The Books of 2012: The classics.

Often I am reading two, three, sometimes even four books at a time, and so I try from time to time to sneak in a classic that I feel I should have read, but somehow have never gotten around to. I don’t think I did nearly as good a job this year in making that happen as I did last year, but here’s what I did manage to read by way of the classics:

1. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. (Jan 2012) Why didn’t you guys tell me that some of those boring-sounding classics were actually terrifically creepy (if a trifle sad) novels that I’d want to read?! No, I haven’t seen Cold Mountain (though I’ve read it), but I couldn’t help picturing Nicole Kidman as Zeera and Renee Zelwegger as Mattie. And if you know the book and how I feel about those two actresses, you knew why I was chuckling at the end. Heh. 3 1/2 of 5 stars.

2. Slaughterhouse-5 by Kurt Vonnegut. (Jan 2012) War stories fascinate me. Travellin’ stories (like when a character is unstuck in time) fascinate me. But being kidnapped by aliens? Unless it’s because you’ve gone a little looney-toons…sorry, no – that’s going to turn me away. I did enjoy the war flashbacks (flash-forwards? sideways?) and the fact that it was semi-autobiographical added interest, but overall I wanted to like this book far more than I did. 2 of 5 stars.

3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. (Jan 2012) Can you believe I hadn’t read this book before this year? Me either, after I finished it. It was delightful! Action-packed police chases, agonizing soul-searching over The Right Thing To Do, and lots and lots of talk about books. But, really? REALLY? The one book you’re going to memorize is THAT ONE?! (Shhh - I’m not spoiling the ending. Go read it for yo’self.) 3 of 5 stars.

4. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers. (Feb 2012) Mehhhh. Completely underwhelming, although much more readable than many classics have a reputation for being. 2 of 5 stars.

5. Native Son, by Richard Wright. (Feb 2012) I remember reading this in high school so long ago. This is a classic that still has just as much punch no matter how many times you read it. Who can sit unmoved after reading the tale of Bigger Thomas? Who doesn’t want to do more, to make a change, to fix what is so obviously broken? STILL broken. 4 of 5 stars.

6. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison. (Mar 2012). This was a re-read, and still not my favorite of Morrison’s novels. I was interested to see if my feelings had changed towards it like they did with some of her other works. But not so. 2 of 5 stars.

7. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. (Mar 2012) This was a re-read with BookRiot as we counted down to the release of Home. (What’s funny is that I read a lot of her backlist and still haven’t gotten to her new release! Doh!) I have friends who treat Song as a bible of daily wisdom. I enjoy the tale, I enjoy working for everything – and there’s a lot – that’s in it. But for me it never rose above Beloved or even Sula. For all that, though, I’d still say this is a novel every American should read. And like every great novel, Song gets better with each re-read. 4 of 5 stars.

8. Sula, by Toni Morrison. (Mar 2012) I re-read (nearly) all of Morrison’s backlist leading up to the release of Home…and then didn’t read Home for many months. Sula used to be my favorite Morrison. Then it had to share the honors as Beloved endeared itself to my heart after spending so much time analyzing and writing about it. With this year’s reread, poor Sula fell another spot behind Song of Solomon – a book I enjoy more each time I read it. Which isn’t to say Sula isn’t in Morrison’s top echelon – it is! It’s just that the great has so many best books from which to choose. 4 of 5 stars.

9. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence. (Mar 2012) Dude, this novel is twisted. It is family drama exploded all over a tiny little house and the pobrecito stuck in the middle of it all. Not my cuppa, but I can see what all most of the fuss is about. 1 of 5 stars.

10. Beloved, by Toni Morrison. (Apr 2012) I have read this book too many times to count, and each time I find out something new, find new points to argue over with fellow readers, and am always, always, always rendered in awe of Ms. Morrison’s genius. Why this isn’t mentioned more often as the Greatest American Novel is beyond me. 5 of 5 stars. Always.

11. Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler. (Apr 2012) I went from finishing the feel-good buzz from Princess Diaries straight into a classic I had avoided: Darkness at Noon. So it’s not surprising that I found it brilliant, but also soul suckingingly doom-filling. 3 of 5 stars.

12. Schindler’s List, by Thomas Keneally. (Apr 2012) Did you know this unforgettable movie started its life as a book? Me either until recently. While the nonfic piece wasn’t nearly as tightly executed as its film twinner, it’s still worth checking out. 3 1/2 of 5 stars.

13. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. (Jun 2012) I remembered how blown away I was by the story, the characters, the sweeping grandness of…well, everything. What I had forgotten since the last time I read Gatsby was how perfect each of Fitzgerald’s sentences were. I spent the entire first part of the book gaping slack-jawed at each sentence I read. Several times I resolved never to write again because how could I ever write one sentence in such a manner? 5 of 5 stars.

14. A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. (Jul 2012) This was such a slow, slow read for me, but I think that was because I was really thinking about the words, their meaning, and really unpacking the glorious story as it unfolded. I honestly don’t know why more high schools don’t assign this, unless the length and time needed to really invest is a bit of a turn off? Still. I’ve read Irving before and knew he was good, but this is the novel that made me understand why he is a master. The fact that Owen Meany is probably one of the most clearly author-constructed characters and yet still one of the greatest characters I’ve read is evidence of why. Usually when you see the author pulling the strings, it bugs to no end. This time I was all, “How?! How do you DO that so well? And how can I?” Pure magic, folks. 4 of 5 stars.

10. Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron. (Oct 2012) Yes, it made me cry. No, I didn’t like it nearly as much as I liked. I found the prose as prodding, though I liked the story behind it. I just couldn’t ever lose myself to the scene in front of me. 2 1/2 of 5 stars.

11. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood. (Oct 2012) True story: I was finishing up Handmaid’s Tale just as Romney made his binders full of women comment. Coincidences are lovely, at times. I know I’m drawn to dystopias, but this was really vividly constructed, with clear a moral that stopped just short of shoving itself down my throat. I had it in my mind, for some reason, that this was set in medieval times, but was able to adjust quickly to the new (to me) setting and enjoy it for what it was. It’s a great bridge book for your teenaged girls looking for something like Hunger Games or Divergent, but a little more grown-up. 3 1/2 of 5 stars.

12. Home, by Toni Morrison. (Oct 2012) I know I will go back in about a year and reread to see if I still feel the same. Maybe it’s because I just read (again) Sula, Beloved, and Song of Solomon, but I just didn’t feel it measured up. I didn’t think the story was as cutting, the language as precise as some of her other work. Then again, I tend to build up my expectations for an event such as this until they couldn’t possibly be met, so maybe the reread will reveal all of the literary magic was I was hoping to find the first time around. 2 of 5 stars.

13. The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson. (Oct 2012) Hill House scared the everliving daylights out of me. In daylight. It’s been eons since a book scared me so completely, especially one that I purposely read during daytime hours. When you read a book at lunch, and you still need to leave a light on when you go to bed? That’s a winner. 5 of 5 stars.

The Books of 2012: The books about mental health.

Sometimes I find myself sliding down a rabbit hole of readery goodness. This year was the year of the mental health memoirs and psychologically-inclined non-fiction books (and plenty of fiction books whose plots would have landed them here if I hadn’t decided to stay away from that slippery slope). Nothing makes you feel like maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem as books about incest, schizophrenia, and family dysfunction to a degree I had thus far not even imagined. I felt like I was rubbernecking as I gulped these books down as quickly as I could…

1. The River of Forgetting, by Jane Rowan. (Feb 2012). I read a lot of psychology-related memoirs this year, starting with this one about a woman who was abused as a child, but remembers only as an adult. First with glimpses, then a bit more with guided therapy and hypnosis, Jane struggles with the validity of her memories and wonders whether her attacker could truly have been her father – and if so, how could her mother have stayed with him until his death. While obviously the author was dealing with tremendously powerful and difficult emotional content, the writing seemed wishy washy and disjointed. I imagine the book would be helpful for someone who experienced similar assaults to know there are other survivors, but the writing was not strong enough for me to connect as an outsider. Not a fault; just an observation. 2 of 5 stars.

2. Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood, by Koren Zailckas. (May 2012)  I didn’t get much out of this book, mostly because I was lucky enough to escape my teens and 20s relatively unscathed. Hell, compared to a lot of the memoirs I’ve read, I’m frickin’ pristine, still. However. Just because reading Smashed was a sad confirmation of the staggering stats I’m already aware of doesn’t mean I think it’s a waste of time. On the contrary – Smashed would make for fantastic compulsory reading for every high school freshman in the country. 3 of 5 stars.

3. The Psychopath Test: Journey Through the Madness Industry, by Jon Ronson. (May 2012) The author tries to determine if there’s a personality test that could determine who is – or could be – a psychopath, and uses his research to examine the lives of several high profile businessmen in today’s society. A compelling read, even thought it was a lot different from what I expected (more narratively driven than set up with chapters devoted to different subjects). 4 of 5 stars.

4. A Child Called “It”, by Dave Pelzer. (Jun 2012) This was a re-read for me, but it’s been so long since I read it that I couldn’t remember huge chunks of the story. The details were just as horrifying as I remember, but the writing was much, much weaker than I recalled. Either that, or all the mental health memoirs I’ve been reading have raised my expectations. If you haven’t read it – and you have a strong stomach considering that truly horrible, heartbreaking acts of violence are committed against a small child – I would still recommend it. Just keep your expectations lowered going in. And tissues at the ready if you’re a mom. 3 of 5 stars – with some latitude.

5. The Memory Palace, by Mira Bartok. (Jun 2012) Another of my mental health memoirs I burned through this year, The Memory Palace is one I could not put down. It tells the tale of two grown up sisters attending their mother’s last days. Already a zinger, right? Well get this: their mom was (is) batshit crazy. And I do not use that term lightly: the sisters changed their names and moved away in order to protect themselves. That is crazy on a whole ‘nother floor, am I right? The with and against narration was beyond moving, hearing Ms. Bartok struggle with loving and hating her own mother, and trying to deciper “real” and “not real” in all her memories of her mom. I dare you to read this book and not ache on one level and feel incredibly guilty for the (comparatively) small worries in your own life. 4 of 5 stars.

6. The Serial Killer Whisperer, by Pete Earley. (Jul 2012) The book is based on an incredibly interesting true-life story: a promising young boy suffers a traumatic head injury at church camp. As a result, he suffers from some pretty devastating personality disorders, one of which is that he tends towards angry, impulsive lashing out. Later, after much recovering and retooling of his life and his parents’ lives, he begins a new hobby: writing to serial killers. Is it possible that many serial killers are the way they are because of brain abnormalities and/or injuries? Earley explores that any many other questions. 3 of 5 stars.

7. Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl, by Marguerite Sechehaye. (Sep 2012) It was straight-forward, depressing, and exactly as advertised…though little more. Perhaps a lot of it was lost in the translation, but I just didn’t get any oomph or triumph-over-adversity-happy-feelings. Which makes me sound like a horribly spoiled and self-centered reader. I guess what I felt was lacking was why? Why was the book written? What made her want to share her story? If a book can’t answer that question, I feel like the point was sort of missed. 2 of 5 stars.

8. Your Voice in my Head, by Emma Forrest. (Dec 2012) I had no idea who Emma Forrest was before I read her memoir about being an hot, up-and-coming screenwriter, the girlfriend and lover of several celebrities, and a bipolar with self-destructive tendencies. I’ll admit that I googled which A-list movie actor her GH (Gypsy Husband) was, but mostly I wasn’t reading Ms. Forrest’s memoir for the sinsational tabloidy bits (which is probably a good thing, because there aren’t many). I was reading it because, as I’ve mentioned, I have a thing for mental health memoirs. And I also have a thing for love stories. Especially well-written ones. That’s what this was. It is a heartbreaking love story written to her beloved psychiatrist who helped her see herself again as she really is, and to the healthy self she learned to become. If it helped me remember how to help myself steer clear of unhealthy relationships – with boys and my darker self – goodo for me. 4 of 5 stars.

The Books of 2012: YA and Children’s Lit.

I have a thing for YA lit. I always have. I started reading it long before I was a young adult and I didn’t stop once I left those days behind. I re-read old favorites; search for the books I might not enjoy with the same abandon as I do “grown-up” books, but that I want my girls to read when they are tweens and teens; and I’m always searching for the next great crossover book, one that will make me force it upon all of my unsuspecting friends. (I know they love it when I do that.)

Plus, they have great covers. Heh.

Here you go – the YA and Children’s Lit Books of 2012.

1. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. (Jan 2012) I had such high hopes for this book, about 50 Miss Teen Dream beauty pageant contestants whose plane crashed on a deserted island. Then I read it and remembered that not all YA books have crossover appeal. See my full review here. 2 of 5 stars.

2. Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli. (Jan 2012) Somehow I missed all of the Jerry Spinelli books when I was a tween/teen and hadn’t stumbled into them since. My sister shoved this one into my arms while we were out bargain book hunting. Who can say no to a fifty-cent book? Not this girl. It was an enjoyable, easy read about being different in high school (without being different just to be different, because it’s the cool thing) and having the courage to be yourself, blast the consequences. It was a cute story, with a rather engaging girl – Stargirl – at the heart of it all. The problem for me was that it read like a middle school book by the end of it. Nutsy, right? Something sounding like it was meant to? Heh. I’ll give it 3 1/2 of 5 stars, because it’s something I really want my girls to read when they are old enough to realize not everyone wears two different shoes to the store just because they want to.

3. Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by John Green and David Levithan. (Feb 2012) Two boys with the same name on a collision course that will change their truer-than-real life little highschool selves. One of my favorite characters in all of literature, who is the sidekick to end all sidekicks, the star of his own awesometastic high school musical, and fantastically, awesomely, larger than life (literally and figuratively). You need to read this book because you will laugh until you can’t breathe and sniffle in the tears until even your 8-year-old tells you to just blow your nose already. It’s about first love (and 2nd love and 20th love and 303rd love) and friendships and drama in a way that maybe some of us could imagine, but only John Green and David Levithan can pin to paper. It’s the kind of book that your best friend will return to you and say, “I can never read anything again after that book.” Because it is just unpossible for anything else to measure up. 5 of 5 stars and a serious contender for the best book I’ve read this year.

4. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, by John Boyne. (Feb 2012) This book was a home-run for me. Designed for older children and tweens, Striped Pajamas is about the family of an SS officer stationed at a concentration camp…as told by his very young son who doesn’t understand why the “people in the striped pajamas” are stuck behind a fence. The young boy befriends one of the prisoners, a Jewish boy his own age, unbeknownst to anyone, and…well, you’re just going to have to read it to find out what happens. Striped Pajamas was a quick read, but I’ll admit that I cried nearly all the way through it. Boyne did a tremendous job exploring difficult themes and offering a new perspective on a subject that’s been written about from seemingly every angle. I admired the way he raised questions in a way that makes them easier to talk about with kids – not that that makes the answers any easier to explain. I’ll definitely offer this to my children when I feel they’re old enough. 4 of 5 stars.

5. The Secret Garden, by Frances Burnett Hodgson. (Feb 2012) This was a re-read for me. Reading it with your daughter for her first journey through the magic really brings the wonder back. We even made plans to build our own secret garden! 4 of 5 stars.

6. Feed, by M. T. Anderson. (Feb 2012) I picked this one up at Kim’s suggestion. In fact, I believe she even shipped the book to me to borrow. Alas, despite the strong YA-dystopian pull I felt, I couldn’t get into it. Teenagers vacationing on Mars and trying to overthrow the radio-broadcast of their thoughts? Sounds intriguing. But the reality was just too sci-fi-ish for me. (Note: I was going to write that as Sci-fy-ish, but then I heard Sheldon yelling in my head. True story.) 1 of 5 stars.

7. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi. (Mar 2012) I somehow skipped over all of the Avi books when I was younger. I saw this at the Goodwill, so I picked it up. Hey, it was in good shape and all of a dollar. Someday very soon, Gracie will be at the age when she devours everything in sight, and this came highly recommended. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I read this first as an adult – and right after Oscar Wao and Native Son – but I wasn’t as impressed as my sister and my cousin. Sure, it’s a good swashbuckling story, and it outlined (a piece of) life in the 18th century, and it does feature a strong female protagonist, but the writing. Oh, it could have been so much stronger. And the story could have been tighter. Aside from that… 2 1/2 of 5 stars.

8. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl. (Mar 2012) Another of my read-aloud-to-the-children books. Still just as awesome as the first time I read it. THAT is the sign of a good book. 5 of 5 stars.

9. All Souls, by Christine Schutt. (Mar 2012) I know this book won awards, and I realize that no matter how many YA books I read, I am still an adult and will approach books from that vantage-point, but I just could not attach myself to this book. The characters seemed vapid. Their causes stupid. Perhaps I didn’t give it enough of a chance, but hey – I can only meet the story, narrator, and everyone else halfway. 1 of 5 stars.

10. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. (Mar 2012)

11. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling. (Apr 2012)

12. Bunnicula, by James and Deborah Howe. (Apr 2012) Gracie got this book in her Easter basket and couldn’t read it fast enough. I snuck in a chapters myself each night after she had gone to bed. I wanted to make sure I knew what she was talking about each morning when she excitedly recapped the action! It had been so long since I read it the last time, I wanted to be sure of myself. 4 of 5 stars.

13. The Princess Diaries, by Meg Cabot. (Apr 2012) I picked up this one at a thrift store while my sister was in town. Fifty cents, why not? My baby sister had read them and said they (there’s a series) were crossover friendly and my 8yo would be ready for them soon enough. I have to agree: I could tell it was written for the YA or maybe pre-YA crowd, but it was an enjoyable, easy read. You couldn’t help rooting for the accident-prone protagonist who finds out – to her chagrin – that she’s an heiress to the throne of some tiny fictional country. Need to feel like you’re not alone in your calamity-filled week? Spare an hour and bolt this down. I guarantee a laugh or two. 3 of 5 stars.

14. The Fault in our Stars, by John Green. (May 2012) I don’t care that it’s a “YA” book; I don’t care that it made me cry so hard I was afraid my sinuses were going to burst open; this book was one of the very best books I read all year. Go read my full, spoiler-free review here. 5 of 5 stars.

15. The Magician’s Nephew, by C.S. Lewis. (May 2012) Can you believe I haven’t ever read these? I hated fantasy and sci-fi growing up. I still hate most of it. But if Gracie’s going to be reading these, I’d like to be able to hold a conversation about them. And so I picked it up and read it. It was blechy. In my professional book-reviewing opinion. Ahem. 2 of 5 stars. (May 2012) Can you believe I haven’t ever read these? I hated fantasy and sci-fi growing up. I still hate most of it. But if Gracie’s going to be reading these, I’d like to be able to hold a conversation about them. And so I picked it up and read it. It was blechy. In my professional book-reviewing opinion. Ahem. 2 of 5 stars.

16. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis. (May 2012) This one was a little more readable than Magician’s Nephew. For one, it has a magic wardrobe with a door in the back that leads to a magical land. You all know what a sucker I am for magic doors that lead to faraway lands. The Witch is deliciously wicked (if a bit flat at times), and dialogue isn’t Lewis’s strong point, but I’ll forgive him because there is just something about Aslan. Doesn’t he have more there-ness than the rest of the story? I can see why he’s been borrowed by fiction writer’s everywhere. (Shoosh. I know he’s Christ-like. I’m ignoring the churchy churchiness of it all.) All in all, I can easily understand why Gracie liked this one so much.  3 of 5 stars. (or, 4 for the bit about the door, 2 for the rest of the story.)

17. Slam, by Nick Hornby. (Jun 2012) You all know my weakness for Nick Hornby. This was a departure from his others in that it was written for Young Adults. The protag – a teen boy off somewhere in London – falls hard for a girl, knocks her up, and then slips out of love with her (to his great surprise). I mean, hey, she’s a catch! And having his baby! So what gives? Engaging and tackles sticky issues without sounding like and after-school special. 3 1/2 of 5 stars.

18. What Happened to Goodbye?, by Sarah Dessen. (Jul 2012) This wasn’t book of the year or anything, but it kept me interested and had a lot of good girl-next-door-type romance in it. Not to mention, it hit a lot of “who am I?” questions in (mostly) non-preachy ways. I gave it a 4 of 5 stars rating at the time, but I think I might back it down to 3 1/2 of 5 now that I have some distance.

19. Before I Fall, by Lauren Oliver. (Jul 2012) A lot of readers are gaga over Lauren Oliver. Maybe I found the wrong books to start with, but I just wasn’t feeling it. She wasn’t warm, I didn’t connect, and I could have cared less about her characters. Three kill shots right there. Here’s what I wrote at the time. 1 of 5 stars.

20. The Name of the Star, by Maureen Johnson. (Jul 2012) I really enjoyed the different take on the serial killer mystery plot that John laid out. Her characters were quirky, but not usually annoyingly so. I explained a little more here. 3 of 5 stars.

21. The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thompson Walker. (Jul 2012) Want to get me to read a novel? Tell me it’s about post-apocalyptic America. Ever since my mad love affair with King’s The Stand began when I was in high school, I’ve had these things for whacked-out the-end-is-night disaster survivors and the land they walk. It got me to finish every single bleak page of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, hoping for a turnaround. It forced me to read Justin Cronin’s The Passage, even though I wasn’t big on that one, either (at least not the bits that weren’t about the little girl). It drew me into The Hunger Games. And when I heard The Age of Miracles was about the earth’s gradual slowing spin cycle – and the lengthening days and increasing disaster that went along with them - I knew I was going to have to read it. I think I like it a little better now than when I first reviewed it, but I still think Walker left an awful lot on the table that I wish she had explored a little more. 3 of 5 stars.

22. Divergent, by Veronica Roth. (Jul 2012) My sister Rhi let me borrow her copy - and by “let me” what I really mean is “forced me” – but it wasn’t forced for long. This dystopian novel might be a bit mushier than Hunger Games’ anti-Bella, but the novel is just as kickass. This is a must-read. 4 1/2 of 5 stars. (Because sometimes there is simpering teenaged love. Sigh.)

23. Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. (Jul 2012)

24. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ranson Riggs. (Aug 2012)  I’m going to say something, and then I’m going to almost contradict it. Miss Peregrine’s was one of my biggest disappointments for 2012. Which isn’t to say it wasn’t good… See how that’s confusing? But the end of that sentence is …for tweenaged boys. It’s good for them, but didn’t hold my attention quite as well. I don’t quite know if it was that the book was geared towards tweeny-boys in a way that excluded me, or if it was just that I wasn’t in the mood for it at the time. What I thought I was getting was another fantastic escapism/secret society type book. It was that, but it wasn’t my next favorite thing, which was also part of the hype I had built up in my head. I think this is one of those cases where cautious optimism would have done me much, much better. 2 of 5 stars.

25. Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher. (Aug 2012)  If you are looking for great writing about anti-bullying that is fit for adults and teens alike, you must, must, MUST read this book! I devoured this book in two servings – and it would have been one if I hadn’t forgotten it at work. The format was creative, the tone was as complex without being off-putting, the voice was fresh and compelling: I felt like I was sitting right there with the narrator and…narratee?…the hauntingly sad and sarcastic Hannah and the bumbling, average-teen Clay, listening to the tapes as Clay wanders the city. I wanted to stop reading because it was, at times, heavy and dark and pressing down on my day, but I had to find out what happened next and who got the next tape. Maybe teens are as creative and well-spoken as this fictional portrayal, but if you think the subject isn’t being played out every day, in thousands of cities and towns, you need to think again. 4 of 5 stars.

26. Fever 1793, by Laurie Halse Anderson. (Aug 2012) A quick fictional piece about what it was like to – you’ll never guess – live during the yellow fever epidemic of 1792. A good intro to mid-elementary-level kids like my 8yo who are interested in history. It kept the facts simple and used enough drama to keep the pace up. 3 of 5 stars.

27. Divergent, by Veronica Roth. (Aug 2012) I had to re-read it before diving into the sequel. And I found it just as enjoyable the second time through. I love finding new worlds like this.

28. Insurgent, by Veronica Roth. (Aug 2012) I will confess that I didn’t like the follow-up nearly as much as the original novel, but then I never do. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was better than And the Chamber of Secrets, Hunger Games was better than Catching Fire, Boxcar Children was better than all of the others combined… It’s just that setting the scene and explaining the rules is always more fun than developing the cliffhanger that you’re going to solve in the third book. Which isn’t to say you shouldn’t read the second book; I’m just saying temper your expectations. And allow for an eye-roll or two. 3 of 5 stars.

29. The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick. (Sep 2012) My jaw fell so hard, so fast that I was afraid it would fall off when I saw how big this “children’s” book was. Don’t be put off – most of the book is filled with swoon-worthy, gorgeous illustrations. The story is simple, but moving. I haven’t seen the movie, but I dare it to be half as cinematic as this book. My original review can be found here. 5 of 5 stars.

30. Dare Me, by Meg Abbott. (Sep 2012) I hate cheerleaders. I hate cheerleading books. I couldn’t put this one down. It was gossipy. It was filled with drama and backstabbing. It was a mystery,  but a wickedly smart and devious one. It was pretty much the Gone Girl of the YA world this year. Even when you think you know what happened, or who happened, you wont’ have it exactly right, even though you kind of do. Trust me: reading each salacious detail is so worth it. 4 of 5 stars.

31. Every Day, by David Levithan. (Sep 2012) I  am still mad at this book. First, read it. (Really.) Then read why I lovehate it here. 4 of 5 stars.

32. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling. (Sep 2012)

33. Coraline, by Neil Gaiman. (Oct 2012) I never knew Gaiman wrote Coraline. I made myself read it (this story creeps me the heck out; I had nightmares for weeks) just because my 8yo was loving it so much. Oh, the things I do for that child. 3 1/2 of 5 stars.

34. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J.K. Rowling. (Oct 2012)

35. Gooney Bird Greene, by Lois Lowry. (Oct 2012) Ms. Lowry is the third point of the childhood author trifecta: Judy Blume, Bev Cleary, and dear Lois Lowry. I couldn’t have survived my early years without them. So how I missed Gooney Bird Greene was somewhat of a mystery…until I saw that it was published when I was in high school. Well, that solved that question rather quickly. I found the tale of Gooney Bird, the girl who tells only ABSOLUTELY TRUE STORIES, because Gracie’s 3rd grade teacher (and my new BFF) was raving about how she loved it and was trying to find enough copies to give to her class. I bought a used copy for Gracie, read it, and then bought seven more used copies to gift to the class. Yes, it’s that good. I haven’t ever read a book that better taught story-telling (and writing) skills. Best $35 I spent all year. 5 of 5 stars.

36. Liar & Spy, by Rebecca Stead. (Oct 2012) I wonder if I read Dear Mr. Henshaw or Then Again, Maybe I Won’t or…um… other books geared towards tween boys, would I still like them? Because I’m sensing a theme here. I recognized as I was reading Liar & Spy that it was well-written and had good characters and clever plot development. All the good ingredients were there and they were even mixed in tasty-looking fashion. The problem was that it just wasn’t a flavor I was in the mood for. So don’t take this personally: I would still hand it to my kid if one of them was a boy-child. 2 of 5 stars.

37. Please Ignore Vera Dietz, by A.S. King. (Nov 2012) Loved. LOVED this book. Like Thirteen Reasons Why, Vera Dietz had, essentially, both a boy and girl leading the action. Need to identify with one or the other? You have options. I also liked that there were issues address that seemed to have a modern update. This isn’t the Lurlene McDaniel of my youth. This was something my daughter would think was a bit more of her time. It addresses teen alcoholism and parents divorcing for not-the-usual reasons, and parents being people too (gasp! there’s dating), and mom’s being not-stereotypical mommish, and creepy men taking advantage of not just girls, but boys too. There’s bullying and inappropriate relationships and just about everything except internet dating. It was relevant without being preachy or having a nice tidy ending. Plus, lots of snark, sarcasm and with, and you KNOW I can’t live without those. You must not ignore Vera Dietz is what I’m saying. 4 of 5 stars.

38. Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by John Green and David Levithan. (Nov 2012) Yep. Definitely one of the best books I read all year – both times. I can already tell that this is book I will read and re-read in years to come. Need to recommend a book to tween- and teen-aged boys? This. THIS ONE.

39. On the Banks of Plum Creek, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. (Nov 2012)  The story of Laura never grows old to me. This was a book that we read aloud, chapter by chapter each night; I love that my 8-year-old is falling in love with the adventures of the Ingalls family just I did, even if it doesn’t quite hold my 6-year-old’s attention in the same way. 5 of 5 stars.

The Books of 2012: The non-fic.

Last year my New Year’s resolution was to read more current publications. More precisely, I was aiming for at least one a  month. Surely I could splurge on buying one hardcover a month – if I couldn’t find it at a library, that is. I smashed my goal, of course, and read 32 books published in 2012. I think maybe this year my goal will be to read more non-fic, because my selections are overwhelmingly fiction. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, by my standards, but if Imma read 170ish books, it wouldn’t hurt to be a little more well-read, as opposed to extremely focused.

1. Unbroken, by Laura Hillebrand. (Jan 2012) If you love history, especially World War II history like I do, you MUST read this book. An Olympic runner goes to war, becomes a pilot, gets shot down, and becomes a prisoner of war. Trust me, I am not spoiling you – they tell you this on the book flap. They even tell you that he and his group survive for weeks on a raft in Pacific ocean, battling sharks, before being picked up in the enemies. This isn’t spoiling you, because the beauty is in how our hero survives his camp and his life after the war. Nothing, nothing, will inspire you more. Bonus points if you’re a runner, like me. 4 of 5 stars.

2. The River of Forgetting, by Jane Rowen.(Feb 2012) This I talked about over in my Mental Health list.

3. The Bear’s Embrace, by Patricia von Tigham. (Apr 2012) Because I am an awful, awful human being, I admit that I first started reading this book because I wanted to read about the damn bear attack. Told you. Go ahead and judge. That’s why I started, but I continued because Patricia’s detailed account of her continued efforts at recovery and her battle to stay sane and feel safe for years afterwards held me transfixed. Just trust me: don’t google what happens after her narrative ends. 3 1/2 of 5 stars.

4. Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood, by Koren Zailkas. (May 2012) Another of my recaps over in my Mental List section. What can I say? I went on a lit spree this year.

5. The Psychopath Test, by Jon Ronson. (May 2012) I swear not all of my non-fic reside on the Mental Health list, but this one does.

6. 882 1/2 Answers to Your Questions about the Titanic, by Laurie Coulter. (Jun 2012) Santa spotted this children’s book at the gift shop when he was visiting the Mystic Aquarium. And then he maybe devoured the book in just a few sittings. Everything, everything, is covered and in a manner that my 8 year-old will be dazzled by. It doesn’t talk down to the kids, and yet covers a wide range of appropriate ages. There were lots of pictures and graphics to go along with the entries, too, so it would be good for read out-loud fun. 5 of 5 stars.

7. Memory Palace, by Mira Bartok. (Jun 2012) This haunting memory was recapped on my Mental Health list.

8. Wild, by Cheryl Strayed. (Jul 2012). I cannot tell you how madly I fell in love with this book. I am pulled to books that inspire strength, to books that speak aloud as the author thinks, to books that spill even the ugly thoughts. Cheryl’s book made me want to go out and walk a mountain range to fix in me what may or may not be broken and prove to myself that I could. And even if I did it a million times, I could never say it nearly as well as she. 5 of 5 stars.

9. 102 Minutes: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers, by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn. (Sep 2012) Every year I read a 9/11-themed book to coincide with the anniversary. It’s my way of remembering what happened and to honor those we lost. This year, I read Dwyer and Flynn’s inexhaustible account of how hard the survivors fought for the 102 minutes the towers stood. Their account, too, of those who didn’t make it will leave you in tears. More than once I had to put the book down and gather myself. It’s not as easy, comfortable read…but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be undertaken. 4 of 5 stars.

10. Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl: The True Story of “Renee”, by Marguerite Sechehaye. (Sep 2012) Another memoir on my Mental Health  list.

11. The Murder of a Century, by Paul Collins. (Oct 2012) An easy read, told in a very digestible voice, with a narrator who sounds as if he’s spinning a fictional yarn rather than a detailed factual account. There wasn’t so much anything wrong with it as much as it just didn’t stand out from the crowd for me. If crime-solving is your thing, you’ll enjoy it. If you demand a lot from your books, maybe not as much. 3 of 5 stars.

12. Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl, by Mary McCorkindale. (Nov 2012) Yeah, her farm girl status isn’t the only thing that rang less than authentic: McCorkindale’s entire personality sounded shallow, shrill and a ploy for attention. Boo hoo – let me whine and cry because I lost my seven-figure salary and didn’t like my multi-million dollar home and I had too many assistants to help me. So not for this girl. 1 of 5 stars.

13. The End of Your Life Book Club, by Will Schwalbe. (Dec 2012) Yeah, I pretty much wanted to read this from the moment I first heard of it. How could you not with a title like that? Even though you know it’s going to be a tearjerker going into it, it was well worth every single word. Will’s mother – a phenomenal lady and humanitarian aid worker I really wish I had known – is diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer shortly after one of her trips to Afghanistan. During her various doctor’s trips and such, Will and his mom start, almost accidentally, a book club. It might have started out as a way for them to kill time and talk about reading – one of their greatest passions – but it was also a way for them to get to know each other all over again and in a way that you can only with a Something Terrible like cancer and (unspeakably) death hanging over one of them. I mean – can you even imagine? What else besides talking about all of these beautiful stories and characters would let loved ones back into so many difficult to broach conversations? If this book doesn’t make you want to start a book club immediately with a loved one, then you are just BROKEN, sir. 5 of 5 stars.

14. Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. (Dec 2012) This was the book that helped me heal through the heartbreaking process of my divorce. I was hoping it would help me heal, too, as I continued walking away from another unhealthy relationship. It might not have been as revealing to me as that first time I devoured it, but it stood up well just the same. 4 of 5 stars.

15. Full Body Burden, by Kristen Iversen. (Dec 2012) A woman tells her story of growing up in the shadow of a factory that made nuclear warheads. As in, uranium all over the place. Literally, a hot mess. Iversen does it with an incredible amount of poise, research, and are-you-sure-this-isn’t-fiction readability – even more impressive because her family life ain’t exactly functional, either. If Mulder and Erin Brockovitch had a baby (sans aliens), this book would be it. 4 of 5 stars.

The Books of 2012: Fiction

On average, I’ve been reading between 65-75 books each year for the last few years. So I thought I was setting the bar high when I set a goal of reading 70 new (to me) books. Which obviously wouldn’t include re-reads – both old favorites and new ones. (Hey, remember that time I read the Hunger Games trilogy three times in one year?) I was so worried that I wouldn’t hit my mark that I swore most fervently that I wouldn’t indulge in any re-reads until I hit my mark. As it turned out, I didn’t live up to that promise exactly, but then again, I didn’t need to. 182 books read, people. 1-8-2! !!! I amazed even myself.

So! Rather than give you a single list than no one other than the singularly-obsessed me would ever get through, I decided to divide the books by genre to better serve your recaplet reading pleasure. Here goes…

1. Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James. (Jan 2012) I thought it would be fun to read something about Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy after the curtain had fallen. Wow, was I wrong. Don’t do it folks. Friends don’t let friends read horrible fan fiction – even if it’s been published. 1 of 5 stars.

2. The Tiger’s Wife, by Tea Obreht. (Jan 2012) This was one of my favorite stories of the year. The narrator’s grandfather, a doctor, has passed, and she struggles to find meaning in his life, her own adolescence, the war and politics of their town, to untangle the legends from the truth of who her grandfather was…but Tiger’s Wife comes across as so much more. There’s a mythical quality about the storytelling that unfolds, especially in the telling of death myth that is woven in. Obreht’s lyrics held me prisoner; I put the book down only once, for work, and then I quickly gulped down the rest. 5 of 5 stars.

3. Dragonfly in Amber, by Diana Gabaldon. (Jan 2012) The first book in Gabaldon’s series, The Outlander, was a fabulous escape book for me. Don’t want to think anymore? Here! Read about time travel! And historical England and Scotland! And castles! And love and REALLY steamy sex scenes! Did I mention the love? (Twoo wuv.) Unfortunately, the continuation of Claire and Jamie’s adventures didn’t keep me quite as riveted. 2 of 5 stars.

4. The White Mary, by Kira Salak. (Jan 2012) War correspondent Marika Vecera travels to Papa New Guinea to track down rumors that her dead mentor is alive. This is one of my sister Kim’s favorite books of all time and I’m a little annoyed she didn’t make me read it sooner. My original review is here. 5 of 5 stars.

5. The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen. (Jan 2012) I’ll confess: the only reason I finished this book is because I didn’t want my friend who loaned it to me to be disappointed. I can see why everyone was raving so madly about Franzen’s brilliance: he crafts each sentence as if his life depends on the abundance of detail. And yet it’s not just volume of detail – you wonder how the bloody hell someone could think of something so realistic and pin it to paper with such finesse. The problem with that is that Franzen compiled so many brilliant moments so realistically that by the time I finished the book (or each day’s allotment), I was utterly exhausted. So I guess in this case, I stopped enjoying all the trees for the forest. Still. Get ready high school upperclassmen and college lit majors: I have a feeling this book will be for you soon what Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath was for me then. Bloody brilliant, but utterly boring. 2 of 5 stars.

6. The Flame Alphabet, by Ben Marcus. (Jan 2012) Abort! Abort! I couldn’t get into this. AT ALL. And I was so hoping to: a dystopia where the sound of adolescents’ speech is lethal? It should have been amazing. But I couldn’t get emotionally invested or follow enough of the background-less plot enough to get invested. 1 of 5 stars.

7. Sing Them Home, by Stephanie Kallos. (Feb 2012)  I was really looking forward to this book. So much so, in fact, that I used Christmas money and paid full price for the paperback. At an actual bookstore. And then I let it languish on my TBR shelf for the longest time. That being neither here, nor there, I was crushed when I started reading and couldn’t get into the story. The story follows three adult children whose lives have all been shaped by the grief they still carry for their mom, who went missing during a storm when they were young. Since my mom is, in a sense, “missing”, I thought I would feel some connection – or at least empathy – for the characters. But I just couldn’t click into their stories. They had fallen so off the path that there was a wall between us. I didn’t care if they overcame their pitfalls because I just couldn’t empathize. I wanted to, I wanted so much to enjoy the story! But 100 pages in, I still couldn’t give a darn. Readers be warned. 1 of 5 stars.

8. The Reader, by Bernard Schlink. (Feb 2012) I have a thing for WWII-themed fiction. I find studying the war fascinating; fiction gives us ways to explore so many different facets in it in an emotional sense. The Reader portrays sides of that the conflict and aftermath that would be hard to explore without the help of fiction: a German boy who befriends (unknowingly) a woman who worked at the death camps. It was a powerful coming-of-age story. The first half of the story dealt with the boy’s struggle with identity, as a person and half of a romantic entanglement – complicated by the fact that the secret affair was taboo. After his lover disappears without warning, the boy struggles in the second half of the book to reconcile who he is and who he wants to be as he watches his former lover stand trial for war crimes. There was nothing that disappointed; Schlink got it all right. The angle, the nuance, the emotional tension… This is a book I will read again and, I’m sure, learn even more from the second time around. 4 of 5 stars.

9, 12, 14.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, by Stieg Larsson. (Feb-Mar 2012) One of my new reading buddies at work lent this to me and told me I must read it. Since I treasure reading buddies – you never know what books you will discover – I tend to read everything they suggest at first, if only to cement the relationship before worrying about hurting their feelings.  If I didn’t have that rule, I never would have finished Dragon Tattoo. My buddy warned me about the beginning of Dragon Tattoo – he said there was a huge bit at the beginning dealing with finance and that I would most likely want to toss it aside. Be patient, he said. Stick with the book. He said it was important to the ending, but I wouldn’t understand its relevance until then. So I slogged through it. I stopped mid-page several times in order to take a nap. But eventually I got through it. Once I hit the part where Blomkvist moves to the island, I was hooked. I couldn’t read fast enough. Sure, it’s a bit gory and blushingly explicit – I would never want to know if my parents read this book, for example – but the pace couldn’t have been better staged and the plot couldn’t have been better outlined. Books 2 and 3 had me groaning in places where things magically happened to advance the plot, but nothing I couldn’t forgive. Also, really, who here wouldn’t want to be Lisbeth, at least for a little while? That chick is total badass. 5 of 5 stars.

10. Hope: A Tragedy, by Shalom Auslander. (Feb 2012) If you love dark and twisty, if you love sarcasm and oh-no-he-DIDN’T! send-ups, if you can find the utter brilliance behind the seemingly outrageous, and if you’re not above taking on a little guilt so you can laugh out loud when you shouldn’t, you MUST read this first novel by (have I already said it?) the brilliant Auslander. His middle-aged protag Solomon Kugel has moved his wife and son and, to his wife’s chagrin, his dying mother to the suburbs, into a house they can’t afford in order to escape the evils and foibles following their seemingly cursed family. Soon after moving, dementia besets his mother, who thinks she is a concentration camp survivor (she isn’t)(although she is really great at thinking she is). As if that wasn’t enough, Kugel finds an unwanted houseguest hiding out in his attic. And that houseguest insists she is Anne Frank. Kugel spends the rest of the novel trying to hide his bossy, needy Anne Frank wannabe from the rest of his family, as well as continuing to conquer the biggest curse of all: Hope. For it is hope that distracts us from the reality that we’re all going to die and suffer ALL OF THE CURSES! before we get there. Really, Auslander says it all much gut-bustingly better than I. The only thing I will say against Hope is that I was ready for the story to wrap up about a quarter of the novel earlier than it did. The ending, it did drag. But then I’m sure the characters would have enjoyed that. 4 of 5 stars.

11. The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz. (Feb 2012) You guys, I loved this book SO HARD! Oscar might be my favorite loser in all of literature. I mean, you can’t help but root for the kid! A “ghetto-nerd” who is bullied mecilessly his entire life because the dude has no game, no street cred, no anything whatsoever to help him get by…nothing, that is except for his writing and his romantic nature. Oscar devours science fiction and fantasy stories, then begins writing them himself to distract him from his own inepititude and his sister’s wild shenanigans. Then the fuku – a powerful curse – is leveled against Oscar’s family and he must escape to the United States to try to begin again. Love. Immigration. Culture. Coming of age. Family. History. You root for Oscar, you want him to find and slay that six-fingered man (metaphorically) because goddamn it, Diaz and his magic-weaving fingers taps out his story in such a beautiful, glorious beat that you can’t not get invested. It is unpossible not to fall for Oscar, his short, wondrous life’s worth of evidence be damned. 5 of 5 stars.

13. No One Is Here Except All of Us, by Ramona Ausobel. Another Holocaust-era story, this one about a small town in Romania in 1939 that undertook drastic and imaginative measures to secure the town’s survival. The townspeople start over. Like, really over. They create new meanings for every day words and occurances. They deny knowledge of anything that came before that day. They reallign families, seemingly at random. And then there is the mysterious stranger who arrives at the town’s new beginning. But can the town keep the world at bay forever? 3 of 5 stars.

15. The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey. (Mar 2012) Just when I started to doubt my book-choosing abilities, one arrives on my doorstep to ensorcel me. Ivey’s debut novel was nothing less than spell-binding. In 1920, a young couple travels from farmland back east to the riches of Alaska to make their fortunes and an imprint on the land. The life is tough, but enjoyable, except for one thing: they have no children with whom to share their life. Without someone to care for, to struggle for, Mabel is about to give up. And then, like a fairy tale she often read as a child, a little girl appears on their doorstep after a blizzard. Ivey’s writing is so crisp, so beautifully sparse in a way that doesn’t scrimp on the magical, that I just wanted to crawl inside the story and ask for more and more and more. Snow Child made my heart break in all the right ways. 5 of 5 stars.

16. 11/22/63, by Stephen King. (Mar 2012) This started out with a deliciously familiar Kingish feel to it: a young English teacher in a small Maine town finds a doorway in a diner. (YAY doors! I LOVE doors!) But then as the heft of the tale continues, it started feeling like something more. His critics will say it starts feeling like a genuine novel, and that’s when I try to not punch them in their faces. To me it sounded like Mr. King speaking from a world next door, or like he was painting with an entirely new medium. You can still see fingerprints, brushstrokes, to to speak, that make the story his. But the effect was just…different. Good different – the novel was amazingly executed, even if it could have been at least 150 pages lighter – but even as enjoyable a jaunt as it was, listening to King speak about a subject he’s so passionate about, I will still love the “classic” Kings more and better. (P.S. I get great big giant points for not saying a single thing about the ending.) 3 3/4 of 5 stars.

17.  The Lantern, by Deborah Lawrenson. (Mar 2012) All I can remember about this book is that I got it in a dollar bin and that the writing was horrid. 1 of 5 stars.

18. The Map of True Places, by Brunonia Barry. (Mar 2012) I thought this would be a therapeutic read for me; one of the main characters is dealing with a parent with Parkinson’s. But as much as the beginning drew me in, the book sort of lost interest for me. I wanted the psychologist to be a stronger character, not a mushy mess. And I wanted her relationship with her father – and her father’s circumstances – to have more definition. In the end, I grew tired of trying to hold it all together and just gave up. 2 of 5 stars.

19. Left Neglected, by Lisa Genova. (Mar 2012) You know, I enjoy Lisa Genova – she’s incredibly readable. The problem with Lisa Genova is that I don’t feel like I gain anything by the time I’ve finished her books. It’s almost like (and wow does this sound wrong to say), she’s too readable, like the literary equivilent of watching something mindless on Oxygen. Left Neglected fell into that category. I enjoyed reading about her main character, a busy career woman balancing a full schedule of mommying in between meetings and deadlines – until she’s in an accident and loses function in the left hemisphere of her brain. The story of her fight to regain her life – even if it’s one reimagined from what she previously had – was interesting enough to hold me until the last page. But it’s not a story I will ever pick up again. Alas. 2 of 5 stars.

20. Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer. (Apr 2012) Don’t hate me – but  I could not get into this book. I don’t understand: I adored Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. So much so that I hunted for this book every time I was in a used book store. I couldn’t wait to read it. From everything I heard, the character Alex Perchov was something to behold. And so I finally got my hands on a copy, dove in…and couldn’t latch on the to ADHD pace. Not the characters, not the writing. Nada. And it was WWII fiction, too! My favorite! I kept my copy, though, and I’m not giving up. Maybe it just wasn’t me right now. 1 of 5 stars.

21. A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Housseini. (Apr 2012) My sister had me read Housseini’s The Kite Runner first because it was supposed to be the better story. And it was brilliant! So I tried to temper my expectations going into Thousand Splendid Suns. Of course, then I started reading it and couldn’t put it down and loved it so hard I wondered why there were only a thousand splendid suns; surely it deserverd a hundred million more or so. Be warned – the book is a heartbreaker. You will cry as many tears (at least) as there are suns. But just stock up on tissues – you must, must, MUST read this book. It is well written, smart, filled with characters you’ll care about and those you’ll despise (and all of whom act in incredibly believable, true ways), and will stay with you for a long, long time. 5 of 5 stars.

22. The Drawing of the Three, by Stephen King. (Apr 2012) I conned my best friend Corrie into reading this series. She is going to kill me when she gets halfway through Book 7. In real life.

23. Carry the One, by Carol Anshaw. (Apr 2012) This was one of the new release books I bought as part of my resolution to read more current publications this year. I couldn’t wait to read it: a carload of guests leaving a wedding accidentally hit and kill a mysterious young girl walking in the middle of the road late at night. The story follows those affected and studies how each deals with their grief and guilt and other psychological after effects. Sounds amazing, yes? Unfortunately, I felt Anshaw’s writing distanced itself too much from the raw emotional potential lying about her in every direction. I wanted power, and instead I felt like all of the characters were heavily drugged, pushing through an invisible sludge. Maybe that’s a bit harsh, but I certainly couldn’t connect, even if the dulled delivery was intentional. 1 of 5 stars.

24. Tar Baby, by Toni Morrison. (Apr 2012) This might be my least favorite of Morrison’s novels. Might be? Definitely is. Even though admitting I don’t like some of her work makes me look up nervously for bolts of lightning to rain down from the sky. 2 of 5 stars.

25. Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon (Apr 2012) Another re-read! See the praise I heaped on it a few spots up when I talked about the sequel, Dragonfly in Amber.

26. The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides. (Apr 2012) I think I might like this book now that I few months have passed when I read it. For one, I’ve (mostly)(sort of)(okay not really, but I’m DEALING WITH IT) gotten over the fact that it is not Middlesex. You need to know this. If you want something as good as Middlesex, then you’re better off just re-reading Middlesex. Because this is nowhere near as great, or as good, as that technical, emotional, literary genius of a novel. (I rather fancied it, can ya tell?) The Marriage Plot, however, is kind of good in its own right. Sort of. If what you’re looking at is a college campus and post-grad what-does-my-life-mean-now? rumpus of a triangle, and you don’t mind wanting to bang all of the characters’ heads against the wall, then yes, this might be for you. As long as you know beforehand that it’s not Middlesex. Hmpf. 3 of 5 stars.

27. Wind through the Keyhole, by Stephen King. (Apr 2012) Who was excited to read this book? THIS GIRL!! I am a sucker for Stephen King – there is no greater comfort read for me. Add to that the fact that this is a bonus Dark Tower novella (DT 4.5 for those following along), and I was all over it. In fact, I read it in one night. The night my daughter had a sleepover birthday party and so I was up all hours, but still. A very tight story within a story within a story from one of my favorite writers. A must-read for all Dark Tower fans, but try to keep your expectations in check – it’s no Wastelands. 4 1/2 of 5 stars.

28. Salvage the Bones, by Jasmyn Ward. (May 2012) This was a big, fun (is that word appropriate for heavy issues?), important-feeling novel. A readable “literary” novel, to use a term with which I have a very love/hate relationship. Was it just me, or did you hear ghosts of Fauklner and Toni Morrion rising up from the southern setting, and lush but deliberate prose? Just 12 days cover the entire plot as four kids and their largely absent alcoholic father prepare for a Katrina-like hurricane on the Mississippi gulf shore while also trying to fend for themselves and eek out enough to get by each day. Oh! And the 14-year-old girl narrating just found out she’s pregnant. Salvage the Bones won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2011 and every single page shows you why. 4 of 5 stars.

29. Easter Island, by Jennifer Vanderbes. (May 2012) I did not, did not, did not like this book. I wanted to. The premise sounded like something I’d love: in 1913, one woman travels to Easter Island with her anthropologist husband and instead of familial duty finds adventure; 60 years later, an American botonist travels to the island to find herself the death of her husband. Mysteries ensue, as do their eventual unravelling. Sounds exciting, yes? Unfortunately, the writing lulled me to sleep every. single. time. I tried to invest myself. If you make it, you’re made of stronger stuff than I. 2 of 5 stars.

30. The Thorn and the Blossom, by Theodora Goss. (May 2012) I was intrigued by this gimmicky, two-sides-to-every-story fable. Two lovers, a mysterious romance, and a weird box-shaped accordion book that is hard to hold. You start on one side to get one character’s take; then flip the book over and read the other side of the story. The fable held my attention all the way through, even if I did roll my eyes a few times. 3 of 5 stars.

31. Eleven Minutes, by Paulo Coelho. (May 2012) I liked this book a ridulously whole lot. A young girl from South America falls for a scam artist, is forced into prostitution, and then makes her life her own – all without selling her pride or her soul. And Maria will make you turn your brain inside out with all of the thinking. I haven’t underlined so many thought-provoking passages in a single book since college. And I dare you to find more readable prose. 5 of 5 stars.

32. Objects of my Affection, by Jill Smolinski. (May 2012) Here’s where you get to judge me viciously, with my full permission: I read this book because it was about hoarding. In real life! It was just enough better than a Lifetime movie that I kept reading, but it did elicit a few outloud groans in places. It was the literary equivalent of mac&cheese – just what you need to make it through some days. 2 1/2 of 5 stars.

33. Hannibal, by Thomas Harris. (May 2012) I read Silence of the Lambs earlier this year (or was it last?) and it quite frankly scared the ever-living jeebus outta me. I thought it was psychologically paced and artfully excuted much, much better than the movie. So I had similar expections heading into Hannibal. Meh. It was okay – I mean, I finished it and everything. But was it as gripping as Silence? Not even close. You won’t lose anything if you need to trim it from your TBR, but if you find it in a clearance bin, it’s good for a rainy day. 3 of 5 stars.

34. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer. (Jun 2012) You’re going to think this is silly, but I always forget how much this nearly-perfect book is about…well…books. I mean, it has LITERARY SOCIETY in the title, for Pete’s sake! But I never forget how much I love it. Dearly. 5 of 5 stars.

35. Three Junes, by Julia Glass. (Jun 2012) Paul, a recent widower, and his three grown sons reflect on their lives and the complexities of love. If I had read it at any other time, I might have liked it more, but it read a little dry and highbrow and I wanted to be gripped by something unputdownable. 2 of 5 stars.

36. Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver. (Jun 2012) Babs kills me. She does. Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven, Poisonwood Bible? LOVED THEM. Poisonwood is even on my Favorite Books of All Time list. So she has these glorious works that make me want to read her entire backlist…and then I hit clunkers like Lacuna and Prodigal Summer that make me want to banish myself from all of nature. I mean, there were parts that I liked. But it just… was so backwoodsy and kinda Cold Mountain-ish. (I didn’t like Cold Mountain.) If I want nature, I’ll go camping and sing girl scout songs. When I read books – especially Kingsolver – I expect a great deal of insight. I just wasn’t fealing it with this one. 2 of 5 stars.

37. Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson. (May 2012) I wanted so much to like this novel. I’d heard so many good things and it won the fancypants National Book Award for Fiction in 2007. Tree of Smoke tells the story of an American, lost in soul, who wants to be good and wise and something meaningful, but instead thinks of himself as the effing American, a tale set in the midst of our war in Vietnam. A tale of identity questions and war? That’s so up my alley! I love that stuff! Except…I didn’t. And no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t make myself. Johnson, he’s got chops, but I couldn’t dig ‘em. 1 of 5 stars.

38. The Reservoir, by John Milliken Thompson. (May 2012) The late 1800s. Richmond, Virginia. A woman’s body found in the reservoir. Murder-or-suicide? Mystery. Love triangles. Brother against brother. It could go either way, right? And the mediocre writing and pace of the story did me in. 1 of 5 stars.

39. Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. (Jun 2012) I know everyone else is saying this, too, but…you guys, Gillian Flynn is a GENIUS. Seriously. I hope I never meet her because she could kill me dead and convince everyone that someone else had done it. Very clever, sassy, funny, brilliant, and masterfully deceptive. There’s a reason this is the It book of the year. And if you’re the last person alive who hasn’t read it, go. GO NOW. And you might as well buy her other two while you’re there – I read them both and loved them. (Uh…spoiler alert.) 5 of 5 stars. And I’m itching to read it again.

40. The Traveler, by John Twelve Hawks. This was a Traveling Book. The dude…travels. Mysteriously. With magic-type stuff. And there are other bits, too, but traveling stories are my weakness. Secret doors. Magic. Dreams. Alternate realities. Thin places in existence. All of it. So I should have loved this book. I don’t know what it was – if the reality was too alt-reality, or the fantasy was too fantastical – but I felt like the story started in the middle and I couldn’t quite catch up. I’m very picky about my alternate realities, apparently. 1 of 5 stars.

41.. Night Strangers, by Chris Bohjalian. (Jun 2012) I had quite a few books by Mr. Bohjalian on my TBR list, and this one seemed like a great first candidate: a pilot tries to save his doomed plane via miraculous water landing (a la Miracle on the Hudson)…only this time it doesn’t go quite as smoothly. Reeling from the disaster, our protag retires from his job and moves into an odd old house in rural New England. And not only are their ghosties and mysteries and twins, but there is a mysterious door in the basement. How many of my literary weaknesses can we squeeze into one book?! Each one kept my interest snagged, relieving the plot any time one subject got a little soggy. I wasn’t quite entranced with the voice, but interested enough in the whats to keep reading even when the hows of Night Strangers wasn’t working for me. This is definitely one I’d borrow rather than buy, but a good afternoon’s worth of entertainment either way. Just maybe don’t read it right before you fly. Or spend a winter’s night in a creepy manion. 3 of 5 stars.

42. Open City, by Teju Cole. (Jun 2012) One of the distinctions I make between the fictions books I read is to divide them between Books With Plot and Philosophical Books. Which isn’t to say one can’t dabble in the other – nearly all books must have some plot, or it would just be a string of words – but usually a book will fall concretely into one category or the other. Open City is a thinking book, a philosophical one. A young med student wanders New York City alone, thinking long thoughts about his past, his studies, his failed romances, his life in Nigeria, and all manner of things. If you’re spending a lot of time thinking about your life and what it’s amounting to, or wondering exactly where you want it to meander towards, this is just the kind of book that will help you think about it without actually thinking about it for awhile. It’s smart, refreshing, and beautiful in its unhurried pace, with just enough smattering of “stuffs” going on to keep me from fidgeting. 3 of 5 stars.

43. Domestic Violets, by Matthew Norman. This was an ebook I found through our local library. (Library loans without leaving your living room, for the win!) Unfortunately, I was more impressed with the technology of ebook-loans than I was with the actual book. The plot sounded intriguing: mid-life crisis by aspiring novelist makes me feel like a failure in all aspects – his marriage is failing, he’ll never write like his Pulitzer Prize-winning father…even his dog doesn’t like him. I love me some stories about how life seems to suck, but then there are <jazz hands> revelations! And things turn around! Or they don’t, but the protag doesn’t care anymore! This one… still waiting for the jazz hands. Or any hands. 1 of 5 stars.

44. Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley. (Jul 2012) I picked this book up because on of my favorite reviewers over at BookRiot described eleven-year-old protagonist Flavia de Luce as her favorite child protag of perhaps all-time. Flavia is a budding chemist, a busybody in a charming Harriet-the-Spy/child-yearning-to-be-an-adult sort of way, and an amateur sleuth when she must clear her father’s name in the most mysterious death of a stranger on their property. What more can I say? This book made me start writing in books again: I couldn’t help it! I was yelling, “Yes! Yes!” and reading passages outloud. Trust me. Read it. 5 of 5 stars.

45. Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes. (Jul 2012) Tony and Adrian met in school as chaps and grew up together before moving on to separate colleges and separate lives – linked by a single girl, of course. It’s told years later from the viewpoint of a middle-aged, divorced Tony in a voice that never quite clicked, somehow. I never fell in love with Sense of an Ending, and I never really grew attached to any of the characters involved in the love triangle at its heart, but I couldn’t ever put the book down, either. I needed to know what happened, and it wasn’t quite unbeautiful, either. Some books are just like that. 2 1/2 of 5 stars.

46. The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. (Jul 2012) The Namesake is a story about coming of age, about generational differences that cannot be bridged until it is almost too late, about the cultural divide each generation experiences as the immigrating parents and the first generation born in the new country. It’s about so many things woven so tightly that you can’t speak about any without the others, and done so well that you will need to talk about those many things with everyone. The Namesake made me think about my own identity for an indecent amount of time after I finished, and made me wonder all over again about the secret lives my parents might have lived before they were mine. 4 of 5 stars.

47. Zone One, by Colson Whitehead. (Jul 2012) A zombie plague has infested the world, dividing humanity into two types: the infected and the uninfected. Martial law has been ordered, and groups of former citizens are assigned the task of clearing zones, including New York City: Zone One. I’ve read Whitehead before and I think I could maybe have like this book if it wasn’t written an unimpassioned voice that seems to be his trademark. My sister enjoyed this, though, so I’m pretty sure this is a personal (un)preference. 1 of 5 stars.

48. Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. (Jul 2012) What? I couldn’t help myself.

49. Tell the Wolves I’m Home, by Carol Rifka Brunt. (Jul 2012) It’s 1987. 14-year-old June has just lost her beloved uncle to AIDS, and she has no idea how to cope. Her uncle used to hold the strings together, it seems, make everything bearable, and now she has no one to listen to her. Or does she? Gah. I’m recapping it all wrong. Because this book was beautiful and had the perfect tone and made me want a gay uncle just like June’s, and I read it in a single sitting because it was THAT good. It even made me cry at work. (Don’t finish it on your lunch break. Just sayin’.) It was my vote in Goodread’s Best Fiction Book of 2012. AND I’m buying the hardcover just for the gorgeous art on the dustcover. Stunning, inside and out. 5 of 5 stars.

50. Gold, by Chris Cleave. (Jul 2012) I had high hopes for Gold. Too high. I fell in love with Cleave when I read Incendiary. I likened his follow-up, Little Bee, to Morrison’s Beloved, for crying out loud! But Gold…meh. I understand it was a character study. I understand that Cleave is masterful at releasing only as much information as he wants you to have, and only when he wants you to have it – and he does it well – but I can name many other authors (GillianFlynn:cough:cough) so do that, too. And I liked their books a lot better than this soap-opera. 2 of 5 stars.

51. The Final Solution, by Michael Chabon. (Jul 2012) My original review is over here, but if you want to skip ahead, I gave it 2 of 5 stars. But for a reason!

52. Rose Madder, by Stephen King. (Jul 2012) Viva ze bool! If I had to list my five favorite King novels (please don’t make me), this would get strong consideration. 5 of 5 – even with allll the re-readings over the years.

53. The Sea, by John Banville. (Jul 2012) Uggggggh. I couldn’t do it. Banville just isn’t my thing. It was so dry and just…not me. 1 of 5 stars.

54. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson. (Jul 2012) This English delight, on the other hand, was so adorable! and English! and filled with formerly-supressed feelings! Our widowed title character falls rather unexpectedly “in like” with the shopkeeper in his village. Except she happens to be Pakistani and ten years his junior. Major Pettigrew discusses love, tradition, cultural differences, generational expectations, expectations and tradition, and courage to be your own person in spite of family, norms, and even yourself. Simonson uses such charm, elegance and subtlety that the measure of how attached I was to the characters and the story sort of snuck up on me. I first read Major Pettigrew as a library eloan…and then went out and sought out a used copy of my own. 3 1/2 of 5 stars.

55. The Wastelands, by Stephen King. (Jul 2012) Every time I read Drawing of the Three, I decide it’s my favorite of the Dark Tower novels…until I read Wastelands.

56. Mad Desire to Dance, by Elie Wiesel. (Jul 2012) I confess: I couldn’t get into this book. I finished it, but if I had to gamble on remembering much about it, I’d lose. 1 of 5 stars.

57. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. (Jul 2012) The fact that I’ve shelved my Neil Gaiman books next to my Stephen Kings and Joe Hills tells you exactly what I think of his storytelling abilities. If you’re unfamiliar, American Gods is like Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series for grownups…only with so much more to unpack and delight over. 3 1/2 of 5 stars.

58. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain. (Jul 2012) If I taught high school history, I would offer an entire letter-grade bump to any of my students who could prove to me they read this book. It’s THAT important to American relations, domestically and internationally. Billy Lynn’s squad gained fame for a ferocious battle with Iraqi insurgents, from which only eight soldiers survived. Fountain lampoons Americans ideas of patriotism and the treatment of our heroes during a single day, during which Billy Lynn’s squad is honored at a Dallas Cowboy’s football game. It’s not a book you’ll fall instantly in love with, it’s not one you’ll off in a single sitting, but of all the books I read this year, this one might’ve made me think the most. 4 of 5 stars.

59. What is the What?, by Dave Eggers. (Aug 2012) I was prepared to not like this book. I had picked it up almost a year before at a used book store for cheap and it had been sitting on my TBR shelf getting picked over ever since. I’d tried and abandoned Eggers’ work before. Several times, in fact. I found him egotistical and smarmingly left of center. But then I started reading his fictionalized account of a Sudenese refugee searching for the American dream and…I really liked it. Deng’s voice – no matter how much of it was his and how much was Eggers’ – completely captivated me. I loved his backstory as told through flashbacks, I loved hearing stories of his acclimated (current) life, I loved hearing stories from when he first came to the U.S. I didn’t even care about the controversey surrounding the format of the book. I just wanted to read Deng’s story no matter whose reality it belonged to. 4 of 5 stars.

60. One Breath Away, by Heather Gundenkauff. (Aug 2012) A fun read, even if it did smack at time of Jodi Piccoult-esque formulaic writing. It was a light contemporary thriller I looked forward to reading each night, critics be damned. 3 of 5 stars.

61. Sway, by Nick Lazar. (Aug 2012) Sway was the complete opposite of being formulaic. The story of a Manson family edge dweller that intersected with the early days of the Rolling Stones, this was a trippy, fun, smart read that made you pay attention. 3 1/2 of 5 stars.

62. The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown. (Aug 2012) Another disappointment. I couldn’t get invested in the sisters to ever involve myself in their story. They were whiney. Irresponsible. Flighty. And not in a way that you want to know anything more. 1 of 5 stars.

63. Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger. (Aug 2012) Rhi snuck this into my suitcase on my way back from vacationing this summer. At first I was all Hells No – I am so anti-Time Traveller’s Wife after a bad collision with Octavia Butler’s Kindred in college. No time travelling. No “there are are, hey where’d you go?” for me. And Niffenegger’s new (to me) novel is just one step removed. Except then I read the book blurb. Twins. Dead aunts. English countryside. Cemeteries. Haunted apartments. More twins. Love. Identity. Ghosts. In case you’re wondering, that kinda adds up to one of my things. So I read it. And while the novel was a shade too long, and there were bits and pieces I didn’t love, I still bought my own copy and housed it on a shelf next to Rebecca and Thirteenth Tale and handsold it to several of my readerly friends. 3 1/2 of 5 stars.

64. The Swan Thieves, by Elizabeth Kostova. (Aug 2012)  A famous painter attacks one of his own masterpieces in the National Gallery and is assigned to a psychiatrist. Of course there is a love story and the untangling of identities – both the painter’s, and the psychiatrist’s – and it sounded much like something I usually love…except I didn’t. I don’t know if the disconnect was because Kostova was writing across the gender divide and the protag’s voice sounded off (truly, for the first several dozen pages, I kept being pulled out of the story whenever I read that he was a he, and not a she as I pictured), but something just wasn’t working for me. 1 of 5 stars.

65. Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn. (Aug 2012) If you haven’t dropped what you’re doing to read all of Gillian Flynn’s novels, you’re nuts. As nuts as several of her so brilliantly written characters. This was the second of her novels that I read, and while Gone Girl is obviously her crowning achievement (to date), Dark Places wasn’t too far behind. I underlined so many perfectly turned phrases and kept shrieking loving adulations that I was afraid I might fall into the book. I will warn you that the beginning of Dark Places is…well…a little dark. But I promise it picks right up! I had even forgotten how depressing it was until I read another reviewer’s reaction. I’ve also heard people who were irritated at how things just sort of happened and fell into place too neatly for their tastes, but I’m of the camp who doesn’t mind setting aside reality a bit if the execution is pitch perfect. And for me, this thriller was. 5 of 5 stars.

66. The Astral, by Kate Christensen. (Aug 2012) A “lost soul looking for redemption” novel, this time it’s poet Harry Quirk who has been tossed by his longtime wife Luz for suspected infidelity. I thought the sidestory of Harry’s grown children – one a crunchy granola daughter, the son a follower of a Christian cult – who would captivate me. Instead, I have to admit that I don’t remember a blessed thing about this novel, other than the writing was descent but it seemed like so many other novels. 2 of 5 stars.

67. Await Your Reply, by Dan Choan (Aug 2012) This novel read like a bunch of connected stories, only we don’t see for the longest time how interconnected the stories are. Part creepy thriller, part contemporary fiction, I had a hard time getting into the three stories…and then a hard time not thinking about them once I was done. 3 of 5 stars.

68. 1Q84, by Haruki Marukami. (Sep 2012) I can’t say I ever loved 1Q84, but I read the book consciously aware of being amazed by and in awe of it. Read my mid-read review over here.

69. Wizard and Glass, by Stephen King. (Sep 2012) Every time I read this, I always think I’m going to have to just get through it, and then I’m always surpised by how much I enjoy it. You know – right before it breaks my heart.

70. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt. (Sep 2012) This book fell apart in my hands. Really. My sister loaned me hear copy and I would turn a page, and the page would fall out into my hands. It made for a rather surreal experience. Thank goodness the mystery? novel? nonfiction? what was it exactly? was so good because messy books are a bit distracting. 3 of 5 stars.

71. Sister, by Rosamund Lupton (Sep 2012) Two sisters are as close as close can be. Except one, the younger one, lives in London where they grew up and the older sister has run away to New York City to be rich and have a career and a fancypants boyfriend/fiancee and everything else…until Older Sis finds out that her sister is first missing, and then found murdered. She travels home to find out what really happened, of course, except it all turns out to be more than the sum of its parts. Part thriller, part mystery, part heartbreaking forced confrontation of what-the-hell-would-I-do-if-I-was-her?! I’m not gonna lie – I actually connected so hard with pieces of what Lupton wrote about these sisters that I would find tears rolling down my cheeks as I furiously turned pages faster and faster. I couldn’t face the lonliness Lupton’s suriving sister faced. 4 of 5 stars.

72. The Sister Brothers, by Patrick DeWitt (Sep 2012) I hate Westerns. Except this one. This one was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize and won the Tournament of Books – and for good reason. Want to know more of the reasons I loved this Victorian Western that was really The Odyssey? Read here. Also? After Tell the Wolves I’m Home, this was my favorite cover of the year. 3 3/4 of 5 stars.

73. Beautiful Ruins, by Jess Walters. (Sep 2012) A lot of people picked this book as their favorite of the year. It was a finalist for Goodreads Best Fiction. Me? Meeeh. I finished it. I wanted to know what happened. But it was no where close to my favorite. I explained why over here. 3 of 5 stars.

74. The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller. (Sep 2012) If you enjoyed the genius of The Road, but hated the soul-crushing despair that just wouldn’t. let. the frick up., then this book’s for you. A man lives with his beloved dog and a gun-crazy lunatic in post-apocalyptic America. Colorado, I believe. One day he hears a radio transmission from farther out than he’s explored and he decides to go all in. Because he is HOPEFUL, DAMNIT. Not that you won’t need a tissue or two. But I’d say it’s worth it. 3 of 5 stars.

75. Triangle, by Katherine Webber. (Sep 2012) A fictionalized account of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire – until 9/11, the greatest tragedy in New York City history. Told years later by a dying survivor – we think – this story both worked and didn’t work. I enjoyed the story much more in the present as her granddaughter copes with losing her beloved grandmother than I did in the recounting of what happened. Even more that, I was fascinated by the way Rebecca’s boyfriend interacted through the world solely through music. Which, I think, was not the point of the book. 2 1/2 of 5 stars.

76. Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stern. (Sep 2012) This novel wasn’t even on my TBR. I was leary of reading another We’re Going To Warn You The Dog Is Gonna Die And You’ll Cry novels. (Um, spoiler. But it says that in the first three pages, so…) But the reviews! They were all glowing. And it was the only e-book available. And the voice was so engaging that I just kept reading. And so I found myself reading this book almost by accident. And reader, it’s good. Like, screw the tissues, you can skip the really sad bit at the end kind of good. The dog who narrates this? One of my favorite narrators of all time. THAT kind of good. Really. 4 1/2 of 5 stars.

77. The Devil in Silver, by Victor LaValle. (Oct 2012) A group of lovable misfits find each other in an insane asylum (sorry – mental institution) in New York and decide to battle another miscreant secretly living there – the devil. Awesome, right? Well…sort of. LaValle’s story was fun to read, except for when he’d get all diatribey and interrupty and pull me out of the story, which happened pretty frequently. And the ending…oof. The last quarter of the book just BUGGED. And I’m a girl who can easily set reality aside and just let things go without a great explanation. So the fact that this drove me nutsy and actually led to me selling the book back to the bookstore because ha, ha, ha – yeah. Still. There was very worthwhile discussion going on about how our society really works and how broken our health system is. Unfortunately, not enough to balance everything out. 3 of 5 stars.

78. The Casual Vacancy, by J.K. Rowling. (Oct 2012) The only thing casual about this book was the council seat Barry Fairbrother vacated when he died unexpectedly. It’s a big book with lots to say about living in a small town – and the living ain’t easy. Neither was reading all of the many, many things Rowling had to say about small-town living. And I just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t one of the readers who was disappointed because it wasn’t a “Harry Potter” novel – and all of the many things that means. I was disappointed because I know how brilliantly Rowling can write about desperate situations without losing the undertones of hope. Casual Vacancy was so consciously vacant of that hope underneath all of the grit. And I don’t think it was better for it. 2 of 5 stars.

79. Gap Creek, by Robert Morgan. (Oct 2012) This wasn’t the sort of book I would normally enjoy. It was a sort of a more readable, younger cousin of Cold Mountain, without the flash or grandness. It wasn’t epic. It’s not something I’ll probably ever read again. But it was an interesting portrayal of marriage. I didn’t always like the characters – young, poor, uneducated newlyweds in the mountains of North Carolina – but by the end of the novel I was wondering rather often whether they were right to act as they had. That means Morgan did something right. 3 of 5 stars.

80. Arcadia, by Lauren Groff. (Oct 2012) I think everyone in the reading community liked this book – except me. I wanted to like it. I wanted to get whatever it was the “cool” kids were seeing. But I couldn’t get into the storylines. At all. Sigh. Maybe I’m just not meant to ever be a hippie. 1 of 5 stars.

81. The Chaneysville Incident, by David Bradley. (Oct 2012) One of my earliest picks for Katie’s List. This book sucks me in SO HARD every time I read it. Nearly perfect, it is. 5 of 5 stars.

82. The Gravedigger’s Daughter, by Joyce Carol Oates. (Oct 2012) Not Oates’s strongest books, but good if you don’t have anything else to read. 2 of 5 stars.

83. Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone, by Stefan Kiesbye. (Oct 2012) Need a good book to suck your face off and make you afraid to look in any of the shadows when you’re alone in your house? Read this new collection of interconnected fairy tales. Scary-ass fairy tales. Need more convincing? Read here. 4 of 5 stars.

84. Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon.(Oct 2012) A record store called Brokeland Records set near Oakland and Bereley, childhood friends whose wives are fellow midwives, and an ex-NFL-type badguy who’s trying to put a megastore on the corner to put Brokeland out of commission. Doesn’t that sound awesome?! It does. Until you remember that you don’t like Chabon, no matter how much you try or how much everyone else says you should, and you die a slow death waiting for the beat of the story to speed up. Ugh. 1 of 5 stars.

85. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan. (Oct 2012) I don’t care if some people thought this novel was too pretentious and self-aware: I thought it was amazing! A mystery set in a hole-in-the-wall San Francisco bookstore, code-breaking, books books and more books, Googlemagic, kooky old people who love to read, and love, twu wuv (or not). You’re either going to love it, or you’re not. But the bookcover glows in the dark, either way. 5 of 5 stars.

86. Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. (Oct 2012) In case you were wondering, the second time you read what was my favorite book of 2011, you will love it even more than the first time. Just sayin’. 5 of 5 stars.

87. The Fates Will Find their Way, by Hannah Pittard. (Oct 2012) Mehhh. It was like it was trying to be The Lovely Bones, without the first person, and falling just short. If I had read this first, I think I would have liked it a lot more than I did. 3 of 5 stars.

88. Book of Illusions, by Paul Auster. (Oct 2012) My sister wanted me to read this to see if I’m a Paul Auster person. Apparently, I’m not. 1 of 5 stars.

89. World War Z, by Max Brooks (Nov 2012) Yet another zombie book. (ZOMG – ENOUGH with the zombies!!) This one is supposed to be coming out as a movie soon, and is about an oral history of the zombie wars that decimated the global community. I don’t know how the movie’s going to do, but I imagine it could capture an oral history a lot better than a book could. The format just didn’t work for me at all. The story – when it wasn’t being hampered by the format - was decent. 2 of 5 stars.

90. Mouthing the Words, by Camilla Gibb. (Nov 2012) This novel would have gone over in my Mental Health list if it wasn’t, you know, a novel. A girl is removed from her home again and again because of atrocities her parents commit: emotionally exiled by her mother, sexually abused by her father, punished by her mother because of the abuse she suffers – this read like so many of the horrific memoirs I’ve read. Except, perhaps because it was fictionalized, Gibb was able to make her tale both heartcrushingly painful and irreverently funny. Her narrator knows that being able to laugh when you’re crying is just about the most powerful tool we have. 3 of 5 stars.

91. The Chaneysville Incident, by David Bradley. (Nov 2012) What?! You read the ending to this book and not turn around and read it again right away. I’ve read it dozens of times and am still compelled.

92. Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks. (Nov 2012) I don’t think held as much emotional punch as it did the first time I read it, but it still entertained the entire way through. 3 of 5 stars.

93. The Monster at Templeton, by Lauren Groff. (Nov 2012) I knew the author sounded familiar, and I followed along better than did with Arcadia, but not much more. Arcadia is far and away the better novel, but I think my taste might not be Groff-like. (Why do I still feel so guilty admitting that?) 1 of 5 stars.

94. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. (Nov 2012) I would love this book so much more than I already do if I knew that Skeeter didn’t just walk away at the end. I don’t know that that’s what she did – nothing in the text says she abandoned anything…and yet, I wonder if that’s not just how it feels. I don’t think Skeeter felt like she had done enough by giving voice, but that’s almost the taste that was left in my mouth. We all need to be kind, we all need to be compassionate, we all need to help each other as much as we need to help ourselves…but I don’t think there’s ever a point where you can say “Okay, I did my part.” Is anyone else getting this vibe? The “off the hook now” vibe? Still a good re-read. 4 of 5 stars.

95. Before You Go to Sleep, by S.J. Watson. (Nov 2012) Not a literary unveiling of epic proportions, but an absolutely un-put-downable read. It was a mystery with a very likeable protagonist and a plot that was different! Huzzah! I had to recommend it to all of my friends – and that’s something. 4 of 5 stars.

96. The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. (Dec 2012) This is hands down one of my favorite books of all time. I love how well it stands up to many re-reads because I foresee several dozen more in my future. 5 of 5 stars.

97. An Arsonist’s Guide to Author’s Home in New England, by Brock Clarke. Yeahhhh, not so much. It sounded so promising – it’s about books and authors and mocking. Oh the mocking! The problem I had was that it was so transparent when I was supposed to laugh, or chuckle, or perhaps add a sardonic comment…only I never really wanted to. And that kinda bugs. 1 of 5 stars.

98. The Lifeboat, by Charlotte Rogan. (Dec 2012) I loved the premise: a Titanic-era ocean liner sinks while crossing the Atlantic. There aren’t enough lifeboats (sound familiar?), so these 20 people are stuck in a lifeboat for almost two weeks. The story is told in flashbacks as you try to figure out how things ended up where the starts. Pretty good premise, but I wish Ms. Rogan had made her main character a little more sympathetic. I really couldn’t work up any sort of emotion towards any of the characters, which really makes the entire story sort of pointless, right? Still, there was some promise, and this was her first novel; I’d give another novel a whirl to see if maybe it was just a one off. 2 1/2 of 5 stars.

99. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared, by Jonas Jonassen. (Dec 2012) This was an impulse read. It was okay, but I think most of the fun got lost in the translation. Or, um, maybe it wasn’t the right time for this read. 2 of 5 stars.

100-102. Three senseless romances that got me through a horrible headcold but weren’t really worth even mentioning. So. Ahem.

103. The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. (Dec 2012) Um…autobiographical fiction much? Not a book you have a hard time putting down, but I’ve certainly read classics with less readable plot.  3 of 5 stars.

104. The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets, by Kathleen Alcott. (Dec 2012) I didn’t quite know what I was getting when I picked this one up (or, er, booted up my Kindle as the case actually was). The main characters Ida, Jackson and James all grew up next door to each other, tangling each others lives and families and dreams and even psychoses as they grew from children to adolescents and from adolescents into…well, complicated adults. I didn’t much care for the squishy and squickiness that came with the brothers navigating adulthood, I very much enjoyed the scenes from when the three of them were all youngsters. Their games of imagination and the descriptions of summer freedom made me so nostalgic I couldn’t refuse to read something else by Ms. Alcott in the future. 3 of 5 stars.

105. When It Happens to You, by Molly Ringwald. (Dec 2012) I didn’t expect to like this nearly as much as I did. But it was getting so much buzz that I thought I should at least try a few paragraphs. Short stories usually aren’t my thing. Linked short stories like these have a better than average change of piqueing my interest because then it has more of a novelesque feel. With this, I felt like each story was just another chapter in the book with a vastly different point of view. And narrator. But the flow was so seamless, it just worked. I liked the characters (or liked to hate them) and I genuinely cared what happened to them. I loved the liberal bend and general acceptance of all people and the variety of thinking offered. I loved that Ms. Pretty in Pink is still going strong and apparently can do anything she puts her mind toward. I can’t wait for her next offering, be it novel or stories or poems written upside down. 4 of 5 stars.

106. The Vanishers, by Heidi Juvalaits. (Dec 2012) Yeah, this book just was NOT for me. Way too woo woo. Which is weird, because I can do woo woo. I read lots of woo woo. But this? This was just off for me somehow. 1 of 5 stars.

107. The People of Forever Are Not Afraid, by Shani Boianjiu. (Dec 2012) I LOVED this book. If I hadn’t read Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk this year, this would have been my favorite war book of the year. I loved the wild go-who-knows-where story arcs of the three girls. Their lives weren’t perfect, their choices were neither perfect nor maddening, there were characters and sections that I really didn’t like. But as a whole, the story was more perfect than the sum of its parts. Or, um, something less trite than that. 4 of 5 stars.

108. A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick. (Dec 2012) I liked the idea of a woman who answers an advertisement in the early 20th century to marry a man in the Western Territories with whom she has only corresponded. What I don’t like is a period piece with an unreliable narrator. In Katie’s World of Literature, unreliable narrators are more comfortable in more modern stories. So when each plot twist was unveiled, I grew even more annoyed. And things just went downhill from there. 2 of 5 stars.

And that’s pretty much when my sister showed up and Christmas lurched around the corner and I stopped having chunks of time in which I could lose myself to the magic of reading. It was a glorious year filled with many more wonders than I had any hope of discovering. I have a few more lists for you this week as I recover from Kim’s visit and head back to work, but I have to say: I can’t wait to see what adventures I fall into in 2013.

Breezing through some good summer reads.

I don’t know what it is, but by pure coincidence I happened to have read quite a few YA novels this summer. Today I’m talking about three of them – What Happened to Goodbye, Before I Fall, and The Name of the Star – over at Stacked. Come see what I had to say – and which one of the three you absolutely shouldn’t pick up.

Book Review: The Fault In Our Stars (without spoilers)

I knew I was going to have to read the book. No one would shut up about it. Not on Twitter or Goodreads or any of the several book blogs I read. And then there was the fact that John Green had co-authored one of my favorite books I’ve read this year, Will Grayson, Will Grayson. So I used a book credit to order The Fault In Our Stars and then I sped through two of the three books I was reading so I could dive in.

And from the first chapter, I was lost. I knew it was going to be a book that wrecked me – the book flap tells you 16-year-old Hazel has a medical miracle to thank for buying her a few extra years, but that her diagnosis has always been terminal. See? Tears coming right there. But then come several more: a “gorgeous plot twist” by the name of Augustus Waters shows up at Hazel’s cancer support group. And even more as they fall in like, in love, and in wit - oh god, the wit! – over the course of the story.

They give you all that on the book flap, right there at the beginning, so you have to figure the strength of the story is in the writing. I mean, they gave youthe story. Not ever nuanced plot twist, but still! Gutsy move – between outlining the book and broadcasting the tone in the title (which was even explained by a character fairly early on), I wondered whether Mr. Green could keep me engaged. Turns out, he could. I fell so much in love with the writing and the characters that fairly danced across the pages that I could have bolted down the book in a single sitting. I didn’t, unfortunately, because I had company show up in the middle of my reading session. And when I picked it up again, I cried so hard through the ending that I had to put the book down for fear of my sinuses actually exploding from all of the sobbing.

I told you it was good.

But I’m not sure I can articulate why – I am not, I will bitterly admit, as talented as Mr. Green. He could tell you why, I am quite sure. Perhaps it was because the book drew such intense feelings of hope, nostalgia, and jealousy. An odd combination, those feelings. Hope that I could be as courageous, that such people exist as those who dwell in our imaginations, that I never have to face the horrible situations as those forced on Hazel and Augustus’s parents. Nostalgia for the feelings of falling in like with someone, those first exploring tendrils of excitement and ohmygod, you too?!s, and constant demands for moremoremore. Nostalgia for the newness of teenage love, where doubt and confidence are battling for dominance. And yes, jealousy, that whorish emotion that wishes I could write as brilliantly as Mr. Green, that I could have such friends as our protagonists, that men such as Augustus Waters really did exist.

To create a 300-page novel that could provoke such feelings without skating into the place where you tsk the obviousness and false construct – that is a novel I will gladly lose an entire afternoon (and evening) to, even if I’m going to use an entire box of tissues and suffer a sinus headache for my troubles. The characters in Fault in Our Stars question at several points whether it’s worth it, this crazy beautiful, painful life. They say yes, unequivocally. I agree; knowing Hazel, Augustus, their friends and families is indeed worth every tear.

Book review (with spoilers…sort of): Beauty Queens by Libba Bray.

Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens was perhaps the book I most looked forward to finding under the tree. (How did I know it would be there? Because Santa and I are likethat.) I was so excited, I Santa might have even have paid full price - well, as full price as anything ever is on Amazon. I mean, listen to the synopsis: 50 teen pageant finalists go down in a plane crash on a (supposedly) deserted island. All chaperones have been killed. The girls must learn to survive on their own – without food, water, or (gasp!) beauty products. To cap it off, the book art shows a headless blonde contestant in a bikini ramboed up with a belt of lipsticks instead of bullets crisscrossing with her sash. Awesomeness.

So there I was, just after Christmas, opening a book promising to be full of snark, wit, satire, interesting format, and my genre-kryptonite: a survival story. I cracked it open as soon as I finished the book I was reading and…yep, that’s when the disappointment first set in.

The voice. I knew this was going to be a Young Adult novel; I guess I just didn’t realize that Young Adult was synonymous with keeping the narrator’s voice light, simplistic, and as airy as the blonde on the cover. But perhaps it just took a bit for the story and the narrator settle down. The sarcasm did step up – and that’s always a good thing. But after a quarter of the novel leaked by, I realized that the sarcasm and the snark were surface only. Libba Bray seems to have such potential, and while I haven’t read her other novels, I’ve heard nothing except how edgy and fun and screw-the-rules she is. Either she forgot that the funny only lasts so long, or else she got a little over-confidence. Yes, you need a whole lotta cheeky to make this kind of satire work, but there’s gotta be other layers underneath the cheek.

Keep it simple, stupid? In fact, the irony of the novel was that Bray didn’t intend wade further than skin-deep in any of the areas she examined. She discussed the evils of pageantry in that it presented One Acceptable Beauty Standard to women, but then Ms. Bray refused to flesh out her idea. If pageant queens are people too, then how come all of Bray’s characters were uncomplicated and very stereotyped? It was like reading the Seven Dwarfs Act of Miss Congeniality on the Set of Lost. If the message was that you don’t need a boyfriend (or a girlfriend) to make you whole, why enter a completely random boatload of sexy, cardboard, emo pirates (!) who all are conveniently paired off with the beauty queens in a fashion so heavy-handed I saw stars in front of my eyes. The ideas were all there – but Bray waded shin deep into the kiddie pool of discussion and no further.

The characters. I mentioned the seven dwarfs, right? Because we had a gun-toting Miss Popular, take-you-down leader from Texas; a smarter-than-thou snarkster from New Hampshire; a girl-next-door from the Midwest; a southern beauty who wanted so! hard! to be smart, yo; a black girl and an Indian girl who competed for the Most Marginalized Minority; a deaf girl; a delinquent…are you catching my drift? While everyone has minor epiphanies, most characters turn around the next chapter and undo any incremental character development that occurred. (Yes, you will bang your head against any nearby surface.) Only Taylor – Miss Texas that was – seems to bother embracing change. And when I say embrace, I mean she hopped on the crazy train and never got off. Not that I was complaining at that point. She was actually interesting.

The plot. There was so much promise: the plane wrecked. Everyone pretends they’re Project Runway-meets-Lost. There’s a looney-toons dictator trying to take over the world. The Corporation (think a kinder, more soothing Big Brother) really has taking over the world – or at least the entertainment portion of it. All of that works. But then there are plot-baffling pirates with no bearing on the story. An eco-terrorist who elicited a WTF? from me. And then there was the black-shirted baddies who, honestly, didn’t make any sense. In other words, Bray should have kept the skeleton from the opening of the book and Chosen a Different Adventure.

Good concept, painfully disappointing execution. 2 of 5 stars.

Book Review (without spoilers): Little Bee by Chris Cleave

This is not a story to pass on.

Okay, yes, it’s rather bold to liken the book so soon to Toni Morrison’s masterpiece, Beloved, but I couldn’t keep from comparing the two as I thought my way through Little Bee. Before I could even figure out exactly why, I knew this book was different from most recent fiction; I knew it was important, that it had significant meaning. Its social commentary was much more subtle – but infinitely more thought-provoking – than Cleave’s Incendiary. And yet, at first, I didn’t quite like Little Bee.

I reminded myself that I loathed Beloved (since that was the book that insisted on coming to mind so often) the first three times I read it. So I kept plowing through Little Bee. Maybe plowing is the wrong word – it certainly wasn’t as much work as that implies. No, it wasn’t that it took an extraordinary amount of effort or time or attention to read Little Bee. It took an enormous amount of thinking and pausing and tripping around. I wanted to understand why Little Bee was pulling at me so. Why did it scream significance?

It wasn’t until I was three-quarters of the way through that I found the first answer – one of many, I’m sure, that I’ll find with re-readings and discussions with friends. This is a story about what it means to belong. That’s why Beloved kept peeking around every corner. It’s about what it feels like to belong somewhere or to someone – and conversely, what it means to be adrift in this world without a “gools” or a homebase to seek refuge and feel safe from the world around you. It’s about journeying through worlds to find identity of self. It’s about our debt to both ourselves and those who are not us, who are not at home in the world we live in (and how easy it is to overlook those who are literally at home with you). It’s about eyes opening and hearts shutting. Mostly it’s a story about worlds – the ones we create for ourselves, the ones we actually live in, cultural and economical worlds, the flexibility of these worlds (or maybe it’s the flimsiness of the curtains between them?), and the leaps of faith and journeys from one life into the next.

Really, Little Bee is my favorite kind of a book. The kind you can be reading, humming along, and then everything shifts: the meaning beneath the meaning jumps out of you, like in one of those magic eye puzzles. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. But the story is just as fine either way. Little Bee is a magical story for everyone, whether you want to analyze it to death (and I do), or whether you want to just escape into someone else’s world for an afternoon.

Regardless, I think Little Bee will be on everyone’s mind for a long, long time.

Book Review: The Flying Troutmans (without spoilers)

[Author's Note: When I say without spoilers, what I mean is that I won't disclose anything you wouldn't have learned from reading the first five pages of the book - because, really, who can commit to a book at the bookstore or the library without reading a few pages to get the feel of it? I'd go as far as saying everything I've mentioned is also contained in the bookflap, but I don't think I ever actually read the bookflap; I read the review in Bookmarks magazine and searched it out. So: if you are one of those strange fanatics who won't read anything other than the title, then run far, far away from this post. Also - Kim, stop reading here and just go read the book already.]
I finished Miriam Toews’s truly excellent The Flying Troutmans in one sitting. Okay, actually, technically I finished it in three sittings, but it really wasn’t my fault. The first time I picked the book up, I had just snuggled into bed, opened the hardcover with that pleasing little library duskjacket crinkle, read a few lines and wanted immediately to stay up the entire night through to finish it off. I didn’t even care that I had work in the morning. I mean, wham! Straight from the first page you have a girl-next-door type who is funny and witty and clearly intelligent, but bumped and bruised by life (she was just dumped in Paris by her “moody, adjective-hating” boyfriend – and not just dumped but dumped for a new life in an ashram. Sucks, dude.), who was called home by her niece – literally –because her brother got in trouble for writing x-rated stories at school and throwing hatchets into the neighbor’s yard and this niece – who is 11 going on 29, by the way – is trying to hold it all together by impersonating her mom over the phone, as necessary, because – oh by the way – her mom is losing her shit. Again. Phew! Really, I would throw some more words in there – perhaps about how the 11-going-on-29-year-old niece just collapses against her aunt at the airport, sobbing, because Hellooo the cavalry! and somehow all the weirdness just feels right, feels true – but there are only so many words that can describe the emotional impact and immediate draw of the story. So I’ll stop.

I stopped then, too (oh, okay, it was 20 pages later before I could tear my eyes away from the pages). I had a decision to make. I could keep reading….or, I could save the book for my (then) upcoming flight to Philadelphia. Decisions, decisions. Those of you who read know there’s nothing worse than being stuck on a flight with a bad book. I had found one that wasn’t just good, it was can’t-suck-it-down-fast-enough kind of good. Could I hold off for three weeks for such a sure win? Turns out I could.

I saved the book for the plane and pulled it out before the wheels were even properly stowed. I would have finished it, too, if the plane hadn’t have landed. Silly landings. (Dear Travel Gods: I am TOTALLY KIDDING. Landings are GOOD! Great even!) So I didn’t get to finish Troutmans until later. But that all totally counts as one sitting, right?

Everyone keeps asking me what it is that got me. I have to say, for a book that I’m obviously crazy about, it’s a tough question to answer. The voice, obviously. I can’t enjoy a book if I’m not crazy about how you’re telling it. I can read a book with a dry, flat voice, but I won’t enjoy it (Jeffrey Lent and Cormac McCarthy, I’m looking at you). So there was voice. In fact, the voice might have been the only constant throughout the book, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. The story kept moving, just fast enough to keep you interested, but slow enough that you felt like you were moving around with the characters and their lives instead of chasing (or worse, trudging along) after them. The concept – Cool Aunt puts her sister in a home and takes the kids on a road trip to find their estranged father – might not have been the most innovative plot, but the characters were new and crazy and had enough flash and sizzle to make it work in a really good way. The confines of the car trip give you enough time with each of them to learn slowly who they are (and aren’t); why her niece is a mad scientist art student with a penchant for narrating her every move, and why her nephew retreats into his hoodie and carves cryptic messages onto the dash and is desperately in love with a CNN news anchor. The stops and interruptions along the way change, naturally, but the constant confine of the car was such a wonderful tool to help examine this haphazard family. I loved how just when you thought you had one of them pinned, something would happen and their characterization would be flipped, making you wonder and reassess just who he or she was. (Someone pinged me the other day about not like the anti-heroine Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair and this is why: I love me some shades of grey. If the character isn’t complicated, I can’t get interested.) Fittingly, the complicated history between Cool Aunt and Crazy Mom is revealed only in glimpses, and you never get the entire story of what – if anything – “caused” the catalyst of the novel. I found the flashbacks just tantalizing enough to layer the story, but subtle enough to avoid the chick lit label. And somehow, none of the diversions, side stories, explanations, or other happenings in the novel tripped over any of the others. Not once was I jarred out of the novel or irritated with the author’s choice. That doesn’t happen to me that often.

Most of all, I love that Toews proves that a quick and fun read doesn’t necessarily limit your choices to bodice ripping beach reads or formulaic courtroom dramas. Troutmans was minimalist, but in a way you wouldn’t notice until you’re disappointed because the story has ended. Sometimes smart women don’t need 600 pages of words, words, and more words to get a powerful and poignant story across. I’m not quite personally acquainted with the idea, but I have heard it’s possible.