I completely stopped doing updates on my reading and TV/movie watching last year. With it being the new year, I need to get back into the swing of these updates. My reading went very well in 2018 with 262 books read. Reading is still my main hobby these days so I'm hoping to read 250 this year. A secondary goal is to read all of the books I own (I've been saying this for at least a year now though so who know if it'll actually happen). I'd like to donate the ones I don't love before I graduate which means I have about 60 to get through by the end of the year. I'm working through a backlog of ebooks right now but should be able to start on my physical books in the next month or two.
The top three books I read this month were Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward, A Simple Favor by Darcey Bell, and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. I rated all of those 4/5 stars. I don't want to get into our current political climate, so I'll just say Fear perfectly goes into some of the events going on in the US right now. It was well-written and researched without being boring or biased. I highly recommend it for anyone that lives in the US. A Simple Favor reminded me a lot of Gone Girl which was one of my favorite books in 2017. It's about the lives of two mothers, where one of them goes missing and the other gets dragged into the drama. It was told in a series of blog posts and then larger vignettes from some of the main characters. I got completely sucked in and finished it within a day or two. I also watched the movie recently which was good but not as good as the book. That's usually how book-to-movie adaptations go in my opinion. The Storied Life Of A.J. Fikry follows the life of a bookshop owner on an island who ends up adopting a child that was abandoned in his bookshop. Character driven plots are usually hit or miss for me because if I don't end up caring for the characters, then the whole book is worthless to me. I really enjoyed reading about A.J. and seeing how he progresses over the course of the book. All three are definitely worth the read!
There were two books I rated 1 star this month: Gold Dust Woman by Stephen Davis and The Wanderers by Meg Howrey. Gold Dust Woman is a biography about Stevie Nicks that focuses on so many inconsequential details. The author had no idea how to write a compelling biography. It was so hard to get through and horribly written. The Wanderers is supposed to be a sci-fi about these astronauts training to go to Mars but instead it focuses on all the meaningless family members of the astronauts. It kept jumping perspectives every chapter which greatly annoyed me. It was tedious to get through with little to no action. I would not recommend either.
I read a lot of other mediocre and disappointing books, like Ender's Game (3/5) by Orson Scott Card, Bad Blood (3/5) by John Carreyrou, Last Seen (3/5) by Sara Shepard, My Squirrel Days (2/5) by Ellie Kemper, and My Sister, the Serial Killer (2/5) by Oyinkan Braithwaite. That last one had surprisingly little about the sister being a serial killer. It was mostly about the main character complaining about her life with no suspense. I usually love celebrity memoirs, but Ellie Kemper tried too hard to be funny and came off as conceited to me. Last Seen is the final book in a YA trilogy about a group of teens that solve crimes. The series started off strong yet fizzled out near the end with cliche mystery tropes. Bad Blood is a nonfiction book all about this corrupt health tech company called Theranos. It was pretty interesting and crazy how far the founder took the company on nothing but lies. I've wanted to read Ender's Game after watching the movie a few years ago. It was a decent enough sci-fi story. I'm not sure if I'm interested enough in the characters to continue on with the series.
I was attempting to read a book a day since I was on break for most of January, though I just fell short at 28 books for the month. I've got some books I'm excited about on my shelf/Kindle so February should be a good reading month as well. Thanks for looking!
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