Kyrie
2018 was a terrible year. Personally, and just in general.
The year started with my mom dying, and only went downhill from there. The only upsides have been that I've found I've got a wonderful, supportive group of friends, and I'm closer to moving out of my cramped, broken apartment than I've ever been. (I got my first car this year, as well as all of the bills that come with it.)
But I know that 2018 wasn't kind to a lot of people. So I'll just get on to the books.
I said in 2017 that I wanted to cut down on some of my TBR. I stuck to my guns, and most of the books I've read were from one of my...4 TBR lists? I think I'm up to 4 lists: Want to Read (for physical books I own), To-Read-Kindle, Library-Hold, and Recommended. I finally feel like I've gotten them all to manageable levels.
I also started going to my local library again. It definitely helps that my library got renovated this year, and is so much more up-to-date! They've got self-check outs now, they moved the “Hold” section out from behind the circulation desk, so that people can pick up their own books, AND they've got these really fancy scanners that you just set a stack of books on, and the entire stack gets scanned at once.And of course, all of this happens as I'm finally getting ready to move out of the state. But that's fine. Where I'm going, the libraries are super nice. (I scouted ahead of time.)
It was difficult choosing a Top 5 list this year. I didn't read as much as I usually do, and I was more focused on cleaning off those dusty TBR shelves, so I didn't have as much freedom as the past couple of years, where I could just pick exactly what I wanted to read at that moment. It also made me start keeping notes on why certain books were on my shelf...some of them have been sitting around for so long, I've forgotten why I wanted to read them in the first place. But, they were on the list, so I read them.
I had to go over everything I read before I started writing this end of year review, just to try to find a few more books to pad the list out.
1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - I finally did it. I finally started reading the Sherlock Holmes stories. I didn't make through all 56 stories, like I was planning, but it was a good start. I made it through Memoirs. I ended up enjoying more of the stories in Adventures, which is why this one makes the list.
2. I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer - This book is heartbreaking. So, it fits in well with the rest of 2018. It took me until November to be able to get my hands on a copy of this book from the library. I read it in a single sitting. This one hurt to read, especially when you get towards the end of book, where Michelle's friends who put it together write about how they tried to honor her voice, because she wrote in such a way that it didn't feel like you were reading a book written by an author - it felt like you were talking to a friend. And I could totally see that.
3. Homestuck: Book 1: Act 1 & Act 2 - I enjoyed Homestuck, and it's even more amusing with Hussie's commentary. I'd forgotten a lot of the tiny details from the start that didn't have much to do with the plot. And Homestuck's magical power of providing crazy instances of synchronicity...like John's obsession with Harry Anderson, who died on April 16th this year. Which, since the book was published for John's birthday on April 13th, means that I was reading about Hussie talking about writing about Harry Anderson the day Harry Anderson died. And if that doesn't sum up the feeling of reading Homestuck, I don't know what does.
4. Spinning Silver - I figured I'd end up enjoying this one. I really liked Uprooted. But as the story unraveled, I found myself cheering for the various ways the story re-imagined the fairy tales that went into it. I loved the way it all came together. I loved this book.
5. The Cruel Prince - This one actually shocked me with how much I ended up enjoying it. I didn't expect I'd like it as much as I did...it was the awesome fairy court portrayal that did it. I'm a sucker for books with complex, morally gray, varied species of fairies. I need The Wicked King. NOW.
Honorable Mentions: I had to scrape to come up with these this year.
*The End (Series of Unfortunate Events #13) - See, I'm straight-up cheating, here. This one was a re-read that I decided on because of the beautiful Netflix adaptation. I couldn't entirely remember how the Series ended (though it turns out I remembered the important parts). In The End (hehe) I enjoyed the entire Series just as much as I did when I first read them 12 years ago. God, I feel old...
* Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale - I really liked this essay, but the real reason it made my Honorable Mentions list doesn't have as much to do with the book as it does the awesome conversations it spawned with my friend Renee. Out of nowhere, she started talking about how she misses nursery rhymes, and how she thought that not teaching our children nursery rhymes or fairy tales does them a disservice. So, when this book mirrored the exact sentiment she was trying to convey, I bought a copy so that I could reference various quotes for her. I'm slowly working on turning her into a Book Friend™ - she's been talking about dusting off her Kindle, and you KNOW I'm all there to help her enable her book habit.
* Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction - I love reading books about books, and I grew up with most of these series. (Well, Goosebumps. I was an avid Goosebumps collector as a kid. I read a couple of BSC books back in the day, but I've only recently been introduced to the insanity that it Sweet Valley High.)
And that's it. For 2019, I'm going to continue working on my TBR lists. Maybe this is the year I'll actually get through the backlog books, and keep the TBR lists to current or upcoming titles. (Not holding my breath on that actually happening, but...)I'm not going to repeat last year's mistake of saying that there's no way 2019 can be worse than 2018. Clearly, 2018 took that as a personal challenge. So, all I'll say is, here's hoping that 2019 is a better year.
2018 was a terrible year. Personally, and just in general.
The year started with my mom dying, and only went downhill from there. The only upsides have been that I've found I've got a wonderful, supportive group of friends, and I'm closer to moving out of my cramped, broken apartment than I've ever been. (I got my first car this year, as well as all of the bills that come with it.)
But I know that 2018 wasn't kind to a lot of people. So I'll just get on to the books.
I said in 2017 that I wanted to cut down on some of my TBR. I stuck to my guns, and most of the books I've read were from one of my...4 TBR lists? I think I'm up to 4 lists: Want to Read (for physical books I own), To-Read-Kindle, Library-Hold, and Recommended. I finally feel like I've gotten them all to manageable levels.
I also started going to my local library again. It definitely helps that my library got renovated this year, and is so much more up-to-date! They've got self-check outs now, they moved the “Hold” section out from behind the circulation desk, so that people can pick up their own books, AND they've got these really fancy scanners that you just set a stack of books on, and the entire stack gets scanned at once.And of course, all of this happens as I'm finally getting ready to move out of the state. But that's fine. Where I'm going, the libraries are super nice. (I scouted ahead of time.)
It was difficult choosing a Top 5 list this year. I didn't read as much as I usually do, and I was more focused on cleaning off those dusty TBR shelves, so I didn't have as much freedom as the past couple of years, where I could just pick exactly what I wanted to read at that moment. It also made me start keeping notes on why certain books were on my shelf...some of them have been sitting around for so long, I've forgotten why I wanted to read them in the first place. But, they were on the list, so I read them.
I had to go over everything I read before I started writing this end of year review, just to try to find a few more books to pad the list out.
1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - I finally did it. I finally started reading the Sherlock Holmes stories. I didn't make through all 56 stories, like I was planning, but it was a good start. I made it through Memoirs. I ended up enjoying more of the stories in Adventures, which is why this one makes the list.
2. I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer - This book is heartbreaking. So, it fits in well with the rest of 2018. It took me until November to be able to get my hands on a copy of this book from the library. I read it in a single sitting. This one hurt to read, especially when you get towards the end of book, where Michelle's friends who put it together write about how they tried to honor her voice, because she wrote in such a way that it didn't feel like you were reading a book written by an author - it felt like you were talking to a friend. And I could totally see that.
3. Homestuck: Book 1: Act 1 & Act 2 - I enjoyed Homestuck, and it's even more amusing with Hussie's commentary. I'd forgotten a lot of the tiny details from the start that didn't have much to do with the plot. And Homestuck's magical power of providing crazy instances of synchronicity...like John's obsession with Harry Anderson, who died on April 16th this year. Which, since the book was published for John's birthday on April 13th, means that I was reading about Hussie talking about writing about Harry Anderson the day Harry Anderson died. And if that doesn't sum up the feeling of reading Homestuck, I don't know what does.
4. Spinning Silver - I figured I'd end up enjoying this one. I really liked Uprooted. But as the story unraveled, I found myself cheering for the various ways the story re-imagined the fairy tales that went into it. I loved the way it all came together. I loved this book.
5. The Cruel Prince - This one actually shocked me with how much I ended up enjoying it. I didn't expect I'd like it as much as I did...it was the awesome fairy court portrayal that did it. I'm a sucker for books with complex, morally gray, varied species of fairies. I need The Wicked King. NOW.
Honorable Mentions: I had to scrape to come up with these this year.
*The End (Series of Unfortunate Events #13) - See, I'm straight-up cheating, here. This one was a re-read that I decided on because of the beautiful Netflix adaptation. I couldn't entirely remember how the Series ended (though it turns out I remembered the important parts). In The End (hehe) I enjoyed the entire Series just as much as I did when I first read them 12 years ago. God, I feel old...
* Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale - I really liked this essay, but the real reason it made my Honorable Mentions list doesn't have as much to do with the book as it does the awesome conversations it spawned with my friend Renee. Out of nowhere, she started talking about how she misses nursery rhymes, and how she thought that not teaching our children nursery rhymes or fairy tales does them a disservice. So, when this book mirrored the exact sentiment she was trying to convey, I bought a copy so that I could reference various quotes for her. I'm slowly working on turning her into a Book Friend™ - she's been talking about dusting off her Kindle, and you KNOW I'm all there to help her enable her book habit.
* Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction - I love reading books about books, and I grew up with most of these series. (Well, Goosebumps. I was an avid Goosebumps collector as a kid. I read a couple of BSC books back in the day, but I've only recently been introduced to the insanity that it Sweet Valley High.)
And that's it. For 2019, I'm going to continue working on my TBR lists. Maybe this is the year I'll actually get through the backlog books, and keep the TBR lists to current or upcoming titles. (Not holding my breath on that actually happening, but...)I'm not going to repeat last year's mistake of saying that there's no way 2019 can be worse than 2018. Clearly, 2018 took that as a personal challenge. So, all I'll say is, here's hoping that 2019 is a better year.