It's possible this is one of the last posts of this kind I'll write! It's been fun trying to read as many books as humanly possible in a year, but I think I might take things at a more leisurely pace in 2020. Anyway, here are some books:
12.) Last Tango in Cyberspace by Steven Kotler: This was my one and only DNF in October, and third DNF for the year. The premise of this book sounded fun: Man whose superpower is extreme empathy gets caught up in a murder mystery. The actual book is more like: Man smokes a lot of pot and takes advantage of the amenities in his hotel room. I got a little more than halfway through this one before I had to quit. It was relentlessly stupid.
11.) My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite: This little story was kind of interesting. It’s about a woman whose sister inexplicably kills her boyfriends. It shows all the ways the woman enables her sister, and how she is ultimately tethered to her after covering up her crimes.
10.) Paper Girls, Vols. 3 and 4 by Brian K. Vaughan: I really enjoy time travel adventures, but I don’t know if I’ll continue with this series. Four volumes in, and I still don’t know what’s going on.
9.) Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman: This was a retelling of Snow White, where Snow White is a vampire and everything in her kingdom is supremely messed up. Don’t read this one to your kids.
8.) Batwoman: Elegy by Greg Rucka: Unlike Paper Girls, where I felt like the story was unfolding almost intolerably slowly, “Batwoman: Elegy” was really good at telling a lot of story in a few pages. And I felt like it was complete after the one volume I read. Very dramatic, and very satisfying.
7.) The Flintstones, Vols. 1 and 2 by Mark Russell: This is a smart take on The Flintstones. It examines social institutions such as marriage and consumerism in a silly, prehistoric town. As someone who questions and overthinks almost everything we do as human beings, I found it quite enjoyable.
6.) The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead: This is a bleak book with a shocking twist at the end. It is a fictional story based on real events at a boarding school in Tallahassee, and it was on a “recommended reading” list Barack Obama posted on Facebook sometime a couple months ago. I would recommend it too! Thanks, Obama!
5.) Exhalation by Ted Chiang: Another Obama recommendation, this is a series of short stories from the guy who wrote “The Arrival.” Initially I thought the stories would take a much more sinister/dystopian turn, in the style of other near-future-type stories, but I found them neutral and relatively mild. I felt the narratives asked questions, but let the readers figure out the answers for themselves.
4.) The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 2 and 3 by Ryan North: I continue to be amused and delighted by this series. It’s upbeat and has an encouraging tone. I loved the second volume, where Squirrel Girl encounters Ratatoskr, a mischievous squirrel from Norse mythology!
3.) The Unwritten, Vols. 3-9 by Mike Carey: Initially, I really loved this series because I felt it was a good introduction for people who don’t like or don’t read graphic novels to learn to love graphic novels. In vols. 3-9, there’s still a healthy dose of literary allusions, but I feel like the story started to go off the rails a little bit. I still have two more volumes to go, and I hope it ends well for all the time and brainpower I’ve spent on it. I still love it a lot, though, don’t get me wrong.
2.) Rat Queens, Vols. 2-6 by Kurtis J. Wiebe: I’m always in the mood to enjoy this series about female friendships in a whimsical fantasy setting. I’ll be keeping an eye out for Vol. 7, which comes out early next year.
1.) The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang: The best way I can describe this book is “R-rated Final Fantasy.” This novel is gritty and brutal and makes no attempt to soften descriptions of war crimes and other atrocities. It was one of those books where you’re so invested in the characters and the plot, you get a literary hangover by the end. Alas, I think a copy of “The Dragon Republic,” the next book in the series I was supposed to review, got lost in the mail!
I’m 30 books away from reaching my goal of 200 books on the year**. Unless I finish a book every other day for the rest of the year, I probably won’t make it, but I made a valiant effort!
What was your reading goal this year? Are you going to achieve it?
*True happiness is lugging 15 pounds of comic books in your suitcase through the Orlando airport.
**Goodreads counts every graphic novel volume as a book, and I've said before that I don’t necessarily think that counts, but here we are.
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