2021 Reading List

I dunno. I had a hard time getting into it, and then without noticing the transition I was somehow hooked. But it wasn't a "this book is awesome and I have to keep reading" type of hook, it was more like "where in the world is all this weird stuff going?"

Interesting read. I still really like the world and characters. It took me a while to figure out what the plot was, though. I don't care much for the politics, unfortunately.

I cannot deny this book is deserving of its status as a classic. Indeed, its rating cannot be overstated. For if it were possible that a man could read this book suddenly, as it were, in a moment, then would the characters, plot, and thematic elements so fill his mind as to overwhelm him with pure wonder.

And how can I capture in my clumsy writing the eloquent and adapting voice and mannerisms of the talented audiobook narrator? He alternatively giddies with drunken glee and then speaks through the coughing fits of the sick. His voice drew me into the novel and the characters' lives.

And it is true, what they say, the novel is dark. It is not a spoiler to say that a man commits murder. But it is also not too terrible a spoiler to note that his life does not end altogether unhappily. Indeed, there is hope, in the end.

Well that was a very sweet little story.

Mina was my favorite character. I enjoyed watching her friendship with Michael grow, and getting to see her strong feelings about schooling. :)

The setting and plot were also both fun. I liked this book!

I'm not used to reviewing non-fiction.

This book teaches that peace starts by seeing people as people, not objects, and that there are several common "boxes" that we use to justify our choice to view people as objects. It builds upon that by teaching that we can help others by growing our relationship with them and the people around them, by listening to them, and by teaching them, before we try correcting them.

The book is written as a semi-story. It follows Lou as he and his wife take there son to a treatment facility to get help with his addiction. While there, the instructors teach Lou, his wife, and the other parents how they can prepare themselves to better handle and respond to their children after the children finish their time at the facility. We get to know the parents, and there are many stories told to demonstrate different points. Lou starts off very opposed to what is being taught, and slowly comes around.

Exile, courage, and survival. And limitations, friendships, dictators, sacrifices, and hope.

I really liked this book. I was hooked on the story the entire time, and the characters were just so rabbity adorable (or crazy).

Good book. I liked the Anatomy of Peace much more, but this one makes some good points too.

This is written kind of like a text book: you don't really need to read the whole book in order; it's totally fine to read just the bits you need and use it as a reference.

One of the things that stood out to me in this is how important it is to make sure your child feels your love. If they don't feel your love, than any type of correction or discipline will likely seem arbitrary or controlling. If they do feel loved, they will more easily accept loving correction.

Along those lines, it's very important to love unconditionally, not just when the child makes us happy.

This is the first book I've read of the Culture series, and I greatly enjoyed it.

It's a sci-fi with (in my opinion) good characters. Well, mainly just one character, with fun surrounding characters. The setting, as befits a sci-fi, is interesting too. The plot itself is not very surprising, but it's solid and satisfying. I enjoyed the ending, though it was rather abrupt.

There were gruesome descriptions of violence and sexual stuff though, so not kid-friendly.

I'm not used to reading memoirs. I really liked this book, but I don't think I'd want to reread it.

I enjoyed the writing, and getting to know so many people. Following Tara's path from child to adult was satisfying. Her family's neuroses and conspiracy theories and treacherous attitudes made parts of it very difficult to get through, and that is part of what makes it a good book.

Good book. It seemed to be a bit repetitive, though.

That was a fun little book!

Oh, I actually listened to the BBC dramatization of the book, though. I thought it was just a fancy audiobook at first, and then just went with it. I enjoyed it a lot!

Interesting. Well-written, and mostly simply explained.

Full of practical (and memorable) advice and realistic stories from other parents.

Some takeaways:

1. It's okay to express emotions, but some actions need to be limited.
2. Listen to feelings.
3. The problem-solving method sounds good. It seems the hardest suggestion to implement, though.

How was this written by a 16-year-old? This was great. Great characters and story and setting. Made me cry.

This book made me cry multiple times. I felt so frustrated with the book, and the characters. The situation was ridiculous, and hopeless! But I couldn't put it down. And it ended very satisfyingly.

The setting felt real, the characters were touching, and the plot felt fairly realistic while still being surprising.

This is a creepy book.

I'd watched the movie before and wasn't prepared for how creepy it was, so I didn't enjoy it the first time at all.

However, knowing that the story is terrifying before going into it made this book very enjoyable. And the movie changed enough that the short book was worth the read.

It's a short book, but the characters are well-written. The plot is good too. The excellent bit is the setting: very little is explained, from why exactly Coraline's family moved, to who exactly the other residents are. Best of all, the motives and powers and origin of the other-mother are left terrifyingly unclear. I think this unexplained-ness makes this story a great fairy tale: things are that way because they are.

Awesome story. Awesome setting. Good characters. Awesome societal stuff.

A Big Dumb Object sci-fi with more focus on the society than the BDO. No romance. Not much individual stuff (the book spans thousands of years and multiple generations).

Fun book. Lots of colorful, likeable characters. Odd plot.

Still awesome, and this time there's a romance, and the plot is told in a fun non-linear way.

Great characters and plot. I enjoyed the English setting, too.

Be careful to avoid spoilers.

That was an infuriating read.

One of my main takeaways was that we should be united by class (or as people) instead of divided by race if we want to change the current system.

Fun and darkly imaginative. Great characters. A not-entirely-explained world building gives a great sense of mystery. The plot was fun, too.

I enjoyed the characters and the lower London setting very much. The plot was fun. I didn't want to stop reading. It has a satisfying ending, but I'd love to read the sequel.

The prose is skillfully written.

But I didn't like the characters (they all seemed distant), or the plot (boring) or the setting (undistinguished). The framing device was annoying too: "I have such a scary story for you! But I don't have it with me... Wait a couple days for me to send for it? I promise it's really scary."

Also, the main character seemed like one of those people who would rather live an imagined drama than talk out the issues she's having with people. I suppose that might count as good character crafting, but I can't stand that personality.

Maybe I just don't like ghost stories very much?

One of the sweetest books I have ever read. I wish I had read this when I was younger, I feel like I've been missing out.

Very sweet, with still some fun adventures and misadventures as Anne grows older and spends some time as a teacher.

College life! Figuring out what love is.

Very fun book, but I enjoyed the movie's ending more.

The audiobook's commentary at the end was great. :)

I'm still enjoying Anne's story.

This one didn't seem to have as much character development, though. There were several characters that persisted through the book (my favorite being Little Elizabeth), but most of the book seemed concerned with one-off characters as Anne encountered them and faced some difficulty with them.

This historical/fiction book isn't my normal cup of tea. However, I tried to think of it as a modern epic, like The Iliad, with a larger-than-life main character roughly based on reality.

The story is fine, nothing surprising. The details where what made it enjoyable, though. A lot of it was almost too serious for me, but there were light-hearted and even silly parts too (like the story of a man who tried to ride a bull to a funeral).

I had a hard time connecting with most of the characters.

I enjoyed the setting.

I would probably give this 3 stars normally, except that I'm happy to know more about Joan of Arc now. The educational aspect bumped it up.

I feel like this is one of those books where you can get a lot more out of it be rereading it.

I liked the characters a lot. And the setting, and the story. It ends on a terrible cliffhanger, though, so I almost gave it 4 stars just for that. Luckily, the next book is available at my library, so I'll just continue with that one.

Better than the first. The characters grew, the world-building was more full and grand, the emotions were more real, and the plot was more engrossing. And it has a satisfying ending.

Good advice you can act on, and each chapter is a nice summary at the end. Parts of it seemed like an infomercial for the author's web site, though.

This book made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

It's split into two parts: a biography, and then a second part discussing 10 principles that Mister Rogers lived by. The second part is also a great excuse to tell even more stories about Mister Rogers. :)

I really liked the plot for this one. The characters and world-building were fun, too. So was the romance. I didn't know there was lesbian romance when I started.

Something seemed missing, though. Maybe because the sci-fi was kinda just hand-waved.

Oof. Good book.

Great characters. Solid setting. The plot was slow at times.

I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't call it a page-turner until the last one or two parts.

Powerful stuff. We need to approach our interactions with strangers with humility. We are hardwired to assume others are telling the truth, which helps the whole society function better. People are not transparent: their outward appearance does not always reflect their internal state (which is not always caused by deception).

The audiobook was especially cool, because it has audio from interviews and stuff, like a nice podcast.

Fun little story. The audiobook recording has fun effects. The world-building was the best part.

Fun collection of cosmere short stories.

I really liked the white sands story, where the main character is weak in the magic system and compensates with cleverness and finesse; and the story of Silence in the forests of hell, the innkeeping lady who hunts down bounties in haunted forests; and the story of the Sixth of Dusk, where futuristic people are trying to artificially elevate the technological level of a Polynesian -inspired culture so they can take advantage of them within they legal limits (oh, and the main character spend the whole story avoiding being killed by his own island).

Oh, and the secret Mistborn history was awesome... I guess I liked all the stories? :)

I liked the characters. It seemed fitting to read this with COVID going on. There were some really good quotes.

The concept for this is fun, and the execution is great.

I like VE Schwab's books.

Good characters. Very fun plot. Lovely settings.

The ending me me cry. It was a satisfying ending, considering the book is about an immortal girl.

Fun book! And it was so short.

Funny. :)

Each chapter is basically a little story on its own. I liked the trip to El Dorado, and when he shot the monkeys.

Fun book. Easy read. You only get to know the main character, though. And the setting doesn't feel very well-explored. And the plot seemed pretty standard. But it's fun. :)

What a sweet book. I enjoyed the characters and the world-building. The plot was fun, too.

How do I even review this? It's awesome.

Very pretty setting; I loved the circus. And interesting characters. But the characters' arcs are boring. And so is the plot.

I enjoyed this book, but I resonate very strongly with some of the top 2-star reviews here, about how the back-of-the-book description is completely inaccurate, and how the book is all setting and tone and mood but without a story.

I really liked the characters and world-building. The book made me hate its world. The plot was interesting, too. The ending seemed a little weak, but it was at least a satisfying ending.

The relationships were one of the best things about this book. Matt's relationships with Celia, Maria, and El Patrón were I think my favorite.

I wanted to enjoy this. I started out enjoying it a lot. I liked the monsters, and this odd department that Linus belongs to, and I he island and kids on it. But after the fun beginning it mainly dragged on formulaically.

Also "Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn." This never happens.

I enjoyed the setting. Some of the characters were pretty fun. There were good moments, where I felt close to the characters. I especially liked some of the whimsy in the story, like the title " extremely upper management."

The story was boring and predictable, though. Down to the end, where he returns home before going back to the island in the end. Some bits were fun, like the Saturday Adventures.

I was annoyed with how everyone thought Linus was magically "perfect."

I didn't like the ending. Linus went on a cloying monologue. The ideals were good, but the way they were presented came across too sugary, like someone's daydream of a perfect argument followed by applause. Or some cheesy for-TV Disney movie.

The romance was okay. I was a little annoyed with how quickly Arthur decided Linus was "perfect," like some kind of Sue character. But oh well.

I really like this series. I like it enough to start reading it for a third time.

This was a fun start to the series. You get to meet plenty of main characters. I'm kinda sad that there's only really one POV character here, but that's okay. Also, there's a couple chapters with Rand and Mat where Jordan was doing odd stuff with the timeline; it's some kind of confusing flashforward/flashback combo? Idk. It was confusing, but didn't last too long.

Great bad guy. Super creepy. The characters in general are great. I liked the plot and setting, too.

Reading the first part of this book with a sniffly nose was quite the experience.

Very enjoyable. Would read again.

That was super sweet.

I liked how the author pokes fun at his detective being less-than-competent as a detective (only occasionally), while always having an amazing attitude.

The characters are fun. So is the setting. The plot was a little light, but I enjoyed the various vignettes told along the way.

Fun continuation, with more POVs than book 1.

Fun collection of fairy tales, with some being moralistic tales like "never disobey," some being silly explanations like "why the jellyfish has no bones," and many telling stories of good people getting rewarded and bad people getting punished.

I listened to the librivox audiobook version (streamed as a podcast).

Oh goodness. This one pulled at my emotions.

The characters were great. The settings were enjoyable. There wasn't really an overarching plot; just the story of their lives.

I feel like some characters could have been developed more fully (I wanted more of Early), and there was little closure in the ending. There was some, but not much.

Anyway, it was a great book. All about the power of choices, and lies/secrets. I liked the stuff about choices; not so much the stuff about dishonesty. But real life is like that.

Wow. That was an emotionally difficult book.

The characters are very well-written. The plot is great. The real-world setting gives everything much more weight. The ending gave me tears.

The story follows the lives of two women in Afghanistan in different generations, who start out indifferent to one another, are then made enemies, and finally become loyal friends.

Very fun book, especially satisfying considering it's the first of a trilogy.

I liked the characters, and the way the story let us watch them grow up from children. There was a hint of a past romance that might become important, but nothing came of it in this book, so I'm expecting a sequel to handle it.

The plot was very fun. It has a couple fun twists and surprises, and I feel like the book would still be good fun to read already knowing them; ie, the book doesn't depend on them to be a good book.

The setting is awesome. I love being thrown into the world without expository explanations. And this was a fun world: there are gangs, and pickpockets, and a royal society rife with corruption; there are sorcerers and alchemists that we never learn much about; there are man-eating sharks and sea monsters; and there are ancient buildings and magical materials left behind by an unknown (alien?) civilization.

It had a lot more cursing than I'm used to.

Adorable, with valuable insights about the value of life, gratitude, and a sense of humor. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to finally read something by James Herriot.

Similar to "Talking with Strangers" and "The New Jim Crow," this book tackled race in America--- -except it really tackled more than that. Caste in America, as Wilkerson describes it, encompasses race differences, gender differences, age differences, religious differences... Really anything that makes one group of people believe they are better than some other group.

This book didn't seem to have a very strong structure. It was full of personal stories (both Wilkerson's and others'), illuminating data, historical accounts, comparisons with India's caste system, and highlights of Germany's steps to dismantle their caste system. It also discusses the 200 8, 2012, and 2016 presidential elections, but not the 2020, which makes it seem slightly dated.

I enjoyed this book very much, but not as much as "The New Jim Crow."

Very fun book, and I'd love to re-read it in a few years.

The characters are great. I enjoyed the way the book depicted insanity. The plot is interesting, though admittedly slow in places. The setting is beautiful: England in the 1800's; but a slightly tweaked England, where a Raven King was king of England, and is still recognized as such in the country's constitution. My favorite part of the whole thing is the humor. It's a dry, English humor bordering on the ridiculousness of Hitchhiker's Guide.

Fun book. The classic Greek characters are brought to life in this fun telling of Circe's story. Circe was, I think, the most well-done character. Odysseus was interesting, too, but I've always enjoyed Odysseus.

By its nature, the plot is winding: from one Greek legend to another. The author does a good job of tying things together, though.

The setting is nice enough. Most of it takes place either in Helios's halls, or on Circe's island.

The ending was not surprising, though satisfying.

Bradbury accurately described this as "a book of stories pretending to be a novel." Most of the chapters were originally written as short stories published in various magazines, with no intention of combining them into a novel. Years after most of these short stories were already published, an editor suggested that Bradbury combine them into a book.

Another important detail is that different versions of the book can have different chapters. Two chapters not in the original were added in later editions, and one chapter in the original was removed from the 1997 edition.

I read the book before learning any of this, and was prepared to give the book 4 stars. My main gripes were that the novel inconsistently characterizes the martians (because different short stories have slightly different ideas about what they're like), and that some chapters don't advance the overall plot (because they have their own plot and are included for their themes and setting), and that some threads in the story aren't fully wrapped up (which were actually intentionally ambiguous short stories). Some of the chapters link together more directly than others, and it's difficult to know where those links will be.

Knowing more about the publication process for this, though, I bumped my rating to 5 stars. The themes are powerful, and the characters are brought to life quickly, like stars flashing in the night. The overall story is enjoyable, and the inner stories are intriguing. I enjoy Bradbury's writing style.

Would not recommend. Annoying writing, and annoying characters, and annoying lack of plot. I like the idea of not knowing who's nuts in a terrible situation, but the execution here is painful. The book is far too long for how little actually happens.

(Currently at 25%) The big stranger that the book's blurb talks about has approached Wen, and then he and his friends/associates spent the first 20% of the book trying to get into the cabin, repeatedly saying things like "we just need to talk" while openly holding homemade weapons. This book is off to a dumb start. There's also been lots of expository sequences so we can learn about the characters without having to go through all the effort of getting to know them.

(At 60%) I haven't been enjoying the writing, but this line stood out as particularly bad: "[...] and they closed in towards one another, clustering like molecules." Almost as bad as if the author has just written "clustering like, uh, something that clusters."

This one's great too. :)

Decent. Most of the book alternates between examples of good writing and the author explaining what makes it good. I liked this book as a sort of sampler. It made me realize that I need to read short stories (especially Chekhov).

I love how sanity is treated in this book. I've been enjoying sanity as a theme (see Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles for a good example, or The Cabin at the End of the World for a bad example).

The whole book is written as a series of journal entries by Piranesi, which I enjoyed. The characterization is well done.

The setting is intriguing, and beautiful. It never seemed to drag out the writing.

The plot is interesting. Kind of a mystery.

Very fun book.

I wish I'd read the appendices earlier in life; those were great!

Cute book. The first half or so seemed kinda repetitive. I liked the frog. Jenna refers to him as her "wise counselor", but he never seemed any wiser than her to me.

I liked the sisters. They were surprisingly distinct; in the original story of the dancing sisters they're basically all identical.

The annoying cousin was written well, and by "well" I mean "infuriating". I had to keep reminding myself that it was a piece of fiction to prevent myself getting physically worked up with how terrible he was. Also, I'm not sure what happened to him in the end of the book.

Overall, definitely a fun book. I hope I can share it with my kiddos.

Oh wow. Timshel, "thou mayest." What a powerful message.

The whole book is a study of agency: are people able to choose good out evil, or are they such in the choice that their family or society or genetics has given them? Does a psychopath without a conscience or capacity for love have agency?

The characters feel hard and real, and the setting feels beautiful. The plot pulled me in much more than I expected; it may have been my favorite thing about this book.

Lee is awesome. So is Samuel.

The principles are basically fine (with some more manipulative than others), but Carnegie's purposes and most of his examples are so profit-driven that I felt almost dirty hearing them.

From the Wikipedia page about the book:

The satirical writer Sinclair Lewis waited a year [after the book was published] to offer his scathing critique. He described Carnegie's method as teaching people to "smile and bob and pretend to be interested in other people's hobbies precisely so that you may screw things out of them."

You can get basically all the good stuff from this book by reading it's Wikipedia summary.

Thoughts during my read:

I'm at 12% and Carnegie obnoxiously claimed that the shape of Rockefeller's character is basically defined by his building a hospital in Peking, China, without any nuance (ignoring any and all criticism of the man). I have a hard time appreciating books that try to teach a system without nuance.

I'm at 33% now. The principles so far have been good (avoid personal criticisms, give sincere compliments, smile freely), but the whole thing is packaged around profits. I feel kinda dirty listening to it. For the part on smiling, I just listened to an ad for a department store at Christmastime that was telling customers "our employees may be too stressed and overworked to smile, so please give them a smile to brighten their day" (paraphrased).

At 59%. He's been praising Robert E. Lee. He also praised the Kaiser earlier (much earlier) in the book. Why is this guy picking the bad guys as exemplars? To be fair, they aren't his only exemplars, but still...

At 61%. He's talking about how great a job Rockefeller did when ending the Colorado Coalfield War. Carnegie is praising the guy whose mine was killing workers at about twice the national rate and was blatantly ignoring state laws that should have protected the workers. He's praising this man's ability to return things to the dangerous and deadly status quo, because that was the profitable thing to do. This book feels vile. It teaches effective techniques that aren't inherently good or bad, and celebrates their use in making the world worse.

68%. It's a non-business example! A mother listens to her daughter.

86%. I liked this story. A woman whose house is undergoing renovations didn't like the mess that the contractors left at the end of the day, so she and her children nearly cleaned it up after they left. The next morning, she pulled the foreman over and complimented the way the lumber was left the night before. The foreman made sure it was left clean every day after that.

97%. This has been my favorite example so far, about a boy struggling through school until his parents helped him make huge improvements. Hearing about his happy success made me feel happier.

That was super short.

The story was simple and well told. I liked it.

The characters were nicely written.

The stress was real.

The ending was happier than I expected for a book set during the Holocaust.

The interview with the author at the end was an emotional punch to the gut.

Cute book. :)

I enjoyed the characters the most. They made me remember being 12.

The setting was okay.

The plot was nice.

I don't know much about Tourette syndrome. I enjoyed this book as a new perspective.

Decent sequel. Not as good as the first, I thought, but a fun book. The pacing was a bit slow, but the characters are still fun and the book is funny.

I liked the characters and the setting. The plot was interesting, too. Parts of it were slow, and parts of it seemed over-saturated with drama, but I enjoyed it overall.

I read the Doctrine & Covenants in Portuguese. 🇧🇷

Decent thriller. It has good pacing, and the unreliable characters are fun to read, even if they didn't feel very fleshed out. The face blindness thing seemed a bit gimmicky (he's written as if he usually can't recognize anyone, even with clothes or hair or voice or context clues). The setting is decently creepy. The plot twists shared enough with the only other Feeney book I've read (Sometimes I Lie) that I could see the outline of then coming, even if I couldn't pin down what the exact twists were. I might have given this 4 stars if I hadn't read her other book and seen the twists coming.

Fun book. Not too long.

Interesting little book. The setting seemed fairly generic for a fantasy book. The characters were fun (maybe a bit flat), and seeing their relationships develop was nice. The plot was slow in the first half, and satisfying in the second half.

Also, the world seemed very little. A boastful thief meets three monarchs (separately), and several other important people. Our thief could hardly throw a stone without hitting someone who lives in a palace. Does everyone in this world meet all the royalty?

Decent book, but if you've ever seen It's a Wonderful Life you basically know the whole story (except it's not quite as well-done as It's a Wonderful Life).

The message is warm and fuzzy, and as bluntly given as a self-help book.

It took most of the book before I started caring about the main character. Before that I was mainly reading out of curiosity.

Fun read. Perrin and Egwene's POVs are fun, and Mat's is my favorite. I'm not sure if I can comment on the pacing... This is a re-read, and sometimes I feel like things are moving too fast. XD I like this take on the story of the sword in the stone.