what I’m reading this year

reading

Archenemies by Marissa Meyer

read

1. Jeneration X by Jen Lancaster | Finished 1/14 | One of her better collections of essays IMO. Lots of funny stories. Her books always feel like chatting with your BFF.
2. Don’t You Forget About Me by Liz Tipping |Finished 1/31| Slightly getting by on the British locale and the love interest. I rooted for the main character but was continuously frustrated with her.
3. Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins |Finished 2/11|I loved Anna and the French Kiss and the writing style in this one continues to make the story compulsively readable but the main characters choices throughout the book drove me batty. I had to kind of check my opinions at the door with this one.
4. The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O’Neill | Finished 2/16 |A short sweet graphic novel about a young girl who learns to care for tea dragons. A quick one-sitting read. I’ll be passing this one onto my nine year old next.
5. Mother Daughter Book Camp by Heather Vogel Frederick | Finished 2/18 | Hard to believe the book club is heading to college! This was a fun farewell story. I’ll miss this series.
6. Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography by Daniel Handler | Finished 2/23 | This was cute. More of a scrapbook than a story. Fun for people who finished the book and the Netflix series and you need a Snicket fix. But it definitely does not stand on its own.
7. Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett | Finished 3/1 | You’ve Got Mail meets Sleepless in Seattle for YA. I really enjoyed this. The characters had a lot of depth, the story felt unique but just the right amount of predictable. Couldn’t put it down.
8. Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson | Finished 3/9 | Fantastical, I loved reading about all the different creatures on the island.
9. Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center | Finished 3/19 | I loved this. Bingeable and delicious but also real and with plenty of depth and character growth. I’ll definitely be checking out her other books.
10. Renegades by Marissa Meyer | Finished 4/30 | A promising start to a new series by the author of the Lunar Chronicles. I really fell in love with this one. A very cool premise with a great cast of characters. I want to read book two ASAP.
11. I Hate Everyone But You by Gaby Dunn | Finished 5/7 | A long distance BFF friendship story told through texts and emails over the course of one year of college. Not my favorite read, but oddly fascinating in a fly on the wall kind of way.
12. I See London, I See France by Sarah Mlynowski | Finished 5/12 | This one was pretty much getting by on my love for wanderlust travel stories. The characters were a little naïve for my liking, a lot of drama that could have been avoided if anyone ever talked to people about their feelings ever. But there’s a ship to ship and lots of traveling so not a total loss.
13.  Mr. Darcy Forever by Victoria Connelly | Finished 6/6 | I finished this one in spite of myself to find out what happened. I didn’t really enjoy how the book jumps from past tense to present tense though I understand why the author chose to do so. I found some of the characters absurd and spent a lot of time wondering if the main characters might actually be idiots not to see through the Wickham type that tears them apart. Of course it all works out in the end and the Jane Austen references were fun, but I’m disappointed in this one.
14. Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier | Finished 6/7 | This was a little sad, a little magical and a very sweet. I read it in two sittings. My 9 year old really enjoyed it, too.
15. Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde | Finished 6/11 | I’ve never been to a convention, so this was a fun peek inside what that might be like. It also had two fun romances, fandom for days, and really fully realized characters with quirks and flaws to overcome and embrace. I really appreciated seeing inside the head of s character with Asperger’s and social anxiety. I thought that was really well done.
16. Invisible Emmie by Terri Libenson | Finished 6/15 | This was really sweet. I liked how you got to see the story from different perspectives, like how our attitudes can change our outlook on life. The illustrations are great, the story was easy to relate to and the ending was very uplifting.
17. Positively Izzy by Terri Libenson | Finished 6/18 | Another great graphic novel by Terri Libenson. Invisible Emmie had a surprise twist ending so I figured this one would, too, but I have to be honest, I didn’t see it coming until the last second. I love her characters and the story was sweet.
18. Smile by Raina Telgemeier | Finished 6/25 | This was really good. It’s the author’s true story of getting braces – and also going through puberty, dealing with first crushes, frenemies, learning to like herself and not focus on appearances so much. I love a good coming of age story. I read this graphic novel in two sittings and would definitely recommend it to tween girls.
19. Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1 by G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona (Illustrator), Jacob Wyatt (Illustrator) | Finished 6/25 | This was such a cool super hero story. For anyone who has ever wished to be someone else or have the super cool super powers that they read about in comics or see on tv – this explores what it would be like if that actually happened. The main character deals with normal teenage stuff, family trouble, culturual clashes of being a Muslim in America – and then also has to deal with super powers that she doesn’t know how to control! Very cool.
20. The Fire Within by Chris d’Lacey | Finished 6/26 | I read this out loud to my 9 year old and in all fairness she loved it. I personally found the pacing to be way too slow and I’m still confused as to why this book was marked as being about dragons when 75% of the story was about a squirrel. It almost felt like two entirely different stories that were forced together.
21. All’s Faire in Middle School by Victoria Jamieson| Finished 6/27 | This was so cute! I loved the premise. Imogene is starting middle school after being homeschooled by her parents who work at a Renaissance faire. She must battle bullies, strict teachers, trying to fit in, owning up to mistakes, finding real friends – you know, normal middle school stuff. I loved the contrast of life at the faire to life in middle school. This one actually made me cry a couple times! *I would caution that this one might not be appropriate for younger readers as Imogene is a fairly typical young teen dealing with puberty on the horizon. Nothing inappropriate happens but parents might want to flip through the book before handing it to younger kids.*
22. Drama by Raina Telgemeier | Finished 7/2 | I liked this one but not quite as much as her other books. It was very realistic in portraying the complications of crushes growing up, but maybe too realistic. There were a lot of moving parts and it was hard to know what to root for or where things were ultimately going.
23. Sisters by Raina Telgemeier | Finished 7/3 | Another great graphic memoir by Raina Telgemeier. This is a story about a road trip she took with her mom and siblings when she was fourteen and her tumultuous relationship with her sister growing up.
24. Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins | Finished 7/9 | I love this series. I think Anna and the French Kiss was still my favorite but I really liked this one. Perkins is good at making me stay up late reading. I appreciated the realness of the characters, the genuine struggles they dealt with, imperfect decision making. Lola was sometimes a little over the top and dense but she definitely won me over in the end.

Books Read in: 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018
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