Like last year, I’m trying to put all the 2019 books here so I can start fresh next week. Here are my goodreads reviews. If you’re on goodreads, add me as a friend so I can see your books too! I’ve also started an instagram account where I join my love of reading with my love of art.

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Love’s Executioner (3 stars): I had heard about this book in a different book and was so excited that I went off an immediately bought it with my audible account. But, as soon as I checked some of the reviews, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it after all. It looked like the author (therapist) was misogynistic, unlikeable, and judgmental. I considered putting it down before I even began.

But I am glad I didn’t.

These stories were very interesting and unique and showed me the variety of lives/conundrums/problems people have in the world and I loved how the “cases” didn’t always get resolved and even when they did, it sometimes wasn’t really due to his help. One of the lessons I took away was that things can be really not what they seem and when people come to tell you their story, it’s fully filtered through their interpretation of truth. Not the truth itself. I knew this already but there were some acute examples of this.

It was interesting to see how the therapist was thinking and how and where and when he chose to take action. How frustrated, flawed and wrong he could be. I really appreciated the vulnerability. Even if he was judgmental, most people are and they are just never willing to admit it. Maybe because I’d read the reviews, I was expecting it.

In the end it was a very interesting and unusual book and I am glad I read it. I can’t say I loved it but I learned from it.

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Night of Miracles (4 stars): I just love Elizabeth Berg. Her stories are smooth balms for my soul, they make me feel better about humankind, they make me smile and feel grateful and hopeful all at once. It’s not that it’s all pink bubbles in her stories, sad things happen, people make mistakes, people can be judgmental or real. But it’s that they are all redeemable. They all mean well and come together and grow and learn and support each other. They surprise you in the most beautiful ways. It restores your faith in humanity. This week, it was exactly what I needed.

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The Year of No Nonsense (3.5 stars): I have a lot of thoughts about this book. First thing I will say is that I generally try to read a book without reading the reviews. Sometimes, in the middle of the book, I’ll go and see what others wrote. In this case, I was a bit surprised at the unequivocal positive reviews. This is a good book, but in my opinion the reviews feel a bit slanted. I am pointing this out because it might be that I am reacting to this as I sit down to write mine and I am moving to the middle a bit more to course correct. So please take this with a grain of salt.

I like the premise of this book and how she focuses on your digging deeper to get to the crux of the matter instead of fixing the surface issues or the outcomes of the actual problem.

“Paradox is a very helpful tool for me, which is why I mention it here. We are not required to be black-and-white about our lives—we can be all the colors of the rainbow and every shade in between.”

One of the things I loved most about this book was how honest it was and how it didn’t make things sound simple as some of the books can.

“During my Year of No Nonsense, I learned that seeing what is and what was is a fundamental requirement for change.”

A very hard distinction at times.

“My job (as a parent) is to be a support for my children. The children are not here to fulfill my needs. They are not here to reflect my own “greatness” (or lack thereof). I am here to support them in their journey of growing up—not dictate how their journey goes.”

This resonated with me so much. I don’t usually worry about this but I do see it creeping in now and then and I love the way she put it. I am here to support them in their journey. So well put.

“But as a starting point, we might want to take Numbers like body weight and social media followers and put them in the box where they belong—a box of data points that can be charted, not a box of soul points that describe who we are.”

So much to unpack in this one, too. We anchor on numbers cause they are easy. I do a lot of rock climbing now and it has numbers and levels and I was telling my husband the other day how I wish the routes had no numbers so I couldn’t have any preconceived ideas of which routes I could and couldn’t do. Then I’d have to try each and I’d probably learn so much more. Numbers can help but they can also hinder so much.

“Stepping into beliefs, therefore, can be powerful or destructive. So when a belief has a negative or destructive power, like “you will never be a runner,” true Grit and growth happen when we question or challenge that belief.”

I’ve written and thought about this concept a lot. Identity can help or get in the way of how we move forward so much. And shifting one’s own identity can be so hard.

“The challenge is to Live each day as the best version of yourself. To make room for your own light and Purpose for your Life. To do the best you can and accept that you are doing so; to assume the Other People are doing the best they can, too—if not because it’s the right thing to do, then because at least they won’t drive you crazy.”

In the last week, I’ve been reminding myself to do this again and again and again. It totally works. It helps keep your sanity and it reminds you to focus on what you can change (your thoughts and actions) and the truth (which you never fully know so just assume the best because it’s so much more uplifting.)

So there was a lot of gold in this book, a lot of food for thought, a lot of honesty. I will say that there was also some repetition and the last 30% took me forever to get through and I was so tired of the word nonsense by then. It was too overused and I was feeling annoyed. There were a lot of ideas I’d already read before or seen but it was woven well together. I also felt like I could have used more help with guidance around getting to the root issue myself. Finding my true nonsense. Because much of the book makes the case for it (sold. i believe i need to get to the real heart of the matter before I can change things.) and then she talked about now that i know it what do i do (Except I still wasn’t sure I knew mine. Sometimes the cause and outcome can be so intertwined and I just felt lost.) I would have loved some examples of how others (along with her) peeled that onion.

As with most good books that are about working on yourself, nothing changes unless I do the work. This book was a good reminder that it’s possible and it highlighted the value of calling yourself on your own bullshit if you’d like to make positive change in your life. I will take what works for me and leave the rest. There was enough gold in here to keep me thinking, moving and focused.

With thanks to netgalley and hachette books for an advanced copy in return for an honest review.

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Anyone (3 stars): Ok so as an avid reader, I know there’s a time to read a book and a time when I am just not in the right place for a book. I am going to assume that’s what happened with this one. Everyone loved this book. Even people who didn’t like Soule’s first book loved this one. I actually really liked his first book. And I didn’t hate this one at all but I didn’t love it. There was too much going on and I was having to suspend my disbelief more and more and more and at some point I just didn’t even care. It felt too over the top. Too convoluted. Too many twists on top of twists. If you’re in the right mood, I can see you totally might love this one. For me, it came at the wrong time.

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When We Were Vikings (3 stars): “Everyone is a hero in their own lives,” he said. “That’s by default. But I wanted you to see that sometimes the world thinks something is not possible, but it turns out that they can be wrong. Even fancy scientists can be wrong.”

“Sometimes the most important things don’t fit on lists,” I said.

I dislike it when a book is compared to other books I’ve read and loved. Especially when it turns out that the comparisons aren’t accurate. This book is compared to The Silver Linings Playbook and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I think it’s like neither.

This is the story of Zelda, who has fetal alcohol syndrome and is living with her brother Gert. She’s a huge fan of Vikings and rules. The book is her quest to try to save her brother. It is a heart-warming book but it also has a lot of very serious topics and trigger warnings.

For some reason, I thought it would be a sweet, cute book. It is not.

It’s a touching book but it is serious. It has violence, it has parts that made me angry and parts that made me sad and also parts that made me hopeful. But the whole time, the hardest part was to get past the expectation that this book would be lighter than it actually was. So I want to set the expectations right in case you’re like me. This is not a light and fluffy book. It threw me off that there are a lot of quirky parts to this story and the characters come off a bit like quirky and yet the subject matter is so so serious and the topics covered are also very serious and not at all quirky. I guess this is where it tried to be like Silver Linings Playbook but I didn’t feel like it hit the mark as solidly.

It did gave me a lot to think about and I am glad I read it.

with gratitude to Gallery/Scout press and netgalley for an advanced copy in return for an honest review.

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The Lost Book of Adana Moreau (4 stars): Maxwell closed his eyes and thought of nothing and everything, all at once, just as Saul had taught him, as if he were walking through a dark labyrinth, the center of which was bathed in moonlight, or, like his missing father, sailing through an endless dark blue sea toward something unknown. Then he opened his eyes and began to read.

This is one of the most unusual books I’ve read in a while. The whole time I was reading it, I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. I wasn’t fully sure what was happening or where the story was going. And even after finishing the book, I am not fully sure how I feel about it. I want to make sure to mention that this is not a “plot” driven book. Not much happens in this book. Actually that’s not true. A lot happens in this book, but it’s like you get to know each character and their life story and how they get to be where they are and who they are so there is a lot happening but none of it is a single plot the story follows. The only plot is really that Saul finds Adana’s book and wants to return it to her son as his grandfather requested. That’s the actual plot. The rest is really the story of each of the characters. There are a lot of historical events and politics in this book surrounding the lives of each of the characters.

Some parts where more interesting to me than others and I loved the writing throughout but I didn’t fall in love with the book until I read how Maxwell and Saul’s grandfather meet. That section was by far my very favorite of the book.

In the end I loved my time with this unusual story.

But no matter how much we think we know, we end up knowing so little of our parents and even less of our grandparents, most lives are forgotten as soon as they’ve occurred.

with gratitude to netgalley and Hanover Square Press for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

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A Good Neighborhood (4 stars): “Valerie understood that while her son did and always would hold her heart in his hands, the fact of being a parent was that her son’s heart was and must be reserved for someone else.”

There’s so much to say about this book. So much I liked and so much I didn’t like. I thought a lot about how I should rate it and what it meant to me. I read this book in one sitting, and found myself attached to most of the characters and caring deeply about where it was going even as I knew it was going to be a train wreck of a book. Even as I knew I was being manipulated as a reader. I still couldn’t put it down. The writing was beautiful and compelling and I decided it deserved a high rating just for that.

There’s a lot going on in this book. Some of it felt completely unnecessary. I felt the author went more stereotypical and villain that I would have liked for some of the characters. It oversimplified the story and didn’t do justice to the complexity of racial issues and how they are there even when the person isn’t a totally disgusting person. There were hints of that as the neighborhood reacted to everything and there were some glimpses of that but overall I think the book made things too black and white and too preachy. My biggest beef was with Brad. There was just nothing redeemable about him in the book. There were glimpses to how nice he was being to Lily but it just wasn’t enough. Also I felt like the ending felt a bit rushed and didn’t really feel true to character, especially with Julia.

I did fall in love with Valerie and Xavier though and this book broke my heart in all the ways it was meant to.

with gratitude to netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

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The Murmur of Bees (4.5 stars): I loved this book from the very beginning. This beautiful story of a family that adopt the little baby, Simonopio, who is disfigured and surrounded by bees. This boy that saves the family again and again. The story of love, loss, brotherhood, sacrifice, and family. It reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whom I adore. If you like long, well-written family sagas with a historical backdrop and wonderful, memorable and well-developed characters, you will love this book.

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Apeirogon (5 stars): “I will tell it until the day I die, and it will never change, but it will keep on putting a tiny crack in the wall until the day I die.”

Column McCann is an incredible writer. This book has a format that will appeal to some and put off others. It worked for me. The book is the story of two men, one Palestinian and one Israeli, who both have lost daughters. They come together to help spread peace.

“I tried to hide it from my fellow prisoners but something in me changed—or maybe it hadn’t, but something was coming from a new direction, maybe I had just found something that was there all along.”

The book travels back and forth in time, in and out of fiction and non fiction, it stops in the middle of a scene and then picks it up pages later. It repeats bits and pieces. It has not just a purpose and a story but also a rhythm.

“Sometimes it feels like we’re trying to draw water from the ocean with a spoon, but peace is a fact.”

And it breaks every little part of your heart. It shows how awful we humans can be. It shows how awful we humans are. How we treat each other. In many parts, I was reminded of the Brene Brown quote about how we try to make people “other” and “not human” so we can hate them or hurt them and how when we get to know them as fellow humans, it becomes so much harder to write them off, to harm them.

“We need to learn how to share this land, otherwise we will be sharing it in our graves.”

I had never heard of the story of Rami and Bassam. It was eye opening, heartening and of course completely heartbreaking. I do not wish this type of loss on my worst enemy and I have unbounded respect for their ability to take such profound loss and turn it into an opportunity to broker peace. To still be able to love and not let the hate take over.

“Bassam clicks his tongue and half-smiles. A familiar and hopeless gesture: they can travel together anywhere in the world, but not these few miles.”

The day to day lives of people living in the West Bank are shared in detail in this story. Once you read it, it becomes impossible to un-know it. It becomes impossible to not let it get to you.

“The only interesting thing is to live.”

Everything about this book worked for me. I was blown away by it. By all the facts. By all the back and forth. By the terrible tragedies. By the senseless deaths. By the tireless fight for peace. By the incredible writing of Colum McCann.

With gratitude to netgalley and Random House for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Observational Sketching (4 stars): I really enjoyed this observational sketching book. I liked the different styles of the different sketchers and the deep research about how each ordinary piece that they sketched is actually manufactured. The book has a simple but relatively comprehensive tutorial on how to sketch basic objects, focusing on perspective, shapes and breaking things down. It then proceeds to give examples of sketches done for each simple object from multiple perspectives.

It’s not really an instructional book and it’s not pure eye candy either. I’d say it sits somewhere in the middle. There is a lot of detail in each sketch, showing the smallest pieces of each item.

If you’re interested in sketching, especially everyday ordinary objects, you will like this one.

with gratitude to netgalley and Quarto Publishing Group for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Oona Out of Order (4.5 stars): I loved this book.

I loved the idea of the plot, I loved the way the writer executed it, I loved the characters, I loved how it came together and fell apart and came together again. I loved how you thought you knew what was coming and then you were wrong but not shocked in a way that made you angry at the author. I loved how Oona was so far from perfect and yet I felt protective of her and rooted for her.

I read this book in one sitting. It made me happy and it was the perfect book for my 400th book of the year. Now I’m going to have to go read her other book, too.

Thank you netgalley and Flatiron Books for an advanced copy in return for an honest review.

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Hidden Places (4 stars): I am rating this book high most especially because it gave me a handful of places that are now in my bucket list to visit. Especially the caves in Belize, a beautiful park in Canada, a canyon in Arizona, a town in Peru, and an incredible forest in Germany.

The first few stories here were depressing and not all that interesting to me. The author gives you the history of each location and how it got to stay hidden or how it was uncovered. Most of the places have devastating histories and I was getting sad just reading it. But then she started talking about the kind of places that I was hoping to find in a book like this. Wonders of the world that are still untouched and hard to get to but then once you get there, it’s beautiful wilderness. Just reading about these places made me smile and yearn.

My biggest complaint about the book is the drawings. While they are okay and I usually love art, in this case, I found myself craving photos. I ended up looking up each of the places on the internet so I could see what they really looked like. Way more magical than the drawings. I wish the author would have chosen to couple the words with photos instead.

thank you to Quarto Publishing Group and netgalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Patron Saints of Nothing (4 stars): I loved this powerful YA book about Jay whose cousin in the Philippines has just died and he decides to take a trip there to figure out what happened and “see his family.” The story has the backdrop of the President Duterte’s drug war in the Philippines and is not your typical tale. This story is as layered and rich as its characters are and breaks your heart as it enrages you. Life is complicated, so are the choices we make and this book doesn’t simplify them one bit.

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Separation Anxiety (3.5 stars): “Being a child’s primary focus is temporary, fleeting; I knew that the aperture was closing, that the light on me would eventually dim and I’d be replaced with friends.”

I have mixed feelings about this book. The story has a lot of absurd parts which I think was always the intention. It’s about a mom who’s wearing the family dog in a baby sling, after all. But that’s not all of it. There are more moments like this where you’re like really? what made the author pick that choice?

“All I feel is loneliness—every cell in my body and brain is empty and devoid of what’s supposed to connect me to the rest of the world—and to Gary—and I am full of a strange new grief, that of a nonjoiner who suddenly sees what they’ve been missing out on all these years: community, connection, the quiet comfort of others.”

But then there are such resonant moments. Moments where I felt like she was speaking directly to me, directly to experiences I’ve had, feelings I carry, and grief I have. I would have to take a break and be in the moment, and experience someone reflecting my truth so eloquently.

“No one cares how weird your life is, Judy. Or all the ways you think it’s failed you,” Gary says. “Your mother’s gone. No one sees the bird on your head except you.”

So many of us hang on to experiences and feelings (especially of inadequacy long after the source is gone.)

‘Loss has made you afraid of life, but you have to stay open. Porous. You have to let all the available light—all the tiny shards of joy—still flow through you.” She closes her eyes. “Who knows what beauty the rest of the way will bring.”’

I love the image of tiny shards of joy flowing through me. I love love love that image so much.

“I feel all the available light—all the life—all the tiny shards of joy and sadness and grief and love—flow through me, the chimera of the past finally giving way to the reality of the present: we are who we are; we are doing our best; it will all work out. It is a choice—to accept, to believe, to remain—and I am choosing all of it now.”

This book is full of beautiful moment. Beautiful thoughts, truths, grief and absurdity of life. I think in the end, though, I felt like it tried too hard. It was a bit too absurd. Just shy of what I would have called a really good read.

with gratitude to netgalley and HarperCollins Publishers for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

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It’s Not Always Depression (4 stars): “When we judge others for what and how much they feel, it says more about our capacity to handle the emotions of others.”

I had an exceptionally bad year in 2018. In May, I experienced a distinct shift in emotional state and fell deeper and deeper into what looked awfully like a depression. I don’t know if it was depression or not but I do know it made living my life considerably harder. It took thirteen months for the curtain to lift and for me to feel some light again.

So when I saw this book at the library, I wanted to see what I could learn. And I am glad I did. This book uses the Change Triangle and talks about the importance of feeling your feelings.

There are:
– 7 core emotions: fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust, excitement, and sexual excitement
– inhibitory emotions: anxiety, shame, guilt
– defenses: all the ways in which you try not to feel emotions
– openhearted self: calm, curious, connected, compassionate, confidant, courageous, clear.

The book focuses on going through the triangle to identify which of the 7 core emotions you’re actually feeling so you can feel it and then move to openhearted self. She talks about the importance of not just noticing the core emotion, but naming it, feeling it, staying with the sensation of it, all the way to the end of it, create fantasies to counter it (or things it evokes.) so that it can help you move to the openhearted state of the authentic self.

Sounds easy but of course like all worthwhile things, it is not. And yet it’s simple.

Glad I read this one.

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And there we go, a bunch of reading this week, ending my week is 402 reads for the year. Here’s to a great 2020.

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Books I Read this Week 2019 is a year-long project for 2019. You can read more about my projects for 2019 here. I am also tracking my books in real time on Good Reads here. If you’re on Good Reads add me so I can follow you, too! I’ve also started an instagram account where I join my love of reading with my love of art.

In 2019, I read 404 books.

• My favorite read of the year was: A Woman is no Man
• My favorite YA read of the year was: The Poet X
• My favorite graphic novel read of the year was: Good Talk
• My favorite non-fiction read of the year was: Invisible Women
• My favorite SciFi read of the year was: This Is How You Lose the Time War
• My favorite Fantasy read of the year was: Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance
• Here are all my five star rated books from this year:
  • Noble Heart: A Self-Guided Retreat on Befriending Your Obstacles
  • Everything My Mother Taught Me
  • Inward
  • Normal People
  • Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed
  • In an Absent Dream (Wayward Children, #4)
  • Living Beautifully: An Inspirational Journal
  • Becoming
  • The Bride Test (The Kiss Quotient, #2)
  • Where To Begin: A Small Book About Your Power to Create Big Change in Our Crazy World
  • Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations
  • Plainsong (Plainsong, #1)
  • A Woman Is No Man
  • An Uncommon Atlas
  • The Art of Visual Notetaking
  • The Poet X
  • The Wisdom of Anxiety
  • Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance
  • Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
  • Apeirogon: A Novel
  • It’s a Numberful World: How Math Is Hiding Everywhere
  • Painting Masterclass
  • Olive, Again
  • Limitless Mind
  • The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse
  • Welcoming the Unwelcome
  • Things My Son Needs to Know About the World
  • This Song Will Save Your Life
  • There You Are
  • This Is How You Lose the Time War

And here are all my reads from 2019 in order. You can find all the reviews here and my drawings with reviews on instagram here.

1. Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life
2. The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell
3. Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
4. The Library Book
5. The Art of the Good Life
6. Uprooted
7. Plainsong
8. A Key to Treehouse Living
9. Talking Across the Divide
10. Bad Blood
11. Some Assembly Required
12. The Happiness Project
13. Chief Joy Officer
14. Can You Ever Forgive Me
15. Juliet the Maniac
16. Keep Going
17. Every Heart a Doorway
18. The Au Pair
19. The Water Cure
20. The Widows
21. Brave, not Perfect
22. Normal People
23. The Dreamers
24. O’s Little Guide to Finding Your True Purpose
25. Down Among the Sticks and Bones
26. If, Then
27. Talk To Me
28. A Dangle a Day
29. Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss
30. white fragility
31. Have You Seen Luis Velez?
32. Inheritence
33. The 4 habits of Joy-filled marriages
34. The Editor
35. Journey into yourself
36. Beneath the Sugar Sky
37. So Lucky
38. Our Life in a Day
39. In an Absent Dream
40. I Owe you One
41. recursion
42. elsey come home
43. the body is not an apology
44. the shape of a life
45. DIY Watercolor Flowers
46. golden child
47. lie with me
48. here and now and then
49. the lost man
50. the silent patient
51. more than words
52. the fifteen wonders of daniel green
53. The Plotters
54. Freefall
55. The Test
56. Becoming
57. The Two Hearts of Eliza Bloom
58. After
59. 99 percent mine
60. Digital Minimalism
61. When You Read This
62. Liquid Rules
63. Happy Money
64. The Organic Painter
65. Look Closer, Draw Better
66. Things my son needs to know about the world
67. On the Come up
68. The Study of Animal Languages
69. The Valedictorian of Being Dead
70. The unwinding of the miracle
71. The Last Romantics
72. Early Riser
73. The Island of Sea Women
74. An Anonymous Girl
75. I Think You’re Wrong but I am Listening
76. Visual Notetaking
77. The Happiness Diary
78. Where Reasons End
79. The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls
80. Territory of Light
81. Unhoneymooners
82. wingspan
83. The curious charms of arthur pepper
84. Brave Love
85. Girl, Stop Apologizing
86. Daisy Jones and the Six
87. Factfulness
88. The Cassandra
89. The River
90. Tangle’s Game
91. The Secret of Clouds
92. Be Angry
93. Shout
94. Being Creative: Be inspired. Unlock your originality
95. A Woman is No Man
96. Riots I have Known
97. The Perfect Liar
98. By Invitation Only
99. The Self-Love Experiment
100. Creative Selection
101. American Kingpin
102. The Urban Sketching Handbook: Working with Color
103. The Penguin Lessons
104. Before She Knew Him
105. You Do you
106. Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey
107. When All Is Said
108. Opposite of Always
109. The Wildlands
110. On Being Human
111. Golden State
112. If Cats Disappeared from the World
113. The Night Tiger
114. Rumi: Unseen Poems
115. Brand Identity Essentials, Revised and Expanded
116. Creative Lettering and Beyond: Timeless Calligraphy
117. Realistic Portraits in Colored Pencil
118. Hughie Mittman’s Fear of Lawnmowers
119. Stretched Too Thin
120. Outer Order, Inner Calm
121. The Parade
122. Lot
123. One True Loves
124. The Salt Path
125. The Path Made Clear
126. Queenie
127. The Porpoise
128. Understanding Numbers
129. An Uncommon Atlas
130. The Silver Ladies of Penny Lane
131. Grace After Henry
132. The Ditch
133. How to Raise Successful People
134. The Places That Scare You
135. My Lovely Wife
136. Lights All Night Long
137. The Man in the next Bed
138. The Other Americans
139. Juliet’s School of Possibilities
140. The Billion Dollar Whale
141. The White Book
142. Draw Like an Artist
143. Senlin Ascends
144. Wolfpack
145. I Miss you When I Blink
146. The Poet X
147. The Dream Peddler
148. Era of Ignition
149. Any Ordinary Day
150. Life is Short Don’t Wait to Dance
151. Mostly Sunny
152. Skin
153. The Memory of Light
154. Inspection
155. Only Ever Her
156. Utopia for Realists
157. After I Do
158. There’s a Word for That
159. Feast Your Eyes
160. The Weight of a Piano
161. Maybe Someday
162. Reasons the Stay Alive
163. Have More Fun
164. The Girl He Used to Know
165. Fifty Things that aren’t my Fault
166. The Honey Bus
167. Ask Again, Yes
168. Miracle Creek
169. How to Be Yourself
170. Fumbled
171. The Mother-in-Law
172. Walking on the Ceiling
173. Good Talk
174. Meet Cute
175. The F*ck It Diet
176. The Secret Life
177. The Bride Test
178. How to draw and Write with a Fountain Pen
179. The Algebra of Happiness
180. The Printed Letter Bookshop
181. Anywhere, Anytime Art: Illustration
182. It’s a Numberful World
183. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
184. When We Left Cuba
185. Inward
186. All that you Leave Behind
187. This Song will Save your Life
188. A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World
189. Exhalation: Stories
190. The Unpassing
191. Rules for visiting
192. Everything is F*cked
193. Noble Heart
194. Marriage-ology
195. The Better Sister
196. The Invited
197. With the Fire on High
198. The Farm
199. Middlegame
200. The Wisdom of Anxiety
201. The Sentence is Death
202. The seven or Eight deaths of Stella Fortuna
203. The Flatshare
204. Stop Doing that SH*t
205. The Scent Keeper
206. City of Girls
207. When We Found Home
208. The Perfect Date
209. Boy Meets Depression
210. Magic for Liars
211. Fix Her Up
212. One Strategy
213. This is Home
214. The Ruin
215. Celestial Watercolor
216. How Not to Die Alone
217. Own Your Everyday
218. The Friend Zone
219. For the Love of Books
220. The Untethered Soul at Work
221. The Body in Question
222. Dawn
223. Disappearing Earth
224. Painting Masterclass
225. Ever After
226. This is How You Lose the Time War
227. Red, White, and Royal Blue
228. A Nearly Normal Family
229. Tea and Cake with Demons
230. Drawing Home
231. Biased
232. Olive, Again
233. Evvie Drake Starts Over
234. Apollo Leadership Lessons
235. The Islanders
236. Heads of the Colored People
237. The Last Book Party
238. The Huntress
239. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
240. The Expectations
241. What I Wish I knew When I was 20
242. Player’s Ball
243. I am her Tribe
244. The Nickel Boys
245. State of the Union
246. Callings
247. The Wedding Party
248. The Confession Club
249. The more or less Definitive Guide to Self Care
250. The Gifted School
251. The Lager Queen of Minnesota
252. The Most Fun We Ever Had
253. The Dutch House
254. Notes to Self
255. Has Anyone Seen the President?
256. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
257. Searching for Sylvie Lee
258. Gravity Is the Thing
259. Limitless Mind: Learn, Lead, and Live Without Barriers
260. Unfu*k Yourself Workbook
261. Chances Are…
262. That’s What Frenemies Are For
263. The Book Charmer
264. On the Corner of Love and Hate(Hopeless Romantics, #1)
265. Never Have I Ever
266. Pretty Guilty Women
267. The Great Unexpected
268. Lanny
269. The Right Swipe(Modern Love, #1)
270. If You Want to Make God Laugh
271. The Ten Thousand Doors of January
272. The Floating Feldmans
273. Things You Save in a Fire
274. Turbulence
275. You’ve Been Volunteered: A Class Mom Novel
276. We Are All Good People Here
277. Say Say Say
278. Because You’re Mine
279. No Happy Endings
280. All the Water in the World
281. The Practicing Mind: Bringing Discipline and Focus into Your Life
282. The Turn of the Key
283. A Bend in the Stars
284. The Testaments
285. The End of Loneliness
286. Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know
287. The Miracles of the Namiya General Store
288. Dominicana
289. The Dearly Beloved
290. Family of Origin
291. Read This if You Want to be Great at Drawing People
292. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World
293. Inspired Artist: Draw Every Little Thing: Learn to draw more than 100 everyday items, from food to fashion
294. The Grace Year
295. How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems
296. Nature Tonic: A Year in My Mindful Life
297. A Mindful Year: 365 Ways to Find Connection and the Sacred in Everyday Life
298. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse
299. A Pure Heart
300. Twice in a Blue Moon
301. The Whisper Man
302. Summer Frost
303. Emergency Skin
304. Fleishman Is in Trouble
305. There You Are
306. Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World
307. Nothing to See Here
308. The Memory Police
309. Well Met
310. Red at the Bone
311. Little Faith
312. Broken Man on a Halifax Pier
313. The Water Dancer
314. Little Weirds
315. The Library of Lost and Found
316. Living Beautifully: An Inspirational Journal
317. Royal Holiday(The Wedding Date, #4)
318. The Art of Watercolor Lettering: A Beginner’s Step-by-Step Guide to Painting Modern Calligraphy and Lettered Art
319. The Chain
320. Rewilding: Meditations, Practices, and Skills for Awakening in Nature
321. The Future of Another Timeline
322. The Simple Wild (Wild, #1)
323. If You Tame Me
324. Healthy as F*ck: The Habits You Need to Get Lean, Stay Healthy, and Kick Ass at Life
325. Don’t You Forget About Me
326. Healthy Habits Suck: How to Get Off the Couch and Live a Healthy Life… Even If You Don’t Want To
327. If You Were There
328. The World That We Knew
329. The Swallows
330. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
331. Lifescale: How to Live a More Creative, Productive, and Happy Life
332. Ninth House (Alex Stern, #1)
333. Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World
334. A Random Act of Kindness
335. Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home
336. Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
337. Midnight at the Blackbird Café
338. Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts
339. The Weddings
340. The Lion’s Den
341. Can You Feel This?
342. Everything My Mother Taught Me
343. Zenith Man
344. Big Dreams, Daily Joys: Get Things Done, Make Space for What Matters, Achieve Your Dreams
345. Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations
346. Half-truths and Semi-miracles: A Short Story
347. Everyone’s a Critic
348. Worry-Free Living: Let Go of Stress and Live in Peace and Happiness
349. Universal Methods of Design Expanded and Revised: 125 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions
350. All This Could Be Yours
351. Love Poems for Married People
352. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed
353. Love Lettering
354. The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution
355. After the End
356. The Color of Style
357. I Will Never See the World Again
358. The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club, #1)
359. Saving Francesca
360. Once More We Saw Stars
361. If Only I Could Tell You
362. Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive
363. The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae
364. The Family Upstairs
365. A Warning
366. The Math of Life and Death: 7 Mathematical Principles That Shape Our Lives
367. The Starless Sea
368. Where To Begin: A Small Book About Your Power to Create Big Change in Our Crazy World
369. Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer, #1)
370. Verity
371. Where the Forest Meets the Stars
372. We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life
373. Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home
374. Watercolor the Easy Way: Step-By-Step Tutorials for 50 Beautiful Motifs Including Plants, Flowers, Animals & More
375. Creative Journaling: A Guide to Over 100 Techniques and Ideas for Amazing Dot Grid, Junk, Mixed Media, and Travel Pages
376. Whiskey & Ribbons
377. What if There Is Nothing Wrong With You: A Practice in Reinterpretation
378. Lost Children Archive
379. Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators
380. Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters, #1)
381. Lawn Boy
382. Would Like to Meet
383. Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance
384. Everyone Knows You Go Home
385. You Have Arrived at Your Destination
386. The Dating Charade
387. Regretting You
388. Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy
389. Night of Miracles (Mason, #2)
390. Anyone
391. The Year of No Nonsense: How a Little Less Bullsh*t Can Change Your Life
392. When We Were Vikings
393. A Good Neighborhood
394. The Lost Book of Adana Moreau: A Novel
395. The Murmur of Bees
396. Apeirogon
397. Observational Sketching
398. Hidden Places
399. Oona Out of Order
400. Patron Saints of Nothing
401. Seperation Anxiety
402. It’s not Always Depression
403. A Keeper
404. Guests of August

I was purposefully planning to read 100 fewer books in 2019 than I did in 2018, I ended up reading 100 more. I am not going to try to guess how 2020 goes. I will just let myself be. I will try to live my life and read as much as I would like.

Here are my goodreads reviews. If you’re on goodreads, add me as a friend so I can see your books too! I’ve also started an instagram account where I join my love of reading with my love of art.

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Would Like to Meet (2.5 stars): This was a cute book but didn’t really leave me with much to remember. I could tell all the smallish twists well before they showed up and the “obvious to everyone but the main character” types of stories aren’t my favorite, so this one did not make the top of my list. I think this has been the year of cute romance which I love seeing but I am learning (just like i did 5-6 years ago for young adult) that sometimes a genre explodes and part of the task, for me, is finding my specific preferences within that explosion. This one wasn’t for me but you might love it.

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Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance (5 stars): I bought this book almost a year ago and it’s been sitting on my audible queue this whole time. I am not sure why I waited this long to actually listen to it. Maybe the name made me worry it would be scary. And I will say that the very beginning of the book was confusing for me. But I stuck with it and I am so so glad I did.

What a marvelous book!

This will definitely be in the top of my lists from this year. What an unusual, rich, and layered book. What great storytelling. What fantastic characters. What creativity. I loved and adored this one.

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Everyone Knows You Go Home (4 stars): I’ve read several immigration related novels this year. This one might be near the top of that list. I’ve loved the small amount of magical realism in this book and the way the story weaves together. Even though I sort of figured out the ending (I am not even sure it was trying to be a twist) but I still felt very attached to the story. Especially the one taking place in the past. Isabel and Martin were less interested partly because I felt they (and their love) weren’t as developed. You didn’t get to see as much of their life’s journey. This story is heart-wrenching and shows the sacrifices people make to pass through the borders and the ways in which our decisions and choices can have consequences that last for generations. A beautiful story.

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You Have Arrived at your Destination (4 stars): “But our strengths don’t serve us well in every circumstance at every phase of our lives. As we grow and enter new contexts, our longer-term strengths can suddenly hamper our worldly progress, which in turn can create dissonance at home.”

This was the last book in the Forward series that I’d intended to read but put off. I finally sat down to read it and it was a 20-30 minute read. The idea of genetically creating a kid is not new. In fact, the movie Gattaca talked about this more than 20 years ago. The personality angle was newer and I did like it especially around the concept of second and third arcs.

But the part I loved the most was Sam’s reflection about his own life and the lack of perfection in this whole story that’s really about trying to create perfection. There’s so much packed into this little one novella. I enjoyed it a lot.

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The Dating Charade (3 stars): I might have read too many romance books this year. By the time I read this one, I was rolling my eyes at the parts where if only the two characters just sat and talked, this whole book wouldn’t exist. I know that a comedy of errors is a genre and it can be fun at times, but maybe I just need a break at this point. This was cute but really not anything I will remember. I know that writing a book is a lot of work and I would never want to brazenly dismiss that work. If romance is your genre, you will likely enjoy this book. I did. Just didn’t find it exceptional.

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Regretting You (4 stars): Remember when I said I’d read too many romance novels this year? Nope, that wasn’t the problem. I am not sure why I felt compelled to read this as soon as I saw someone write about how much they loved it. But I saw it was available in kindle unlimited and I checked it out immediately and basically jumped my queue to read it. I started it and read it straight for 3 hours and then snuck pages in while I was waiting at the movies (side point: we saw “Knives Out” which was excellent) and then I stayed up until 1am to read more of this, and then woke up at 5am wanting to just finish the book already which I pretty much did without a break.

I loved this book.

I loved both of the characters (in fact all 4 of the main characters.) I really enjoyed Clara’s voice and felt it was authentic (at least for me) and loved Morgan’s voice too, especially more at the end. I felt connected to all the characters and found myself rooting for them, feeling for them, living their conundrum and really empathizing in general.

loved this one.

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And there we go, a bunch of reading this week, ending my week is 387 reads for the year. Here’s to another great week next week.

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Books I Read this Week 2019 is a year-long project for 2019. You can read more about my projects for 2019 here. I am also tracking my books in real time on Good Reads here. If you’re on Good Reads add me so I can follow you, too! I’ve also started an instagram account where I join my love of reading with my love of art.