My reading habits are varied, kind of eccentric, and I 100% pad my reading list with short books so I can meet my reading goal for the year. I also track my reading goal from birthday to birthday, not year to year – so please find below my completed reading list below with my impressions and brief thoughts in the style of a tumblr post. It might be some of the odder book reviews you’ll read this year.

The top three books that I had trouble putting down would probably be, in no particular order, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, PreachersNSneakers, and Love or Work. The last one was kind of a sneaky hit for me – I started it sometime in the summer, but got really invested in finishing it around Thanksgiving.

[spoilers]

• The Marvelous Land of Oz (Oz, #2) by L. Frank Baum
  • The Oz books are a Trip – I have no idea what’s going at any at given time – there’s a pumpkin man, a live sawhorse, and a girl that’s been turned into a boy. I’d love to have a General Jinjur costume though..
• A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
  • I think I had read this before, but had forgotten the entire plot until I was 2/3 of way through the play a second time. It sad.
• The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
  • In my reading, this is a trip into spiraling post-partum that becomes a full mental breakdown. The story sucks you in, and honestly I would have liked to read even more about it.
• The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
  • I was in this play this year and I loved the opportunity to dig deep into Shakespeare in a way that actually made sense to me. The play is very funny when you can understand it.
• The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Hunger Games #0) by Suzanne Collins [audiobook]
  • I should have expected I would get angry at the main character, but I forgot he was a bad guy. Amazing book, made me mad.
• PreachersNSneakers by Ben Kirby
  • I’m not into Sneakers, but I enjoyed the discussion on popular Christian culture in modern America. Thoughtful points were raised respectfully. I can’t believe I got this book new on sale for a $1 – it definitely should have sold better than that.
• My Inventions by Nikola Tesla
  • What an ego-maniac. Want a peek into Telsa’s mind? Read this.  
• A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1) by Sarah J. Maas [audiobook]
  • I really enjoy the world building and fantasy aspects of this series – the smut is a little too much for me at times though.
• Once-A-Month Cooking by Marilyn S. Wilson
  • Good tips and ideas that I have not used at all yet.
• Most Wanted Dad (This Side of Heaven #5) by Arlene James
  • Not good, but I finished it anyway. Way too much discussion on how the female lead needs to work out and take care of her appearance and be a mother-figure. For a book written by a woman, I really felt that it failed to understand what appeals to a woman in romance.
• That Lass O’ Lowrie’s by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  • A lot of nothing happens in this book – honestly, I couldn’t really give you the plot but it was an enjoyable journey through the characters’ lives. I mostly read this because I had ended up with a 100 year old copy that had been printed on a printing press and I really enjoyed the physical qualities of that copy.
• A Very Small Farm by William Paul Winchester
  • An interesting slice of life memoir that was an enjoyable, easy read. If you have any curiosity about modern day small-scale farming, this would be a great book to read.
• Batman: Wayne Family Adventures Vol 1. by C.R.C Payne
  • For both WFA volumes, super cute BatFamily comics that fills my longing for a happy BatFam
• Batman: Wayne Family Adventures Vol 2. by C.R.C Payne
• All Things Aside by Iliza Shlesinger [audiobook]
  • I love quirky, humorous memoirs like this – if you like her comedy, you’ll like her books. The audiobooks also have the advantage of being read by her.
• The Happy Tree and the Bee by C.E. King
  • A children’s book that I bought for a baby shower because I know the author and read to pad my reading goal. Cute book.
• Girl Logic by Iliza Shlesinger [audiobook]
  • See two above – funnier than All Things Aside in my opinion
• Love or Work by Andre and Jeff Shinabarger
  • Okay, I loved this book – it’s great for thinking about the balance between your personal life and professional life especially for those with kids. The authors are thoughtful and acknowledge that there isn’t one-size-fits-all advice for these things. You get both the male and female perspective, and they’re both Christians as well. Would recommend
• The King of Torts by John Grisham
  • Someone recommended and gave me this book – it’s very different from my usual genres. The main character really let himself get caught up in something, and you could tell from a mile away that eventually the other shoe would drop ‘cause things were just going too well for him.

An incomplete list of books started and not finished this year that maybe I’ll finish eventually:

• Meetings with remarkable manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel
  • This is super interesting, but also super dense (the author tries to break it down, but the topic of medieval manuscripts is pretty dense to begin with) – I plan to finish it eventually.
• A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses #2) by Sarah J. Maas [audiobook]
  • I’m listening to the dramatic reading which is really amazingly done – great production – but I’ve gotten a little lost on the lore and the smut isn’t my jam, so it’s to be determined if I finish it.