10. “Whisper Network” by Chandler Baker: This book was on Reese Witherspoon’s book club list or something. I feel like people who don’t work an office job would find this book revelatory. For me, I got about a third of the way through it and had to DNF it. It put me in a really bad headspace where I resented everything. Yeah, I know all about the ways women struggle at work. I’m sure this book is for someone, but I didn’t need workplace gender politics in infuriating detail.
9. "Homeland" by RA Salvatore: In my fun adventure to learn more about Dungeons & Dragons (because clearly I don't have enough hobbies,) I found a spinoff novel. I read this one, and right now I’m reading “Shadowdale” by Scott Ciencin with a friend. These aren’t great books! “Homeland” was written in 1990, and I guess almost 30 years ago it was fine for the society led by dark-skinned matriarchs to be framed as evil! This story’s optics really got to me because I was reading it while I was reading another book that ended up being a little higher up on the list.
8. “The Bride Test” by Helen Hoang: I would recommend Hoang’s “The Kiss Quotient,” which I read earlier this year, but I would not read this book. The power dynamics between the heroine and the hero’s family were really unfortunate. The story follows Esme Tran, a young Vietnamese woman who is brought to the United States to be a wife for Khai Diep, an autistic man. All I could think about was human trafficking, and that’s not what you want to be thinking about when you’re trying to read a romance novel!
7. “Moon Knight” Vol. 1 by Warren Ellis and “Moon Knight” Vols. 1-3 by Jeff Lemire: I read these because a friend read and recommended them. I liked the Lemire Moon Knight better than the Ellis because Lemire wrote more of a dreamy mindscape instead of just a normal punching-bad-guys super hero. I’ve found that when you read about a super hero with a lot going on in his or her brain, the art tends to be a little more abstract and interesting.
6. “Dungeon Master’s Guide (5th edition)” AND “Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes”: I learned how to play Dungeons & Dragons last month. I’m nowhere near competent enough to be anyone’s dungeon master, but I will say if you’re writing an adventure novel and suffering from writer’s block, the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the Tome of Foes offer some cool ideas that could be included as a bare framework of a fantasy story.
5. “The Turn of the Key” by Ruth Ware: This book is about a nanny who cares for four girls in a creepy high-tech house. One of the girls dies, and the book is written in letters from the nanny to a lawyer about what happened inside the house! I listened to this as an audiobook. I need to get a physical copy for my mom because I think she would really like it.
4. “Paper Girls” Vols. 1 and 2: I’m really enjoying this time travel saga! After two volumes, I haven’t figured out quite what’s going on yet. Good thing I have two more volumes to read!
3. “The City in the Middle of the Night” by Charlie Jane Anders: This book is a really cool scifi book I found at the library about people who live on a dying planet and are complacent and insistent in continuing how they live rather than finding ways to adapt. One of the characters befriends an alien creature that’s a cross between a crocodile, an octopus and a beetle. I would recommend this, but be warned it’s pretty weird and quite bleak.
2. “The Prince and the Dressmaker” by Jen Wang: This graphic novel is about a prince who feels more like a princess. He hires a dressmaker, Frances, to make him feel more like himself. This book was about gender identity, written for young people. It was colorful, sweet, and most importantly, respectful.
1. “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” by Ibram X. Kendi: Several people recommended this book to me after I expressed an interest in anti-racism work. It is a very dense 500-year history of racist ideas in America, and it took me almost all month to get through an audiobook version. My main takeaway from it is that racism is far from being a thing of the past. It is an abhorrent aspect of our society that has festered for centuries, and no amount of having black friends will get rid of the repugnant ideas that continue to mutate and evolve. The book’s title is from Jefferson Davis’ inauguration speech, when he said he believed black people were “stamped from the beginning” to be inferior to white men. This is mandatory reading for every white person. If you are reading this blog and you are white, you have to read this book now. I don’t make the rules.
Some stuff I'm reading now
“The Grace of Kings” by Ken Liu
“Shadowdale” by Scott Ciencin
“The Poppy War” by R.F. Kuang
“Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens
Road to 200
I'm at 141 books out of 200, about 8 behind where I should be if I want to achieve my goal!
