

My original goal was 50 and I never dreamed I'd hit it so quickly. I think it helps that the library here is not as well stocked as the one we left behind in Ohio and their interlibrary loans take considerably longer. While not great for keeping me in the loop of the newest and the greatest, it's definitely helping me demolish these ROOTs. Mr. M and I have enough books in our house to open our own small library (the movers back in March laughed at how easy our packing/moving would be...until they realized that our only decorating theme is "bookshelves absolutely stuffed with books". Easily half of what we moved was books!), so I'm grateful for the push to go through what we already own.

49. From Hell by Alan Moore
A little Alan Moore 1-2 punch to end July and kickstart August. I'll be honest though and admit to starting this one back over the Independence Day long weekend. For a lot of reasons I had a hard time getting through this. Primarily, the artwork is not my cup of tea: it's ink and pen, very scratchy, and I had a hard time telling the characters apart. It's definitely evocative and fits the theme/subject matter. But if I can't tell which character is which and who the heck is talking, I'm going to put your book down.

Additionally, this was HIGHLY graphic and violent. Yes, it's a Jack the Ripper graphic novel but I truly thought that I had the stomach for it. (Please note that prior to starting this book, I had never read a single thing on JTR.) Surprise, I did not. The violence and overwhelming bleakness of life for the poorest in Victorian England (and even the wives of the upperclass) had me putting this book down frequently and searching for a palate cleanser.

Finally, there was so much that was lost on me until I read through the appendix in the back. It was highly detailed, going over nearly every panel in the book, and it explained everything that I had noted as a question mark. Had I known it existed, I would have read the appendix in tandem with the main text. Masonic rituals, weird Victorian slang, British history, nearly every noteworthy British person of the time period, even a translation of the 2 pages of German detailing the conception of Adolf Hitler (seriously). It was all in there and could have saved me a bunch of time and questions.

All that to say, I thought this was definitely worth the time and discomfort reading. As I mentioned in my review of Swamp Thing above, Moore is pretty visionary. This book's subtext is really a dark love letter to London and its history heavily spiced with that unique Moore anarchism and gnosticism. Moore isn't for everyone and even for me he frequently misses the mark. I don't think I would re-read it or even really recommend it, but it was one heck of a wild ride.
4 stars

>51 Miss_Moneypenny: You got me with a BB for From Hell. I have read a few books about JTR. It must have been such a scary time and, from the research I have done, I know that my family was living in Jack's hunting area when he was active.

>51 Miss_Moneypenny: I've never read Alan Moore's graphic novels, but from what I've heard the highly detailed appendices are very typical of him. There's a story that when he was doing stories for I think it was Marvel but not the illustrations, his instructions to the illustrator for each and every frame were pages long! I started reading his non-graphic novel Jerusalem, but stalled on it, and I think I'm going to tackle it again next year as a year long project. It was pretty trippy, and is a huge brick of a book, but the writing was absolutely stunning.

>51 Miss_Moneypenny: Gorgeous photo! Wishing you a productive reading month :)

>52 Familyhistorian: Ooh how fascinating that your family was in the area! It's definitely worth a read if you're into the subject matter and can handle the violence.

>53 Jackie_K: Jerusalem is on my TBR list as well! I'll have to keep an eye on your 2020 thread to see what you think of it. Enormous books don't typically phase me, but the sheer size of this one stopped me in my tracks.

>54 rabbitprincess: Thank you (Google gets all credit for the photos here!), and you as well!

50. Uprooted by Naomi Novik
I have a large soft spot for fairy tales that I can trace back to my father reading to me from the enormous, gorgeous Grimm's Fairy Tales that my grandmother gave me on my second birthday. There's a lot of dross in this category, but when it's good, it's like gold.

Uprooted is one of the golden stories. Agnieszka's village sacrifices a girl to their lord, The Dragon, every year. The book starts with her being chosen, surprising everyone and not least Agnieszka herself. From there, the story gets wild and tense and a really beautiful tale about love and loss and magic and family/roots. There's a bunch of Slavic fairy tale pieces woven in here and I don't want to go too far into it because I think going into this blind is best. I was so impressed with this and with Novik's handling of a Agnieszka's coming of age that I immediately pulled Spinning Silver and His Majesty's Dragon off our shelves and put them into my ROOT rotation. Highly recommended!
4 stars

And just like that, I've hit my ROOT goal for the year! Holy cow! No stopping me now, let's see how many more ROOTs I can add to the group total :D

51. The Annotated Watchmen by Doug Atkinson (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons)
Watchmen has long been one of my favorite graphic novels and when I was gifted the annotated version a couple years ago I was stoked. The book is physically huge and super hard to hold so I wound up reading bits and pieces here and there. I'm proud to announce that I've finally finished it and it was super great. This provides so much more background to the story and to the artistic choices that even if this hadn't been a gift, I would purchase it with my own cash money. Now I'm on the hunt for more annotated graphic novels or even regular novels!
5 stars

52. Batman Hush by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee
I can't believe it took me so long to read this. The artwork is incredible, the story is top notch and inventive. My husband originally bought this when it was announced Hush was being turned into a DC animated movie but (sadly) this languished on our shelves until today. If you're into Batman's mythology at all, you need to read this.
4 stars

53. Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire
54. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
These are the second and first entry in McGuire's Wayward Children series. I accidentally read them out of order, but I'm not fussed because Sticks and Bones is really more of a prequel to Doorway; this reading order also allowed the central mystery of Doorway to be a surprise to me. The series deals with a boarding school for children who have been through portals to another world but then returned to our world and have trouble fitting in again. Sticks and Bones tells the story of Jack and Jill, identical twins who wander into a terrifying, horror-filled world and become who they were truly meant to be. Doorway explores the boarding school where Jack and Jill have landed and the pain of not being able to go home again. McGuire's prose is top notch in both books and I truly can't wait to see what she does next.
4 stars for each

Another weekend gone and time to update my ROOT log!

55. Born in Fire
56. Born in Ice
57. Born in Shame all by Nora Roberts
I worked at a Borders bookstore all through college and when the doors finally closed, the staff had the opportunity to buy what was left at drastically reduced prices. This is how I wound up with a backlog of Nora Roberts books, lol! They've been sitting on the shelf in my parents' home for years and my dad, needing space for his new workroom, dropped off a bunch of book boxes at my house this weekend. Since my husband is gone for the rest of the month, I immediately dropped what I was doing to go through. This trilogy was the first set I landed on and to my surprise each book was pretty good!

Roberts has a good ear for dialogue but a terrible way with villains. The Irish setting of this series was very charming and I found myself speeding through the pages to read more about the landscape and the townspeople. These were a terrific way to spend a lazy weekend by the pool.
3 stars each

Congrats on reaching your goal, Miss M.

Congrats on reaching your goal!

>58 connie53: >59 MissWatson: Thank you so much! :D

58. Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire
This third novella in McGuire's Wayward Children series was the one I've liked the least. It's a mostly new cast of characters and unfortunately none of them are fully fleshed out enough to really resonate with me. It's a pity too, because this one had a really beautiful cover and I'm tempted to keep it in our collection on that basis alone!
3 stars

59. In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
Continuing with the Wayward Children series, this is the most recently published. It focuses on one of the teachers from the first book and her own adventures in the Goblin Market. Lundy was a great character and out of all of the worlds described so far, this one was the most richly detailed. I really, really liked this.
4 stars

60. The Villa by Nora Roberts
I had originally read this in 2003 and remembered it fondly enough to pick it up in the bookstore closing sale I talked about above. Unfortunately, it doesn't hold up as well 16 years later. The plot is slow, the villains are poorly written and have really cringe-worthy dialogue, and this is definitely not as feminist-forward as some of the more recent romance I've read. I give it 3 stars for nostalgia, but it's probably closer to 2. This will wind up as a library donation during our annual Christmastime purge for sure.
3 stars

61. Smitten Kitchen Every Day by Deb Perelman
I'm not a great cook in the sense that I can't just look in the fridge and pull a meal together out of nothing like my husband or mother can. I need a recipe with clear directions. I know that the internet is roughly 25% cooking blogs and recipes, but pulling together a meal plan from the entire internet is daunting and I need recipes that have been tested. In the month or so that I've been paging through this, I've made the kale caesar salad, the one pan farro, the everything drop biscuits, the blueberry muffins, and the brick hens with charred lemon. Every one of them has been a hit and fairly easy to cook. Good enough for me!
4 stars

62. The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner
I don't know how I feel about this book. At it's heart, it's a reimagining of Rossi's poem The Goblin Market. But Rossner throws so much else in here (Russian mythology, Greek mythology, Jewish history and mythology) that it's muddled. Parts of it were really unclear and the timeline kept changing: the protagonist would mention it had been 1 week since her parents left and then two pages later she would say it's been weeks since they left. Had Rossner had a better editor, I think this could have been really stunning. But I kept wishing that Naomi Novik had written it.
3 stars

63. His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
Final ROOT for the week! This book was a sheer delight and I am kicking myself for letting it languish on my shelves for so long. Novik sets up an alternate history that's pretty much just like ours, only dragons are real and they are willing participants in their government's aerial defenses. This takes place during the Napoleonic wars and follows Will Laurence, a Naval captain who is forced to give up his career when a newly hatched dragon selects Laurence as his handler/rider/partner. From there, you're plunged into high stakes warfare, dragon training, and a truly delightful relationship between Laurence and Termeraire. Love, love, love and I can't wait to see where this goes next.
5 stars

Another week gone by, another round of ROOTs to report!

64. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
I really loved both of Novik's books I've read this month (His Majesty's Dragon and Uprooted), so finishing the last book I have by her on our shelves was a no-brainer. This one, a loose retelling of Rumplestiltskin but really so much more, was by far the best of the bunch. I know that last week I rated The Sisters of the Winter Wood low for having too much going on and here I am giving 5 stars to Novik when her narrative is just as chock-full of myths and tales. But Novik is definitely the better author. She has a better grasp on who her characters are, the overall timeline and plot, and has a better ear for dialogue. In addition, Novik's story is told in first person but jumps between narrators mid-chapter and manages to pull it off seamlessly. This was a delight and highly recommended.
5 stars

65. Pines by Blake Crouch
There are only a few authors that I'll read anything they write without even glancing at the synopsis and Crouch is getting close to being on that list. This was a tight, quick read that's highly influenced by Twin Peaks but manages to be it's own weird, wonderful, horrifying story. It stands totally on it's own but I'm glad that there are 2 more books in this series waiting for me.
4 stars

66. Saga of Swamp Thing Vol 2 by Alan Moore
Yowza. I know that Swamp Thing is a horror comic, but before it was just kind of weird and not really scary unless you stop to think about the philosophical ramifications of ST. The first three chapters in this volume were absolutely the stuff of nightmares and have made me call a hiatus on anything by Alan Moore. Despite that, I can appreciate the work on it's own merits.
4 stars

67. Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb
Another Batman classic. This one takes place shortly after Batman: Year One and was just as gripping as that collection. I didn't like the artwork here but it'll stay on our shelves for now.
4

68. Stars of Fortune by Nora Roberts
69. Bay of Sighs by Nora Roberts
70. Island of Glass by Nora ROberts
This solidified for me that paranormal or urban is my preferred wheelhouse for romance novels. This has paranormal elements in spades (a mermaid, a magician, and a werewolf, among others) and the romance was pretty well written. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon by the pool.
3 stars each

71. The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks
As a genre, I'm pretty burnt out on domestic thrillers. With the notable exception of Gone Girl, the women in these novels are all weak, unreliable narrators, and usually have a drinking problem. And most of the time they're abused. This one was no exception and just kind of puttered along: an unstable woman tries to stop the wedding of her ex-husband, but for REASONS! Meh.
2 stars

Last week of August, here we go! It's also my husband's last week gone for work so I'm hopeful that I can continue to knock out these ROOTs.

72. Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? by Neil Gaiman
Like Blake Crouch, Neil Gaiman is one of the few authors that I automatically read their works without even looking at a synopsis. I have a hard time ranking his books, but I think I can safely say that this is near the top. Gaiman writes the "last" Batman story in a truly imaginative way that made me cry actual tears at the end. Loved.
5 stars

73. Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? by Alan Moore
In the foreword to the Caped Crusader book, Gaiman mentions that he was inspired by Moore's take on the last Superman comic. This didn't land as well for me though. Supes gets an uncharacteristically happy ending here, and while I love that at least one of DC's Big Three winds up happy, overall the story was a little flat for me.
3 stars

74. Raven Girl by Audrey Niffenegger
The Time Traveler's Wife is one of my top 5 novels of all time, so adding this and Her Fearful Symmetry to our collection was a no brainer. This was a super quick, new fairy tale about a postman and a raven who fall in love and what happens to their daughter. Niffenegger's author's note at the end details that this is the companion piece to a new ballet she helped storyboard. I loved the book on it's own and knowing that it's also a classical ballet makes me super happy.
4 stars

75. Wayward by Blake Crouch
76. The Last Town by Blake Crouch
These are the final two books in Crouch's excellent Wayward Pines trilogy and while neither is as twisty/shocking as the first, the story is tightly written and kept me reading fat past my bedtime in an effort to find out just what happens.
4 stars each

77. The Meg by Steve Alten
I don't watch many movies as books are my preferred entertainment mode. But I do hold a special place in my heart for creature features and I absolutely loved The Meg when I saw it last summer. So obviously, I had to read the book. To my surprise, the book is not anywhere near as good as the movie. It's cheesy, poorly written, poorly edited (several times, a character's name would switch multiple times in one paragraph: so Terry would all of a sudden become Maggie and then would switch back to Terry), and the ending is just laugh out loud ridiculous.
2 stars

78. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
After loving Raven Girl, I had to finish out my Niffenegger kick. Man, what a book! This was a lot colder in feeling than Time Traveler's Wife and much more sad but I loved it almost as much. Valentina and Julia are identical twins who are unexpectedly inherit their estranged aunt's estate in London. They move into her flat next to Highgate Cemetery, and everything changes. None of the characters here are easy to root for and they do despicable things to each other, but Niffenegger doesn't pass judgement and presents her story totally neutrally. I loved this and it's definitely going on my re-read list.
4 stars

79. Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson
Jackson's works keep getting recommended to me so despite not loving Gods in Alabama, I took a risk on her newest. I almost wish I hadn't bothered. Primarily a story of a woman with a deep and dark secret and another woman who's out to exploit that secret, but there are a lot of problematic ideas around weight/thinness/being fat which I didn't expect and really didn't appreciate. Additionally, I don't feel like Jackson had a good grasp on the woman who's doing the exploiting and the main character with the secret is completely nuts but is presented like the things she's doing are normal. All in all, I'm sad to say that I didn't love this either.
2 stars

Wow! You have been reading a lot of books, Miss M.

>61 Miss_Moneypenny: About your feelings about De villa. I've read that book before 2005 and gave it 3 stars back then and I can relate to what happens when you re-read a book. You are older, have read more books and can compare a book to other ones in the same genre. I think that's why I don't re-read.

>64 connie53: Thank you! Between my empty house and probably 90% of my time at work spent babysitting servers, I've been able to really crank them out!

I think you're onto something with the "no rereads" rule. I was so disappointed because I remember loving it and if I had just left it alone, my memories would still be intact. Definitely something to think about going forward!

September



Every year, I can't wait for September to show up. Fall is my favorite time of year and there's something so magical watching summer slide into golden, melancholy autumn. And here we are, Labor Day gone! I love it.

80. Keto Lunches by Stephanie Pedersen
Mr. M and I have been thinking seriously about transitioning into a keto lifestyle. My neurologist suggested it at my last med check up (I have MS) and while it would be a big change for us, I'm willing to give it a try. We've done a lot of research and recipe hunting and unfortunately this book is pretty redundant. The author's voice is also pretty weird: she talks to the reader like you'd talk to a not particularly bright child and it was really off-putting. This was a miss for me, but could be helpful to someone who doesn't know how to cook or eat low carb.
2 stars

81. The Terranauts by TC Boyle
Another disappointing read. Loosely based on real events, eight scientists are locked in a biosphere meant to test whether or not humans can successfully colonize other planets. Less attention is paid to climate change or even the science of ecology and survival in suboptimal conditions, with nearly all of the weight of the plot hanging on which of the scientists are sleeping with each other and the in-fighting they experience during their time in the biosphere. Meh.
2 stars

Another weekend gone by, more ROOTs to add to the pile!

82. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
What a powerful, incredible book. Dana is a modern Black woman living in 1976 who suddenly gets pulled into the antebellum south to save her white ancestor, Rufus. Each trip to the past gets increasingly more dangerous for Dana and calls into question everything she knows about our country's history, Black culture and experience, and her own life. I was absolutely transfixed by this book, despite it's graphic violence and hard subject matter. Highly recommended and should be required reading for high school/college literature classes.
5 stars

83. Horns by Joe Hill
Now that autumn is approaching, it's time to bust out the horror novels! Joe Hill manages to live up to his father's reputation with this really excellent horror/revenge novel that looks at the devil's work in modern society. This was clever, fascinating, and down right scary. I loved it so much I immediately sent it off to my sister.
4 stars

84. Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
I continued the horror streak with Hill's debut novel. Sadly, I didn't like this one as much as Horns, but I consider it time well spent nonetheless.
3 stars

85. The Changeling by Victor LaValle
Dark fairy tales are one of my favorite genres and this book did an excellent job of combining super dark Norwegian fairy tales with urban magical realism. Apollo Kagwa is a new father and deeply in love with his wife Emma, but they don't get a "happily ever after." Emma violently murders their son and then vanishes. Everyone assumes her actions are due to PPD, but Apollo isn't so sure. He sets out to find out exactly what happened to his wife and the story takes off like a rocket. Parts of this book were so difficult to read but it's beautifully written and contains a lot of surprising wisdom. Highly recommended if you can handle the difficult subject matter.
4 stars

86. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
This book was a revelation to me. I've been in and out of therapy since a traumatic miscarriage in 2016 left me absolutely unmoored but I've never really stopped to think about the process of therapy or how it looks for people who aren't me. Gottlieb does an excellent job of tying all the strands of her narrative together: her own journey through therapy at midlife after a devastating breakup, a handful of her patients, and the history and process of psychotherapy. I learned a lot in this book and was fascinated the entire time. I was worried that this would be another "wealthy middle aged white woman writes a whiny memoir" but Gottlieb avoided this pitfall by being wry and honest about her own shortcomings (even poking fun at Gretchen Rubin, Elizabeth Gilbert, her own privilege) and by virtue of having something concrete to say. Definitely recommended if you have any interest in the therapeutic process.
4 stars

87. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
This was a quick, sad book. Anna is a widower who watches as nearly her entire village succumbs to the black death in 1666 England. Brooks does an excellent job showing the trauma of watching everyone you know die in truly grisly, terrible ways and if the book does sometimes read like a newspaper article, Brooks started as a journalist so at least it makes sense. I kind of rolled my eyes at the ending and felt that it was tonally wrong with the rest of the story, but I was attached to Anna by that point and was rooting for her to have at least a little happiness.
4 stars

88. Archie The Married Life Book 4 by Paul Kupperberg
One of the very first books I remember reading was an Archie comic while I waited in the grocery store checkout line with my mother. The fondness I've got for the Riverdale gang will never die, and reading through Archie's married life series was a delight.
4 stars (mostly for nostalgia)

Wow, you have almost doubled your ROOTs, Miss P. I think you can easily reach 100 books before the 31st of December!

October



Yowza! Here we are in October already! The last couple weeks of September were a blur of doctor appointments and scans and tests which left little time for reading. Things have calmed down now thankfully and reading is back going full steam ahead!

89. The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
I really love stories about time travel but this was a miss for me. I wasn't crazy about any of the characters and the answer to the central mystery was obvious to mewithin the first 20 or so pages (and I never guess plot twists right!). Not recommended.
2 stars

90. The Diabetes Code by Jason Fung
91. The Obesity Code by Jason Fung
92. The Complete Guide to Fasting by Jason Fung
I picked these up early this year on a recommendation from my neurologist in an effort to try and prevent history from repeating itself (I have a very strong history of diabetes). But I spent nearly all of 2018 and most of this year as well adjusting to life with MS so a diet change was the last thing on my mind. And now here I am, nearly 30 pounds heavier as a result of med changes and a fair amount of emotional eating and it's time to change some things. But with the support of my medical team and wonderful husband, I was able to take the information from these 3 books and put them into place (being down 15 pounds in 2 weeks isn't too shabby either). Reading all 3 in quick succession was probably a mistake, as large chunks of information is lifted verbatim and repeated in all 3. But each was fascinating and highly recommended if you're interested in the science behind diabetes, obesity, or fasting.
4 stars each

93. The Lost Queen by Signe Pike
Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres and I was so ready to be all in for this book about a sixth-century Scottish queen and her twin brother who inspires the legend Merlin. And for the most part, I liked it. But the ending was absolutely atrocious (nothing happened!!), the plot was uneven, and I don't think that this story required a full trilogy to do it justice. I truly think that with a stronger editor, Pike could have trimmed this into one very long book (a la Pillars of the Earth) or a duology. So very much of this story was set up and could have been condensed into a 150-200 page section. I'll probably read the second book if only because I want to see what happens, but I'll be reading it with a more critical eye.
3 stars

94. One Day in December by Josie Silver
Contemporary romance is typically not my thing (I prefer my romance with a hefty dose of fantasy or magic), but this was a charming read about a girl who sees a boy at a bus stop, only to find out a year later that he's her best friend's new boyfriend. The characters were cute and fully fleshed out and I wound up really believing in the multiple love stories. I did think that the middle dragged quite a lot and could have used a tighter editing hand. Over 400 pages for a romance novel involving primarily 3 characters seems self-indulgent to me. I seem to have this criticism a lot, so maybe the problem is me? Unsure. Regardless, this was a charming way to spend a sunny October afternoon.
4 stars

95. Women Talking by Miriam Toews
Toews takes inspiration from real-life events: in 2009, 8 Mennonite men were convicted of drugging and raping nearly every woman (ranging from 3 to 80 years old) in their insular community in a remote part of Bolivia. Toews takes this premise and imagines a series of meetings the women have to decide if they should forgive these 8 men (and by extension the rest of the men who were protecting them) or should they take their children and leave, despite being completely illiterate and not knowing how to speak Spanish or even knowing where on the earth they are? A man who has recently returned to their community despite being exiled a decade earlier takes these meetings minutes so as to leave a record for the men. The genius of Toews' narrative is that the details of the assaults are revealed only slowly and in bits and that none of these women are what you would expect. I don't think that I enjoyed reading this, but I'm glad I did. She raises a lot of questions about the nature of faith and community and forgiveness and what it means to take control of your own life.
4 stars

>69 connie53: Thank you! I set my goal pretty low on purpose so as to not hinder the group's goal but it looks like I should have set it higher, lol!

>70 Miss_Moneypenny: So sorry to hear about all the medical problems. MS is a terrible illness. A big hug for you.

>72 connie53: Thanks Connie :) I'm definitely counting my blessings though, because so many people have a much worse time with it than I do.

Man, October is zooming by! I've been steadily reading and getting rid of extra ROOTs but time to post here has been hard to come by. Stand by for a book dump!

96. Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz
Koontz was a childhood favorite for me (my parents absolutely did not monitor baby Moneypenny's reading, lol!) and somehow I wound up with a backlog of his books. This was the first I wound up reading and it was pretty good. I think Koontz writes humor pretty well and I really loved the female protagonist in this one. It was suspenseful and fantastical and a really nice way to spend a couple hours in the backyard.
4 stars

97. From the Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz
I read this the year it was released: my father purchased the hardcover and promptly tossed it to me when he was done. I remember loving it then, and surprisingly I loved it even more now. This is a door stopper of a book but I absolutely raced through it. Highly, highly recommended.
5 stars

98. The Funhouse by Dean Koontz
But this? This was trash. I found it hard to believe Koontz wrote it.
1 star

99. Miracles and Other Reasonable Things by Sarah Bessey
I pre-ordered this a few months ago, so I'm still counting it as a ROOT :D Bessey's first book, Jesus Feminist, really resonated with me last year so I figured this one would be a safe bet. But sadly, there's so much anti-Catholic sentiment in here that I found it hard to get through. I imagine I'm not exactly her target audience but I really thought that I would be able to just roll my eyes and move on with her narrative. Instead, I wound up putting the book down because I couldn't handle her enormous attitude of condescension toward Catholic tradition. Aside from that, her writings on the Holy Spirit and the need to accept that miracles don't always look the way we want them to was really powerful. I'm torn on this. I wanted to love it, but I was so alienated by her tone.
3 stars

100. These Beautiful Bones by Emily Stimpson
Stimpson has a terrific voice and her writing for Endow Studies has long been one of my favorite resources. I bought this a few years back to help me make my way through Pope John Paul II's dense Theology of the Body but wound up abandoning ship on the project altogether. I finally cracked this open over the weekend, thinking that I could make the ToB my Advent faith reading. But Stimpson's writing here isn't her best: she sounds oddly preachy and strident here, which isn't something I've ever felt from her other writings. I also think that it over-simplified the original text. This was a miss for me.
2 stars

101. By the Light of the Moon by Dean Koontz
The last of my Koontz stash! This was kind of meh. I think I might be burnt out on Koontz for now, although it definitely didn't help that his female protagonist was almost unbearably screechy to read. I'm willing to revisit this next year and see if I still feel ambivalent about it.
3 stars

102. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
This is the third time I've read Kostova's door stopper of a novel, and I love it more every time. It's a good level of spooky (not enough to make me afraid to read it at night, but definitely creepy enough to satisfy), it's absolutely layered with detailing and atmosphere, and it ends with a bang. It's definitely a slow burn but that's part of it's charm for me. This is definitely my favorite Dracula story.
5 stars

103. Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore
Super fun, super fast historical romance with a plucky heroine, a realistic love interest, and a great supporting cast of characters. I'm looking forward to the rest of the books in Dunmore's League of Extraordinary Women series!
4 stars

104. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
This has long been in my top 5 favorite books of all time and I make it a point to re-read it every few years. And since there's a new movie adaptation (please be good!!) on the way this Christmas, I figured now was the perfect time to re-read. Little Women never disappoints, and I learn something new every time I read it. Forever a favorite.
5 stars

105. Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
Another childhood favorite! While this one isn't quite on the same level with Little Women or even Little House on the Prairie, the Anne-girl still has a fond place in my heart.
5 stars

>74 Miss_Moneypenny:. I read the book by Kostova too and gave it 4*.

And lots of Koontz books in your reading lately.

>74 Miss_Moneypenny: That's a lot of books!

November



Yowza, how is it mid-November already?! "How did it get so late, so soon?" indeed. Work picked up quite a bit, but now that we're 2 weeks away from Thanksgiving things are starting to slow down again. I think that what's left of the year will have ample room for getting rid of some of these ROOTs so I can start 2020 with a new and improved list!

106. The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown
My mother is a life-long British royal family watcher and sent me this several years ago, saying that it was her favorite Diana resource due to how balanced it is. She's definitely right: this exhaustively researched book lands squarely in the middle, neither deifying nor vilifying Diana and her choices. Very well written and it kept my interest the entire way through. Highly recommended if you too are a BRF watcher.
4 stars

107. The Name of God is Mercy by Pope Francis
I first read this in 2016 after my high-risk pregnancy ended in a devastating miscarriage. When I picked this up last week though, I found I had no memory of the contents at all. This was a terrific read. It's basically a transcribed interview and Francis's gentleness really comes shining through. Love, love, love.
5 stars

108. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
This book has been on our shelves for almost a decade now. I will admit to originally buying it because the title was just so poetic and captured my imagination, but it turns out to be an actual good story as well: a Japanese-American man is accused of murdering his white neighbor in 1950s Washington and his trial uncovers long-simmering racism, resentment, and fear stemming back to World War II. This was a really good read and definitely recommended.
4 stars

109. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Man, this book. I've been reading it in pieces for over a month now because of the heavy subject matter and have just now finished it. It follows two half-sisters and their descendants over eight generations. One sister is married to a slaver, the other sold into slavery and shipped to America and each characters get a chapter. Each chapter broke my heart. It's been a long time since a book affected me like this (maybe The Sparrow in 2017?) and I'm really at a loss of things to say other than if you can handle the subject matter (slavery, cruelty, rape, unspeakable violence and sorrow), you need to read this book.
5 stars

110. Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
I've read each of Sager's books and every time I say that the current one is my last. His book blurbs are so enticing and catchy that I can't help myself and I think "this time will be different!" But sadly, Lock Every Door was another dud for me. A young woman agrees to apartment sit in a famous NYC building but people are disappearing from the building. Is it murder? This book very clearly borrows from Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby but instead of leaning into it, Sager wimps out and this turns into just another murder mystery. Not terrible, but not great either.
3 stars

>76 Familyhistorian: It is! I'm in a weird spot in life right now: my job is fairly undemanding and my husband is gone at least 5 nights out of the week for business. So despite loading up my schedule with other hobbies and friends and family, I still have large blocks of time to fill. For me, there's no better way to fill time than with books!

>76 Familyhistorian: Better than vegging out in front of the TV!

>79 Familyhistorian: I totally agree with that.