Year in Review - 2019

(Original post written January 23, 2020)

2019 was the year of really trying to review books with more than a few sentences, and it has become my most addictive hobby.

Reading has always been a half-hobby/half-obsession of mine. I really jumped back into it in college with Game of Thrones, and I’ve been found carrying a book around with me ever since. As soon as I’m in the home stretch of finishing a book, I’m already researching what the next will be so I can make a pilgrimage to the library or used book store to find it. The latter being a bit of a problem for our NYC shelf space.

After a few years of serious reading-for-pleasure, I thought that leaving notes on books would be a better connection to the experience, and would remind me what the heck I even felt at the time in 5, 10, 50 years. I’m still new to writing these thoughts down, but I started with a few lines that have now turned into paragraphs on each subject. I wouldn’t say they dive too deep into the ethos of a fancy, sprawling book review about things like sentence structure, the author’s intentions or underlying messages, literary analysis that’s over my head, yada yada. I’m here to make notes I can look back on and maybe laugh, maybe nod, maybe get a fuzzy feeling inside, and maybe avoid a bad read for a second time. It’s hard to deconstruct the imprint a book has on you as you read, especially those damn 700 pagers, but it’s been worth it to try.

As far as the actual reading from 2019 goes, lots of ups, lots of meh. I tackled too many series for one year, even if they were generally short ones. I’ll be taking a long YA break after Mortal Engines, yikes. Goodreads says my average rating was 3.7, probably based off my turn towards more stringent use of 4s and 5s, and also from the honest collection of disappointing reads. I only gave three 5 stars! That’s a new record for sure. Those three and other highlights were:

South of the Border, West of the Sun (5 stars)

Born Standing Up (5 stars)

Neuromancer

Finders Keepers

Daisy Jones & the Six

Time and Again

And the favorite of 2019: RECURSION (5 stars)

I came to an epiphany after The Goldfinch that there’s too many books out there (lots being bad, slow, long, not my style, or all the above), and that I should just read what I want at that moment. I’ll get to them all eventually (right?). So I jumped into the Wheel of Time to lead me through 2020. So far, I think I’m on the right path👌