2019: The Big Slump, and 2020 Goals

According to Goodreads,
In 2015, I read 43,281 pages across 194 books.
In 2016, 45,426 over 190 books.
In 2017, 29,373 over 122 books (It's hard to read after your dog dies).
In 2018, 45,746 over 169 books.

Last year, I read 25,839 pages over 83 books. I don't really know why, either. Plus a lot of it was just okay, which makes it really hard to write a blog about books. There's a lot, but mostly it comes down to this: writing about mediocre books didn't make me want to write anything at all. So I didn't.

But I did look back on my year to get these numbers (which I knew would be low, but daaaaaaamn), and realized that I did read a few things I'd like to highlight. 2019 round-up it is!

In no order at all:

1. Brazen and the Beast by Sarah MacLean
I need to say this: I love a chubby heroine. There are so many heroines that are smart/funny/sassy/interesting/brave now (yay!), but we still don't have a lot of heroines who are worried even a little bit about their size or stature. Hattie can't fit into a crowd, but she no longer wants to, either. She's tall and a bit heavier and all she wants is to take over her dad's business, but he thinks that she should still try to get married at 29. So she decides to ruin herself by spending a night at a brothel for ladies. Except that on her way, she encounters Whit, the Beast of Covent Garden, who promptly changes her life. I love the dialogue, I love the goals, I love the characters. Whit and Hattie forever.

2. Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
I loved Rogerson's first novel An Enchantment of Ravens, but I loved this one even more. Elisabeth has always lived at one of the Great Libraries, homes to grimoires of all the sorcerers. One night, an incredibly dangerous grimoire is let loose on the world and in trying to stop it, she is accused of being the one who set it free. She must work with a super hot sorcerer, who she has been told is very, very, very evil, to figure out who is sabotaging the libraries and with what goal. And also maybe fall in love.

3. Untrue: Why Almost Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free by Wednesday Martin
I don't remember where I heard about this book, but it was a fresh and fascinating look at female sexuality across humans and some primates. This book covered so much, but the things that stood out were how much more flexible women are when it comes to mates. how patriarchy versus matriarchy impact women's choices, and that I can't think about female primates mating with multiple males to trick them all into acting like the father without immediately starting to picture Mamma Mia!

4. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
I have loved the film since I first saw it and love to re-watch it on rainy summer nights, but I had never read the book because I thought it might be terribly outdated. Surprise, it wasn't! This title holds up very well and manages to be different enough from the movie that I was able to enjoy both and not see every single thing coming.

5. Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool by Clara Parkes
CAUTION: If you love yarn, maybe don't read this until you're looking for new yarn because it's catnip.
Clara Parkes was offered a bale of wool so that the yarn reviewer could learn how wool turns into yarn. Everywhere it went is somewhere I would now like to go. Her wool started at Catskill Merino, a farm that breeds cashmere-quality merino sheep. Don't look this up, it's beautiful and I want it. It was cleaned down in San Antonio, sent to multiple factories to be spun, dyed by multiple people in different fashions, and sold out on her website before I even finished reading the book. On the other side, this epic quest shows just how important it is that we support small wool businesses. Some of these factories have since closed. Dyers have stopped dying. It makes it more important than ever to know where your yarn comes from.

6. The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
I am not an audiobook person, but I loved this audiobook so much that I am going to try to do more audiobooks next year (it also pairs well with my knitting habit!). Alice is a lonely young British woman who meets a handsome Kentucky man and basically said, why not? She moves to Kentucky and quickly realizes that her new husband has dead mommy issues, daddy issues, and absolutely no idea what being married is all about. So when the call goes out for librarians to deliver books to the more rural parts of the area as part of Eleanor Roosevelt's traveling library plan, she is all in. She meets an excellent team of women and finds real joy in what she does. But you know, educating women is evil, women having independence is evil, etc. These women are brave and spunky despite the challenges they face, which makes me love them all the more.

And now some 2020 goals:

1. Clean off that damn TBR bookshelf of all books I purchased before today. I can probably do that.
2. Reread one book a month. I don't let myself do this enough.
3. Go to the movies once a month.
4. Try not to buy too much yarn (look at me setting myself up for failure!).

That's all, folks! Good luck to us all.

October/November! And the final #readmyowndamnbooks update.

 The Final #readmyowndamnbooks Update

I divided my TBR pile into two last month, putting books I bought before this year on a separate shelf to remind me that they've been waiting for me to read them for months or, in some very sad cases, years. When I look at them, it makes sense that I've put them off. Rebecca Traister's All the Single Ladies reminds me that I thought we'd have the first female president right now, as does Hillary's What Happened. I have books that daunt me with their page length (two more in the Outlander series plus Anna Karenina), alongside classics I don't honestly think I care about reading (Dracula, The War of the Worlds, The Red Badge of Courage). Then there's The Wrath and the Dawn, which is only there because I've read two other Arabian Nights-inspired titles this year.

But mostly, I see how far I've come. My book hoarding was an accidental byproduct of depression and the hope that I'd eventually get out of it and read many of those books. And now I'm down from over 100 books to about ten, plus a handful that I purchased this year. It's become manageable again, much like my life. I am very unlikely to clear off this stack by New Years' Day, but that's also okay. #readmyowndamnbooks served its purpose.

And with that, onto what is probably my last post of this year:

Nonfiction

1. Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube by Blair Braverman

This was everything I expected and then some. I came for the sled dogs (which are all over her Twitter feed!), the cold (Texas summers last until October), and the idea of escape (I have always wanted to run away and start over to varying degrees). What I didn't expect (and probably should have) was the amount of sexual harassment and assault that Braverman experienced throughout the memoir. From her host father during student exchange to her boyfriend, it's a reminder that even when braving the elements, women have more to fear than most men do. It also reminds us that being brave can reap incredible rewards.

2. Dead Feminists by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring

Feminists and letterpress fans will both enjoy this title, which expands and highlights their Dead Feminists collection of broadsides. Their beautiful, limited run prints sell out quickly, but this book binds them together with more information on each woman, plus a look at their design process for each broadside. I loved the details for all of them, but honestly it is just so pretty to look at that I ended up buying some of the reproduction postcards and framing them.

Classics

1. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

I have loved this story since the first time I saw the Branagh/Thompson film, likely sometime in high school. Beatrice has all the wonderful snark of Katherine from Taming of the Shrew, but none of the awful break-her-spirit nonsense. The Hero/Claudio storyline does leave something to be desired, though it does end happily. It would be great if men could just believe women, wouldn't it???

2. A Room With a View by E. M. Forster

A Room With a View (the Helena Bonham Carter version, obviously) was another of my teenage favorites. Lucy and George finally kissing in the middle of a field in Italy? Perfetto. The film is a surprisingly close adaptation,  I was remembering nearly scene for scene as I read. From that fateful room switching to terrible Cecil, it's a fairly easy, enjoyable read, despite all the trouble societal rules cause. Ignore the postscript because it's sad and garbage. #notmyroomwithaview

Best of the Rest

1. A Well-Behaved Woman by Therese Anne Fowler

I am not a woman who cares about the rich and famous, let alone the rich and famous of yesteryear, yet here I am telling you about this incredible story of Alva Vanderbilt. Without her family's pre-Civil War money or a mother (and with a very sick father), she schemes along with her best friend Consuelo Yznaga to marry into the Vanderbilt family. She gets everything she ever wanted, including money for her sisters, but it isn't what she expected. Never fully accepted into the family, she is braver and more determined than any of them to make a name for herself alongside them. Alva's perseverance is amazing, especially when the perfect image she's built starts to crumble.

2. The Girl With the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

Ellie's grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, had always called perfect days "red balloon days," which is why, during a class trip, she reached out and grabbed a red balloon that transports her back to 1988. Germany is still divided, but people are getting over the wall with these magical balloons that make them invisible so they can safely fly across it. When Ellie pops up, the entire group of runners and balloonmakers is confused and concerned. She shouldn't be there, but that doesn't mean there's an easy way to send her back. I really loved this book, especially since it is set in a time period that doesn't get very much attention. Plus magic! And romance!

3. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Sometimes I think that the phrase "this sucks" is the only way to summarize something, yet it's also wholly inadequate. Roy, a large black man, is accused by an old, fragile white woman of sexual assault. He is sent to jail in his hometown in the middle of Louisiana, far from his life with his wife Celestial in Atlanta. He is sentenced to 12 years, despite not committing the crime. While he's in jail, Celestial finds it harder and harder to live this version of her life. Her father's friend still works to free Roy, she still adds money to his commissary account, but she also can't be married to a man who will be away longer than they have been together. Told through letters and multiple points of view, this was such a thought-provoking read.

I hope that everyone has found something to read through these posts. The format will probably change next year without my #readmyowndamnbooks goals, but to what I am not sure. Hopefully you'll come back to find out!

August/September Mega Post!

September was a hot mess. I should have posted for August before I left for a week in Portland, but I didn't. I'm not sorry, but here's some alpaca photos from my trip anyway:

If you're ever in the Salem or Portland area, you can also visit these cuties at Marquam Hill Ranch in Molalla, Oregon.

And now time to talk about my other love, books!

Nonfiction:

1. Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister

Women have a complicated relationship with anger. It's not becoming to be angry. It's not polite to be angry. Yet, we are living during a time of immense female anger. Traister manages to put all this anger in perspective, looking at many examples of how women have used anger to get their point across and make change, from the suffragettes to the Women's Marches. She also reminds us that not all angry women are treated equally.

2. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

I should have read this years ago, but I didn't! I really love following Gay on Twitter, where she is petty and snarky and it's wonderful. Many of the personal pieces in this collection are really enjoyable for that reason, like the early one about her Scrabble tournament nemesis. This very personal approach lends itself to her critiques, though I also ended up feeling a bit tired of it by the end. I agreed with much of what she wrote, but it started to weigh me down by the end. 

Classics:

1. The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

UGH. I was excited for this translation, but I hate Odysseus. I actually hate him. And Telemachus? Yikes. There's really only so much a female translator can do with such high levels of disregard for women. I finally understood why we didn't read the entire thing in high school after book 22. Thankfully, I followed this with Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad. It's not perfect, either, but it is a balm.

2. Twelfth Night by Shakespeare

I am not mad that I read this, but I didn't enjoy it as much as much as She's The Man led me to believe I might.

Rereads:

1. The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler

A contemporary teen novel written in 2003 shouldn't still be relevant, yet both it and its 2018 sequel are incredibly timely (with a few updated references, of course). Virginia, a plump teen in a thin, exercise-happy family, is already lost at the beginning of her sophomore year after her best friend has been dragged to another city. And then it gets worse. Her perfect, god-like older brother rapes a classmate at a party, and her family closes ranks against the outside world. Don't tell anyone. Don't talk about it. Definitely don't feel sympathy for the victim, Annie. Her brother deserves whatever consequences he has coming, but Virginia can't help feel that she's being punished, too. 

The Best of the Rest:

1. The Bear & The Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden

Slept on this series big time. I am not great at Russian folklore, which I think it why I avoided this, but it is worth just going with the flow of everyone having five different names and nicknames because this story is excellent. Set in medieval Russia, the country is losing its old gods and leaning into Christianity. After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father finds a new wife who is very devout and had wished to join a convent. Vasilisa, on the other hand, still clings to the old tales, which makes her a witch once a new priest comes to town. While her father is away, the new stepmother sends her out to pluck out-of-season flowers, which pushes Vasilisa into the path of Morozko, a fickle winter god.

2. Sleepless, Volume One by Sarah Vaughn and Leila del Luca

When you need 24-hour protection, most people would hire multiple people. In this medieval-type setting, their guards just never sleep. They are, of course, called the Sleepless. Poppy, daughter of the former king, becomes prey once the new king, her uncle, takes over. Poppy's Sleepless Knight Cyrenic keeps a very close eye on her and thwarts attacks, but these two young and beautifully-drawn characters can't keep their feelings for each other under cover for very long. Intrigue and love alongside excellent illustrations made me fall in love with this series.

3. Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne

Billed as Jane Eyre in space, I had some reservations going in. Jane Eyre is not one of my favorite stories, but I heard so many good reviews that I had to pick it up. I am so glad that I did. This was just fun. Set in a post-apocalypse that caused everyone who could to abandon Earth in favor of ships that would orbit it until it was habitable again, Stella is an engineer on a bad ship. After two hundred years of circling the Earth, ships are falling apart and falling back to Earth. Hers is likely to be the next, but she also just really doesn't want to be an engineer anymore. She wants to be a teacher, which is how she ends up as a governess on The Rochester, an odd duck ship that is orbiting the moon for some unknown reason. The new captain is mysterious and hot, plus he has a collection of proper books and the entire digital collection of the Library of Congress (whatever, I'm in love with a man who saves books in the apocalypse, drag me). Weird things happen. Some of this story will be familiar, but the new location definitely adds new mysteries to an old story.

4. Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris

As a fan of Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries (Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood, y'all), I tried to read this back when it came out and couldn't get into it. Prompted by my enjoyment of the new TV series based on these books, I finally picked up a copy. And then I picked up the sequel, with plans to read the third soon. With many similarities to the Southern Vampire Mysteries (including some characters!), this is a great choice for her fans and anyone wanting to get a little weird for October. While the series starts with Manfred, a psychic, moving to town, the real star of the show is the town itself and the interesting characters it attracts. Everyone has a secret.

5. Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal
EXPECTED JANUARY 2019

Call me picky, but it takes quite a bit for a Pride & Prejudice adaptation to feel worth reading. This one, moved to the early 2000s and Pakistan, is worth reading. The societal norms presented by Kamal create an excellent atmosphere that can mimic P&P in a way few others have been able. While I could have done without some of the obvious references to the original (name dropping characters, comparing people to characters so that you'll know who is who), I really enjoyed this adaptation.

6. Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

I go back to Leigh Bardugo over and over again because she's fantastic at creating a mythology. This is the second in her Six of Crows duology, finishing the story of Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Wylan, Nina and Matthias for now, but it is a bumpy ride the whole time. After their attempted heist from the previous novel was foiled by a double-cross, the gang is fighting for their lives and for lives that would be worth living. This was a strong finish to the tale that left me wanting more (and with a possible opening for another story or two later!).

7. Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

I was really impressed with this story. Jane, a young black girl born to a white mother towards the end of the American Civil War, is born three days before the shambler (zombie) uprising. With a new common enemy, the war, though not the tensions that created it, is over. Schools for Native and African Americans pop up across the country training them to be shambler-killing gentlemen and ladies. Jane's enrolled in Miss Preston's School of Combat, but one curious night gets her sent off to an allegedly safe city in the middle of the country. But something is definitely not right, and Jane won't rest until she figures out what it is.

July, or the suckiest month

July sucked and I don't want to talk about it or think about it anymore.

Which is GOOD NEWS because I'm doing a Short Stack Speed Round!

Nonfiction:

A Stash of One's Own edited by Clara Parkes

Do you like yarn? Do you hoard yarn? Read this. You will find your people and also judge people who somehow don't keep their favorite fibers in the house. Also it's apparently a feminist act to take up space with your hobby, so there.

Literary Witches by Taisia Kitaiskaia, illustrations by Katy Horan

Great illustrations. Witchy references. References a ridiculous amount of books you'll want to read after finishing this.

Classics:

This just didn't happen this month.

Rereads:

Dietland by Sarai Walker

Women are deservedly angry, fight back. Somehow even more relevant than when it was published in 2015.

Best of the Rest:

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Did you think Harry and Draco had a ton of sexual chemistry and that Draco might be a vampire? This is for you.

Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah MacLean

Sexy good smuggler Devil wants to wreck his brother's life, tries to use locksmith spinster with scandalous past to do it. They totally fall for each other. Couldn't read this one in public because I spent a very large amount of time blushing.

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

Like a very long, good phone call with your Jewish grandmother, provided you like(d) her. I miss my grandma. We'd do crosswords over the phone together.

Sadie by Courtney Summers

COMING SEPTEMBER 4TH. A mix of the Serial podcast and Winter's Bone. Sadie runs away to find a man from her past who probably murdered her sister, uncovers a lot of other horrible realities. Still plans on murdering that guy.

And with that, I wash my hands of July.

June, or We're Halfway There

Let's talk #readmyowndamnbooks challenge progress!

I'm not going to include numbers because honestly, I am a little embarrassed by my own book-buying compulsions. That was part of the point of this experiment, so wow, go me, point made.

I honestly thought this would be going better, which is exactly why it's not. I wasn't worried that I would never finish this stack of books, so I bought more. It wasn't my intention to buy so many, but realistically I shouldn't have an Amazon account, Barnes & Noble membership, be allowed to sell my own books at Half Price Books or be unsupervised in any place that sells books. Acceptance is the first step, right?

On the plus side, my purchases are skewing away from comics and young adult novels towards more classics. Many of my DNF's have been by dead men, so I've intentionally chosen titles by women because honestly they're just better writers. I've also added a few romance novels! Despite feeling like I'm pro-romance novels for anyone who wants to read them, I have distanced myself from them in my own life. I've got some internalized anti-romance biases to overcome, starting with Sarah MacLean's The Wicked and the Wallflower. 

I am enjoying the challenge though. Despite it not going splendidly, it's forcing me to read things that have been on my shelves for years and that's a great thing. My TBR is a mixture of things I feel like I should have read by now, recents that I was super excited for before newer shinier books came out, and stuff people have given me (which I'm not 100% sure I wanted, but they come with expectations that I read them). At least it's summer, which means it's too hot and I'm too grumpy to read anything that I don't love. This last week of June was a bit of a massacre and I'm nearly ready to sell another bag of books.

Maxine Waters wouldn't read things she didn't enjoy in her leisure time!

I'm also down the total number of books on my TBR bookcase, so it's really not that big of a deal. I just haven't finished them all yet, despite already hitting my Goodreads goal for the year. My library book ban has helped, so I think I'll keep that into July.

Now for things I actually want to tell you about:

Nonfiction:

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande:

Anyone who will ever die should read this. It is slightly more useful for those who will die of old age because of its great information about assisted living, but death doesn't always wait that long. Gawande uses many cases, including that of his father, to explain the importance of knowing what we want out of our lives before we lose our options. When faced with death, there's no guarantee that any option is the best one, but knowing what matters to us can help us choose what risks we want to take with our last days. Whether it's hospice or surgeries or both, this book will definitely give you something to think about before the time comes when you have to make decisions.

FIRSTS: Women Who Are Changing the World from TIME Magazine:

I was impressed with the range of women included in this collection. Many comparable collections focus on a field (Women in Science, Literary Witches), but women from all backgrounds and industries are represented well. Each woman included had space to tell her story in her own words, which makes what they say or don't say even more fascinating. Ellen DeGeneres includes a quip about wondering how her former hecklers are doing and wagers that they haven't received a Medal of Freedom, which I liked very much. Other women include their challenges integrating male worlds (do women need tampons in space???) and facing the criticism of other women. One thing that really stood out was how many said that they didn't realize how important what they were doing was until after the fan mail started. The saddest part of this might be how relatively recent many of these firsts were and how many firsts we still haven't had.

Classics:

Daisy Miller and Other Stories by Henry James:

I loved Daisy Miller and hated her story. She's fun and ignores societal rules, promenading with a hot Italian guy despite every gossip in town telling her she's ruining her reputation. Clearly she was a loose woman and deserved to die. I related to her too much to feel that this was fair. Is there Daisy Miller fanfiction where she gets a happy ending???


Rereads:

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams:

I read and watched this one back in high school as a young drama nerd who was in charge of the theater department's library. I enjoyed this one, understanding too well the lies that flow within a family and the constant jockeying for position. Big Daddy is dying, though his children are lying to him and their mother about it. His favorite son, Brick, is an alcoholic and hates his wife Maggie. The other son and his wife and soon-to-be six children are an unruly nuisance trying to prove their need for Big Daddy's land, adding extra tension to what reads as a stifling summer night in the South. It's even better if you can picture Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman as Maggie and Brick, constantly circling one another.

Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett

Despite being a young adult retelling of You've Got Mail, this doesn't read as a retelling and is definitely enjoyable for adults. Bailey has a lot of emotional baggage, but she's running away from it (and her mom) to move in with her Dad across the country. He also happens to live in the same city where her flirty fellow film-buff Alex lives, but she's decided not to tell him she's coming. Instead, she splits her time between working at a weird historical home with her terrible, adorable boss Porter, and searching the city for her online flame. Incredibly adorable even the second time around.

Best of the Rest

Stay Sweet by Siobhan Vivian

It's the perfect time of year to read about a beloved ice cream stand with secret homemade flavors and a near-mythical founder. Working at the Meade Creamery stand is a dream for the girls of Sand Lake. Once you're in, you're in until you leave. Amelia and Cate have worked the four previous summers and are excited for their last before they go off to college, though Amelia's promotion to Head Girl has put a kink in their relationship. Things go even more sideways when, on their first day back, Amelia finds founder Molly Meade dead. A grandson shows up to lay claim to the family business, despite having no idea where Molly's famous recipes are and having no clue how things are done. Amelia finds herself pulled in every direction, wanting to save the stand, her friendship with Cate, and whatever might be doing on with this new guy. Fun, mostly light-hearted and I fully support the ending!

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wange

I definitely picked this up for the beautiful illustrations, but I stayed for the story. Prince Sebastian likes to wear his mother's dresses sometimes, though he knows it needs to be in secret, until he sees a beautiful dress and hunts down the maker. He pays Frances to make custom creations for him, wearing them out under the name Lady Crystallia. Soon copycats pop up and Frances wants to lay claim to her wonderful creations, but Sebastian is afraid that her fame and his infamy as the Prince who wears dresses go hand-in-hand. They might be good friends, but how will they both find happiness?

While I may not have cleared off my TBR shelves yet, I am feeling pretty okay about the second half of the year. I'm more confident in putting down books, braver in picking up titles outside of my comfort zone, and ready to find some new favorites. 

May, or barely breaking even

My #readmyowndamnbooks plan was so simple. Read more books than I bought every month. So simple. For added challenge, read more nonfiction and some classics.

It's not that I'm not reading plenty each month, but my ARCs and my library books are keeping me from reading my own books. I'm not really behind on my reading (I'm already at 96/100 books for my Goodreads challenge), but it definitely feels like I am when my TBR's net loss is 0 for a month.  

So I will be changing my library usage this month. I've been keeping somewhat obsessive records of my reading this year (because spreadsheets are super fun) and about 20% of my reading material has come from one of my two libraries. This isn't a bad thing at all (libraries are wonderful!), but if my goal is to finish my books this year, then this needs to stop temporarily. Not stop using the library, but stop checking out things to read (because libraries are more than books, y'all).

Much whining to say that my #readmyowndamnbooks plan has plateaued. Oh well.

Now onto the good part!

Nonfiction:

1. Text Me When You Get Home by Kayleen Schaeffer

What female hasn't said this, or some variation, to her friends before parting ways for the night? While safety has always been my number one concern, Schaeffer emphasizes the unexpected bonus of it. When your friend says she's home safe, it's an opening for the night's conversation to continue. It's an opening to continue the relationship. From examining times when our only friend was supposed to be our spouse to today's squad goals, Schaeffer makes a compelling case for finding not just our person, but our people.

2. Get Well Soon by Jennifer Wright

Plagues are disgusting. It's just a rule that people dying everywhere is not sexy, no matter what historical fiction would have us believe. Yet Wright manages to tone down just enough of the disgusting (don't worry, there's a section at the back with all the photos you could want) to paint a fascinating picture of what plagues can teach us about humanity. From the ways to react to it to the people we listen to during it, we can learn from our mistakes and hopefully, maybe, not make them again.

3. Daughters of the Winter Queen by Nancy Goldstone

My first question when I picked this up was, "the Winter Queen who?" because my European history knowledge is not as well-rounded as I'd like it to be. But that's okay! We have to start filling up the gaps somewhere. And this is a fun book to start with. After Elizabeth I died, the English crown passed to the Stuarts of Scotland. Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I, was married off quickly after that and sent off to be the Electress Palatine in Heidelberg. Except her father was aware that her husband might have a chance to grab power and suggested he'd help if that came to pass, which it did and he didn't. And so started the Thirty Years' War. There is a ton of drama, lots of family scandals, and so many snarky footnotes (read the footnotes, seriously), plus you'll learn a lot about the political climate of Europe during the 17th century.

Classics:

1. Shakespeare's Sonnets

I'm going to say maybe don't read all of his sonnets as a collection. Shakespeare wrote some great poems, but he also wrote some mediocre ones and repeated himself thematically. When they're all put together in one volume, the repetition really dulls the shine of the great ones.

Rereads:

1. Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess by Jeremy Whitley

At the center of this story is a revenge plot. Raven was set to inherit her father's pirate ships because her grandmother wanted a matriarchal pirate society, but her jerk brothers talked him into giving them to him. So she's going to take it back with her amazing pirate crew of strong, diverse women. Not just Spice Girls diverse, either, but women who are bisexual or lesbian, are deaf, wear a hijab, are different races and species diverse. She even recruits her former best friend (and love interest) Xiomara, a super cute cartographer. I love this comic and can't wait for the fifth volume next month!

Best of the Rest:

1. Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

I wanted to read this from before it was published. Laini Taylor was a guest at the Texas Teen Book Festival in 2016 (which I wrote about here) and included a quote from her then-forthcoming title about Lazlo Strange, a librarian. SOLD. It does take a bit of time to fully fall into the book, but it was a quick read once I did. Lazlo is a dreamer and librarian who wants to know everything he can about the lost city known only as Weep. From his earliest memories as an orphan to his days at the library, he hunts and compiles as much information as he can about it. When visitors from the city come asking for help, he offers himself, using everything he has learned about the city to plead his case. Once there, he begins to learn things that weren't in any of his books.

2. Jessica Jones, Volume 3 by Brian Michael Bendis, illustrated by Michael Gaydos

Jessica Jones is one of the best heroines Marvel has, but I especially loved this new run with the original creators. Jessica is back with all the problems she has always had (so flawed, still wonderful), but in a relationship with Luke Cage and they have a baby. She's an adult and also has superhero problems, which is awesome. But this run was especially sweet, since it was the conclusion of the Bendis/Gaydos Jessica Jones pairing. They bring back her ultimate villain Kilgrave (The Actual Worst), but also use their last issue to give Jessica one really good day. I am sad this run is over.

3. The Highwayman by Craig Johnson

This novella stars Walt Longmire out of his domain, aiding another sheriff in figuring out a possibly supernatural mystery. While westerns are not really my thing, I enjoyed The Cold Dish (the first in the series) and like to have things to talk to my Dad about, so here we are. A new deputy has been assigned a stretch of canyon and keeps hearing a distress call from another officer at 12:34 AM. The catch is that this officer has been dead for a very long time, though tourists have said they've seen him and he's helped them change tires or given them a lift. The officer hearing these distress calls has started feeling crazy, giving this an unreliable narrator feel. Of course, Walt gets to the bottom of it, but not before some excellent and spooky drama.

That's all, folks! I'll be back next month with plenty of new recommendations (and hopefully a tan because I could use some sun). 

April, or how did I not manage to bust my #readmyowndamnbooks plans???

Truly, honestly, did not expect to have fewer books on my TBR shelves than I started the month with. I know myself too well to anticipate that I won't spend my birthday month spoiling myself. Plus, birthday presents (thanks for ignoring my request for no books or yarn, family!).

But it's okay because I am officially down a whopping five books for the month and 30 for the year. I'm sure there's some calculations for how fast I need to read to keep up and actually clear off the shelves, which actually sounds like a fun challenge now that I think about it. Math is fun!

Oh well.

I did end up doing both the 24-hour Readathon AND the Austin Independent Bookstore Crawl, though! I probably read....10 hours? My eyes started crossing around midnight and I thought my fingers weren't attached, so I went to bed. And I only visited three of the stores, but I have no regrets there. Quality>quantity.

I visited:

1. Monkey Wrench Books, where I had to take a picture with something that resonated with (anxious) me:

2. Book-Woman, where I was to take a photo with a children's book (SHEEEEEEP):

3. Half Price Books, where I had to find Audrey II:

And of course, I supported the local economy:

This is also why I only went to three stores (and why I should be supervised). 

I ended the day very, very, very tired with Pillow Thoughts and Butters:

It's not obvious yet, but I really leaned into the fact that April was National Poetry Month. I bought poetry collections, read some poetry collections that I had, and picked up a novel-in-verse from the library. I still don't think that all poetry is good poetry, but I definitely enjoyed more of it than I didn't. So I will start there.

The Good Stuff:

Poetry:

1. Not So Deep As A Well by Dorothy Parker:

Dorothy Parker is known for her witticisms, and her best poems are the one where this is allowed to shine. Not all of these were gems, but some like "News Item", "Song of One of the Girls", "Observation", and "Sanctuary" made me laugh. There's also a good mini-collection of poems full of snark on other authors.

2. DROPKICKromance by Cyrus Parker:

Parker is the partner of amanda lovelace, a poet who I love, so I was excited to pick up this collection partially inspired by lovelace. The first part is heartbreak, the second part is rebuilding and a love letter to lovelace. It's all beautiful, and I recommend reading the works of both poets,

Nonfiction

1. I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell:

This was a surprising read. While at first I was skeptical of how anyone could nearly die that many times, it was quickly apparent that not all brushes with death were quite as close. O'Farrell titles her stories by what organ nearly killed her along with a year it happened, jumping forward and backward to tell her story. This style made me think of my own brushes with death. While still not as numerous, it was a good reminder that life still needs to be lived and to trust your gut.

2. Meaty by Samantha Irby: 

This memoir takes place before Irby's other work, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life (also good, go read it), but it was just as good to read it after. In some ways, funnier, because she spends so much time talking about something that ultimately happens and she writes about in her second memoir. This felt a bit, dare I say it, meatier than her other memoir, if only because it includes taking care of her ailing mother as a young child and teen, then losing both parents before she was 18. It's an important part of her story, but it's not her entire story. Irby will still make you laugh, even when the subject is gross or sad. 

Classics:

1. The Awakening by Kate Chopin:

I really love when classics come with an introduction that tells you the ending (sarcasm). I know that I am far beyond spoilers for this by now, but who thought this was a good idea? I enjoyed it, despite that. I somehow picked this novel up at the exact right time in my life. Edna Pontellier and I both started the novel at 28, with her birthday celebration towards the end of the novel and mine only days away once I finished it. Despite the current era, it was easy to understand Edna's feelings of being trapped and bored by her life. There are still many unwritten rules for how women should behave, from the day they are born to the day they die. Much like Ariel from The Little Mermaid, she wanted more than her family and society could allow. When she had a chance to go a little wild, she took it. 

Another month without rereads. I've got no time to go backwards. 

The Best of the Rest:

1. An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson:

First off- THIS IS A STANDALONE TEEN NOVEL!!!! How novel is that in this current era of everything-is-a-trilogy-or-more? But it is also excellent. In this world where fairies are real, they can't cook or write or paint or anything that might be considered a Craft, so they are totally impressed with the humans who provide those services for them. Isobel is an incredibly talented painter, so all the best fairies visit her for their portraits. Eventually this leads the autumn prince, ruler of one of the realms (all seasonal), to her doorstep. She paints him, but includes something impossible- human emotions on his face. It spooks them both and sets off a series of events that could change the entire fairy realm. 

2. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth E. Wein:

Finally had to read this one for book club and now I know why I was avoiding it- FEELINGS. At first, this novel made no sense. A spy, has been captured by the Nazis in France. They are having her give all the information that she can, though she is adding in stories about her friend Maddie and how she ended up captured. Time seems to be running out for her, with threats that she is going to be sent off to a special camp for scientific experiments. Then it switches to Maddie's perspective, filling in pieces of the story as she is hunkered down outside of the city, trying desperately to find and save her friend. This is one that you will instantly want to reread, trying to make sense of everything. 

3. Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough:

This novel-in-verse tells the story of Artemisia Gentileschi, an Italian painter known for biblical female stories, but also for her sexual assault at the hands of her tutor and the trial she endured to clear her name. I really loved how McCullough told Artemisia's story, with the inclusion of Susanna and Judith from the Bible as guides. We see that through painting them, Artemisia captured what it is to be a woman, especially one usually shown through the lens of a man. I've known of Artemisia since I was a teen, so I am glad that she is getting more attention, especially told so beautifully.

And so now, I leave you with a photo of my shelves. 

At least all my books fit at the moment!