I am definitely on track to match last year’s goal to read 150 books in a year. I am not sure I’m going to make 200 books this year though. I’ll have to read like the wind, and the fall tv season just started back up, and my writing commitments are increasing a lot this month. However, the five hours I have gained by sending Eli to preschool are dedicated to reading, so you never know. Also, I do apologize, but I am not putting Amazon links in this post because I just don’t have time. If you need to know what a specific book is and can’t find it on Google or Amazon, let me know.
79. Half Broke Horses. Not as good as the Glass Castle, but still entertaining.
80. The Wednesday Wars. Janssen told me to read this for years before I actually got around to it. She wasn’t wrong. I loved it. Probably my favorite book I’ve read this quarter.
81. Birthmarked. Entertaining, for sure. Not the GREATEST book I’ve ever read, but fast paced and interesting, although nowhere near as good as Finnikin of the Rock, which it reminded me of a bit.
82. The Cardturner. Eh. It had an interesting premise, but in the end it was just sort of…dumb. Sadly, I think I was disappointed because it sounded cool AND it looked cool. It had a really nice cover. The book itself was a let down compared to the cover.
83. Finnikin of the Rock. I LOVE Melina Marchetta. She’s just so great at fantasy. Her books all have this deep intensity that draws you in and captures you and makes you care so much what happens to everyone in them. I could have tolerated slightly less goings on regarding HOW HORRIBLE the treatment was of the disadvantaged people in the book, because imagining that for hours on end got to be a bit much, but still. Loved it.
84. Saving Cee Cee Honeycutt. Meh. Honestly this book was sort of insulting. It was just so…twee and insipid.
85. As Easy As Falling Off the Face of the Earth. What on earth was this book about? Oh, yes, now I sort of remember. Boring, and obviously not memorable.
86. The Most They Ever Had. I’d read the phone book if Rick Bragg wrote it.
87. Countdown. Super boring.
88. I Shudder. A little ways into this book, I realized that the author was telling us that he was the WRITER OF SISTER ACT. THE MOVIE. And then I sat up and was like “Woah. This guy wrote SISTER ACT? HE IS AWESOME.” Also, super funny. I wish I wrote this way.
89. Green Glass Sea. Urgh. Boring.
90. March. Oh, I wanted to like this book. It won the Pulitzer Prize! But I hated it. It’s the story of what the author imagines the father from Little Women is doing while he’s off at war, and I SO DID NOT AGREE. NO NO NO THAT IS NOT WHAT MR. MARCH WAS DOING WHILE MARMEE SAT AT HOME.
91. Two For the Road. I adore Jane and Michael Stern. They write with such love about each other and about food, and they make you laugh. What more could you ask for? But fair warning, this book will make you want to eat SO MUCH fried chicken.
92. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. We read this for book club. Erik hated it. I did not hate it, although I was predisposed to hate it because I am generally quite unforgiving of fiction based around 9/11, and I also hated Everything Is Illuminated. This, I only half hated. The story of the young boy, I liked, and the story of the grandparents I despised. Violently.
93. Anthropology of An American Girl. OH! SO disappointing. The best title I think I’ve heard in YEARS. I was so excited to read this book, you guys. I had it on hold FOREVER at the library and the title is so great and I read a good review somewhere and it was just so frickin terrible. It was so long and it made no sense and the narrator was a terrible uninteresting person who just moped around letting whatever happen to her and detailing every.single.nonsensical.thought.she ever had. URRRRRRRRRRRG. Brushing her teeth every morning took five pages of NOTHING and those five pages didn’t even make sense. I had to check Amazon reviews to make sure it wasn’t just me. And yeah, it wasn’t just me.
94. Backseat Saints. It was a quick read, and I liked the main character, but it was filled with plot twists made possible only by WILD leaps of coincidence, and the handling of domestic violence rubbed me the wrong way as well. I read it, and I didn’t hate it, but I returned the other book by this author to the library unread, if that’s any indication.
95. Incarceron. Nowhere near as good as Finnikin of the Rock.
96. Little Bee. I was prepared to haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate this, because Janssen haaaaaaaaaaaaaaated it, but I didn’t mind it. I preferred one of the narrators over the other. And I found it a bit odd. And man was it depressing. But I liked the voice. It felt fresh, for lack of a better word. I am glad I read it.
97. Lucy. Oh man, I was also SO excited to read this, and lordo, was it ever terrible. I had to withdraw it as a suggestion for book group. The dialogue read like it been translated into english by an illiterate 12 year old. Just…no.
98. The Prince of Frogtown. Argh, Rick Bragg, you kill me with how awesome you are. I read passages out loud to Erik. Especially awesome if you are a parent of a young boy, because in the book he is becoming a dad to a boy of a certain age and it’s just really hilarious and touching and funny all at the same time.
99. Linger. Not as good as Shiver, by a mile. The “other” couple was more interesting this time around, and the parent situation got weird and annoying.
100. Daemon. So bad and so hokey and yet I could not stop reading it. Computers are taking over the world, yo.
101. The Short Bus. Yeah, really terrible, actually. The author mentioned for the eight hundred millionth time in the first chapter that he went to BROWN, oh my god did you know HE WENT TO BROWN, by the way the author of this book WENT TO BROWN. Well, anyway, that got old. Also, the author of this book? Who went to BROWN? In case you were not aware, he went to BROWN.
102. When It Happens. I have no idea what this was about. I do not remember one second of it. Quite frankly, I am too tired to even look it up.
103. True Confections. Yawn.
104. The Beautiful Between. Ah, the boyfriend in this book. I wanted to punch him in the face. Repeatedly. Then I wanted to knee him in the biscuits. And then punch him in the face again. Apparently exhaustion makes me violent.
105. The Reformed Vampire Support Group. Again, boring. And too cute for its own good.
106. The Writing Class. If you’re going to name your book “The Writing Class” you may want to make sure its well written. This was not.
107. The Highly Sensitive Child. Turns out Eli isn’t highly sensitive! At least not according to the test in the front of this book.
108. Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day. Boo. This is just a more complicated and gussied up and annoying version of the NYT/Jim Sullivan No Knead bread that we’ve all been making for ages. And they don’t even give him credit! Lame.
109. Hunts In Dreams. Funny, and super good. Loved it.
110. Ship Breaker. Way more entertaining than I thought it would be. You know, I didn’t love it, but I really really liked it. Quite the page turner. But still no Finnikin of the Rock.
111. Sea Escape. And also, yawn.
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Your description of 106 made me giggle.
I have Half Broke Horses on my nightstand and now I’m a little apprehensive of reading it. I really want it to be as good as Glass Castle, which clearly it will not be. Sad.
So, I didn’t like Finnikin of the Rock. (I literally just flinched as I wrote that, waiting for you to explode out of the computer screen.) What am I supposed to make of those “not as good as FOTR” reviews!?!
“Then I wanted to knee him in the biscuits.” bwahaha!
I do love your book reviews, even though I am apparently a 10-year-old boy.
I checked out “Everything Is Illuminated” and was so pissed off at how self-congratulatory the cover and inside flap descriptions were that I flipped through it, glanced at some of the writerly writering and then threw it back in the book return the next day. Life’s too short for a Dave Eggars wannabe. I did like the other book, whose title I’m too lazy to type. The one you just read.
I agree about Backseat Saints but wasn’t able to articulate my dislike as well as you did.
I LOVED March, but mainly for the writing, and also by divorcing this character from my love of the original Little Women story.
You’ve given me about ten new books to put on the library list. I’m so behind. LOVED your description of the book that made you want to knee one of the characters in the biscuits! LOL!
Okay, I will pull Ship Wrecker out of my library bin and actually read it.
SO glad you loved Wednesday Wars!
Dude, that last comment was from me – I was logged in as my dad, working on something else (DAYS ago. . .clearly it’s been too long since I’ve read/commented on any blogs).
Either way, HOORAY for you loving The Wednesday Wars. I love that book so much.
Oh, I am so glad that you hated March, too! I listened to it on cd and by the end, I thought my eyes were going to get stuck in the back of my head from rolling them so much. What a ridiculous, predictable book.
And I quit listening to Incredibly Loud and Boring, or whatever the title is. I hated the little kid AND the grandparents and just couldn’t be bothered to keep listening to it.