Books I read: November and December

Somehow I missed posting about the books I read in November. Spoiler: It wasn’t many. But I would be remiss if I didn’t finish this up, so I’m combining my poor-showing November with my strong-finish December. I made it to 96 books (well, the last two I started in 2013 and finished in 2014, but the bulk was read in December so I'm counting it there). Not my best, but I’m not as disappointed in it as I thought I would be. I’m excited for 201 reading. I’m going to reread all the books I want, without worrying about numbers. I’m going to read new when I want and I’m going to keep track still, although I don’t know if I’m going to keep track in two separate lists or combine for total numbers. But this year the pressure’s off. Reading is back to just enjoying myself. I really do love to read. A friend put up a goal of 100 books for herself for this year, and asked for recommendations. I think including all series I suggested about 50 books.

November

78 The Dream Thieves - Maggie Stiefvater Not as good as the first in the series, but not bad. I felt like she was trying to go too many different ways. I wanted more focus.

79 Fall of Giants - Ken Follett This is why I read so few books in November – this book took me a LONG TIME. I liked it though! I’m going to read the second, I’m just not going to freak when it takes me nearly another three weeks. I’m not a big history fan so the war stuff (2/3 of the total book) took me a long time, but I did enjoy. The relationships reminded me a lot of Downton Abbey.

80 Tell the Wolves I'm Home - Carol Riftka Brunt This was so lovely and … frail. I loved it.

81 Honey, Baby, Sweetheart - Deb Caletti I needed some light fiction after the past two books. This was meh, but it did the job.

82 The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce I nearly quit this at the beginning due to boredom, but I persevered and I enjoyed it. Not a raging compliment, there, but it was decent.

December

83 Seraphina - Rachel Hartman Obviously a book about dragons that take human form is not something I would have tried without a recommendation. I like fantasy but THAT is out there. This was quite delicious, and I can’t wait for the next one.

84 The Orphan Master's Son - Adam Johnson I was so into this at the beginning – it was utterly readable and for a text about North Korea, for me, that’s saying a lot. Unfortunately the second part took a nose dive and I couldn’t get anywhere with the second person narration. Abandoned.

85 Allegiant - Veronica Roth I loved it, and I loved how it ended and I can’t wait to dive back into the whole trilogy this year.

86 Selection - Kiera Cass This was recommended when I needed something light. It’s light, and I enjoyed it, but dude. It’s like the Bachelor set in a kingdom. With whiny teenagers. So exactly like the Bachelor.

87 Elite - Kiera Cass Second book, same as the first.

88 Prince - Kiera Cass Novella from the Bachelor’s perspective. I think I enjoyed it. It was okay. It was short, which was a plus.

89 The Favor - Megan Hart I picked this up when I was picking up something else from the library. It was just okay – I wanted a light romance and this was a little more complicated but not any more believable and the ending came way out of left field for me.

90 Beautiful Ruins - Jess Walter Parts of this were beautiful, but the three stories intermingled didn’t really give enough of any one story.

91 Mystery of Mercy Close - Marian Keyes I love Marian Keyes; it’s been quite a while since I’ve read any of her books so I had a hard time remembering some of these characters as they related to each other (she likes to write about a family of five sisters so that each book is its own, but basically exist in the same “world” so you see a lot of the same characters). I might go back and read the others too.

92 Fiery Heart - Richelle Mead Not as good as past books, but I’m still at a point where it doesn’t matter to me – Mead has my heart. And the end of this one sets up what I hope is a fantastic next book.

93 The Sword and Salt Collection Tales 1-3 - Lindsay Buroker Ahh, Lindsay. You had me at hello. This was a group of short stories that appear to be setting up her next series, in the same world as Emporer’s Edge. Happy me.

94 Death of Santini - Pat Conroy This memoir was like learning a magician’s tricks. I was interested, but saddened to find so many of the bits of my favorite books lifted directly from his life with no real changes, even. It also highlighted for me something I learned when in my fiction classes: writing directly from your memory creates a character that is truly unbelievable to the reader. You have to add humanity to one who seems to have none for anyone to believe that person is real.

95 The Midwife's Here - Linda Fairley Interesting but far too rosy to seem real. Even the tragedies were upbeat. See what I did there? This might be exactly how she remembers it, but it just didn’t feel true.

96 Children and Fire - Ursula Hegi One day in the Nazi uprising. Not my usual cup of tea but pretty darn good. Not really at all about the Nazis, just as a backdrop.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to dig into Hunger Games again (edit: no, I won't because I wandered into the bedroom to do so and C was laying on the bed reading it. The man doesn't read, and decided to start the same day I wanted to reread it. Here I go over to Harry Potter then!). Happy day.