2019 Year in Review

In 2019 I read 72 books totaling 23,295 pages. This is a increase from last year when I read 60 books. I feel like I was back on track despite STILL struggling with plantar fasciitis and not being able to run for most of the year. The good news is that my foot is FINALLY feeling better and I'm hoping to be able to run more in 2020. My 2017 breakup with Facebook has lasted all of 2019, so I guess you can say I'm really over "him," but Reading While the Ship Goes Down continued to have an internet presence on Instagram. I started an Instagram story series called #booksandreading where I take my travelling self to a local brewery and read at the bar, mostly by myself which is how it's supposed to work. If you haven't given followed the Blog's Insta page yet, go check it out. It's mostly pictures of my books. Bookstagram is the best kind of Instagram.

My average rating was 3.8 this year, the same as last year. I didn't have any books that I madly fell in love with this year although I did find a few writers who made me swoon over some well-crafted sentences. I intend to do a DECADE in review post later and I cannot wait to revisit some of my favorite books that spanned by 30s. I feel like I grew up a lot in the last decade, and I had some major life milestones, so I'm curious if those are reflected in the books I read. But first, let's see how 2019 shook out.

Longest Book: The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. I was all in on Kvothe this year. Years ago on a Metra commuter train in Chicago I sat pleasantly next to a fellow reader and we enjoyed 42 minutes of blissful silence reading in each other's company. He was reading Bonfire of the Vanities and I was reading Game of Thrones. When we got up to leave the train downtown, he said, "You should try the Kingkiller Chronicles." And left. I wrote it down on a note and eventually transferred it to a note on my iPhone where I jot down recommendations. I did nothing with it afterward. Then I got paired for a book swap with a great lady and when I mentioned I hadn't read either book in the series yet she hooked me up big time. And by big time I mean these books are huge. They have their critics, but I also really really enjoyed them. You can read the original review here.

Shortest Book: The Biggest Lie in the History of Christianity by Matthew Kelly was just 128 pages and I feel like it was repackaged lessons from his other books. Also, spoiler alert, but the biggest lie is that holiness is not accessible to regular folks. It's a great message, but probably could have been a blog post. I gave it 3/5 Stars but didn't bother writing a review.

Best Book: I read 9 five star books in 2019. 9/73. I suppose that's a good amount. Out of those 9 it's really hard to pick a favorite.

In the nonfiction sector how can I choose between Midnight in Chernobyl which was so satisfying to my nerdy cerebral need to KNOW about things and Catch and Kill which made real life sound and feel more exciting than any of the fiction thrillers I read this year. Midnight in Chernobyl gives all the facts in excellent detail and somehow doesn't get slowed down by technicality, even while discussing nuclear physics! Coupled with the excellent HBO mini-series I watched afterwards, I feel like I got a 360 experience of the events. The Chernobyl accident happened when I was only 5 years old so I've always lived with this vague awareness of the facts which I have now been able to put into laser focus. You can read my review here.

But Catch and Kill also gave a lot of facts but also managed to be FUNNY and fill me with rage. How did Ronan Farrow do this? I am inspired by the bravery of the women who came forward and disgusted by those who tried to protect serial predators. What's a girl to do? You can read that review here.

In fiction, only Queenie and Washington Black received five stars. But in May when I finished it, I knew Washington Black was going to be at the top for fiction. Esi Edugyan is a reader's writer. She makes words into sentences that read like music. She made me feel things while still making it clear why I was feeling those things. She pulled no punches and yet wove a semi fantastical narrative about a young slave boy who sails away in a balloon ship and explores the arctic before roaming the depths of the sea. Yeah, all that happened in that book and I really loved it. I get it's not for everyone, but if there are sentences and stories that appeal uniquely to my deepest pleasures in reading, Washington Black packaged them up in one novel. You can read my original review here.

Best Character: See, now, why am I doing this to myself? Why do I have to choose between Kvothe and Uhtred. If you've been following my blog for any amount of time now (thanks Mom), you know I have a love affair with Uhtred of Bebbanburg. Uhtred and I have been having a relationship since I read The Last Kingdom in March of 2017 (you can read that sloppy review here). I'm so comfortable with him that I read FIVE more books in the series in 2019. I only have two left until I'm caught up to where Cornwell has stopped writing. I've tried to prepare myself by starting his Sharpe's Rifles series but I'm afraid nothing will quite replace Uhtred. His brash, swarthy, hot younger self has grown into a brash, swarthy, wise old warrior. While the narrative of a 50 year old warrior is starting to strain even my generous credulity, I'm still entertained and informed by each entry in the series. I just love this guy. You can read my last Uhtred review here.

But Kvothe? Well, come on. He's an orphan who experiences unspeakable terror in the slaughter of his family. Scraps and steals to make it on his own and enter the prestigious University where it turns out he's skilled at playing the Lute and Arcane Arts (magic). But he makes enemies everywhere he goes. He either inspires fierce loyalty or hatred. Then, it turns out he's an animal in the sack. All by the age of 17. Not sure where Rothfuss is taking The Boy who Can Do it All. But I'm basically all in on this wild ride. You can read my Name of the Wind review here.

Worst Book: Part of me always feels a little bad when it comes to pointing out the "worst book" of the year. I mean, if I've learned anything over the last year of being part of the Bookstagram community, it's that reading is a deeply personal experience and even people of like minds can have very different opinions when it comes to books. But there are reviews out there that I read afterwards that I realize could have saved me some time and effort on books that just didn't do it for me, or at least could have tempered my expectations (see my Biggest Disappointment section below). So with that said, I guess here is a precautionary note for Every Man a Menace, which should have been titled, Every Plot Line a Mess. From the reverse timeline to the vaguely developed character arcs, the best thing this book had going for it was that it didn't take long to read. Otherwise, by the time I learned why the "main" character had died, I also learned that I didn't care. You can read the original review here.

Worst Character: While my "Worst Character" contenders usually come from my Worst Book selection, but honestly none of the characters in Every Man a Menace are developed enough to be the worst. So that leaves the characters in my "Biggest Disappointment" book, see below, or a surprise entry which seems more fitting because The Circle was also a bit of a mess stylistically and the main character, Mae, was just awful. I didn't like her enough in the beginning of the book to care that she had a complete 180 character reversal by the end of the book. The elements that get her there are disturbing sure, but she's so vapid at the end that I just did not connect with her path to destruction. She's getting the "worst character" title mostly because being on the journey with her was painful. And reading the book was a chore. You can read the full review here.

Biggest Disappointment: Oh this one is easy. I wanted very badly to like Where the Crawdads Sing. People I like and care about really liked this book. They told me they couldn't put it down. But wow. I could not get into it. All of the characters had moments where they could have earned the "worst character" title. While initially the book started out fine with young Kya going through some major trials, the book took a wide turn into a messy and unbelievable love triangle that read part bad romance novel and part young adult angst-filled hand wringing. Throw in a badly scripted courtroom drama and this novel skidded into a three star finish with an ending that made me throw the book down in a disappointed huff. Only the nature writing saved this from a two-star rating. I know this book has its champions out there, but it really was nothing that I expected and despite being so widely raved, I found my people in its detractors. You can read my full review here.

Honorable Mentions: I read some really good memoirs in 2019 that I need to  mention before closing out this 2019 Year in Review. Becoming, The Glass Castle, and The Year of Magical Thinking received five stars in 2019. I'm glad I read them both. All are by women of resilience and strength. It's a great irony in life that we gain so much wisdom as we get older that we know we could have used in our youth. There is no way to artificially earn this knowledge. That's probably why it's so valuable. But I sometimes wish I could have been open to the voices I'm hearing in my last year of my 30s when I was in my 20s. That I didn't know I was siphoning my knowledge through a narrow lens is small comfort. I'm committed to seeking out more voices and points of view in 2020 and beyond.

Goals for 2020: I've set my goal of 75 books. It's above my 2019 level and is the highest goal I've set. I honestly don't know how this foot is going to hold up and if I'm not able to run... well I may be crying my eyes out somewhere because running is the thing I do for me - the way I make sure I've gotten enough exercise. So this could be a problem. I'm hoping that I'm going to be back in 1/2 marathon shape in no time now that I've tentatively put a few new miles behind me in recent days.

Will George RR Martin get around to publishing Winds of Winter? It's almost a joke at this point that I mention the following year will be the year I read Winds of Winter (that's been happening since my 2015! Year in Review, you can see that here). And I'm once again being lulled into anticipating a release date (check out this update). However, I'm not counting on it (I was similarly disappointed last year and even wrote that EXACT SAME SENTENCE in last year's review - AND the year before that, and the year before that). But if I can read both Name of the Wind AND A Wise Man's Fear in the same year, you bet I can fit in Winds of Winter without ruining my reading goal. My wildest dreams would be a Winds of Winter and Doors of Stone double 2020 feature (Wise Man's Fear was released in 2011 just like George RR Martin's last Song of Fire and Ice book).

Thanks for reading with me this year as I discovered new authors and new series. I really tried to challenge myself this year to leave my own comfort zone and read more authors of color, more LGBTQ authors, more First Nations authors and more authors who come from diverse backgrounds. Bookstagram has certainly helped me discover those voices.

2016 Review

In 2016 I read 57 books, or 18,395 pages (I also recently have a string of half-finished audio books that returned to the library before they could be finished and I'm patiently waiting for them to turn back up in my account - so the page number is a little higher). This is a dramatic increase over last year when I read 39 books, or 11,683 pages. I credit the increase in books read to the fact that I discovered audio books to aid in my half marathon training runs and a couple of long car rides that necessitated entertainment. All the reviews this year on the blog were my own fresh from 2016. I'm hoping to enlist a few guest reviews this year.

Longest Book: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. The surprising thing was not how long this book was, but how short Chernow managed to make it given the source material and the endless fascination to be spurred by the details of Hamilton's life. I mean, the guy died in a duel with the Vice President of the United States. I know Dick Cheney shot someone too, but it wasn't on purpose. Chernow was the first author to uncover many of Hamilton's writings from his time living in St. Croix and other details from his early life in the Caribbean. To say this is the book that launched a thousand memes is an understatement. It's the book that launched a musical phenomenon and saved Hamilton's face on the $10 bill. Quite an accomplishment. You can read my full review here.

Shortest Book: Short Stores from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists by J.K. Rowling. I came upon this by accident, but it was very cheap from Amazon one day and I'm basically a sucker for all things J.K. Rowling touches, so I got it. It's length didn't merit a full post, but you can read additional thoughts here.

Best Book: American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I can't explain it, but this book felt very important to me when I was reading it, and it made me think of America and Gods and religion in a different way. I loved the idea of it, and how it was executed. I'm so excited this is becoming a TV show (check out a promo video here). I hope the TV show doesn't suck, because I'll probably watch it anyway and hate myself for it. I told everyone I knew this year that they should give this book a chance. You can read my full review here.

Best Character: This was the hardest one for me to decide. Shadow from American Gods was a great character. He's thoughtful and honest and being with him at the unraveling of the theocratic structure of our country was quite a ride. I also was a big fan of Newt Scamander from the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them Screenplay (you can read that review here). I'm partial to any Hufflepuff who manages to make it big, so to speak. And finally, there's A. Ham himself. I've spent part of 2015 and all of 2016 engrossed and obsessed with all things Hamilton. It kind of reminds me of my pre-teen fascination with The New Kids on the Block, only high-brow. I don't have pins or posters from Teen Beat hung up in my room, but I did actually buy a paper copy of Rolling Stone Magazine this year and I saw the musical twice - once in New York (you can read about that experience here) and once in Chicago. Oh I also read both the biography and the story behind the musical.So in the end, I think I have to go with Mr. Hamilton. Ambitious, tragic, flawed, could have been President of the United States had he managed to get out of his own way at the time. He's fascinating and since he inspired the best piece of pop culture in my lifetime, I think he wins hands down.

Worst Book: Deliver Us From Evil by David Baldacci. I should have known this one was bad when I realized I had read the prior book and had no memory of it whatsoever, despite having reviewed in on Goodreads. I wasn't impressed with the first book either. This book had crappy characters, a crappy plot, and unbelievable motives. Plus, I was 10 pages away from finishing it on vacation when my eldest woke my youngest up from a nap and we proceeded on a cranky four hour car trip through the Canadian Shield. We were all fed up. So then I finally finished this book and put us all out of our misery. You can read my full review here.

Biggest Disappointment: Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware. After coming off reading In a Dark Dark Wood (you can read that review here), I was pretty stoked to read Ruth Ware's follow up. The previous book had made for some good running material as I was completely engrossed and seemed to not notice I was running for hours at a time. But this was was hugely disappointing. The main character was not tolerable, not barely tolerable, she was NOT tolerable at all (see below). So I put on my big girl pants, since the main character was not going to, and finished the book. Only now I feel bad because somehow my mom started reading this on my purported recommendation, and I can't believe I screwed up so badly as to lead her down this path. You can read my full review here.

Worst Character: Lo Blacklock, The Woman in Cabin 10. Typically unreliable narrators are okay for me, but they have to be someone I at least could be in the same room with. Big no for Lo Blacklock. Big big no. See above.


Honorable Mentions:  I should say there were a few books that didn't make the above list but were so good, I wanted to throw a shout out to them. Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad (review here) was excellent, as was Justin Cronin's City of Mirrors (review here) - rounding out his trilogy that began with The Passage.I'd highly recommend either of these books.

Goals for 2017: I've set my goal of 52 books for this year. I know it is doable since I blew that away in 2016. I'll be training for another half marathon soon so I'll have the time to listen. 52 books is a book a week and I know I'll get my Ploughshares love in three times this year.

Will George RR Martin get around to publishing Winds of Winter (signs are pointing to yes!- check out this update), I'm not counting on it (I was similarly disappointed last year) or I would have set the goal at 45. But if it ruins my reading goal for the year, I'd be okay with that.