100+ Books in 2025 discussion

1. Hope: A Tragedy

2. Burial Rites
This book was lovely, and stark as the landscape it described. It drew me in to the mystery of the murders which were at its heart, and left me kind of stunned.

3. A Scot in the Dark
Plane fare :)

4. Happy Birthday, Wanda June
As much as I love all things Vonnegut, I don't think he translates well to a play setting.

5. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
This was a mostly fun alternate reality. While I liked the idea of slavery as a vessel for the promotion of slavery, though, I was put off by the whitewashing of the ugliness of slave auctions and the lives of the people. Overall, I enjoyed the book though.

6. Serving Crazy with Curry
A family drama set in an Indian-American family. Nicely happy ending that didn't feel too final.

7. The Vagina Monologues
This seemed like a book that I was supposed to love in order to be edgy and a feminist. But I was mostly unmoved by it. Honestly, seemed like the definition of white feminism. I acknowledge the impact it had at the time that it came out, though.

8. The Bridge Ladies
I was charmed and touched by this book. I related to the author's relationship with her mother, both in establishing a better bond and in the care that she has to take. I envied her mother the tight community she has, wishing that my mother had the same. I enjoyed the strong women in the bridge club, and learned so much about how previous generations (or at least these women) felt about their roles in life. And now I want to learn to play bridge!

9. Morning Glory
This had some promise, but was far too much like something written for Touched By an Angel. Female characters especially were either very good or very bad. And I was not a fan of the too-tidy ending.

10. Life of Pi
I don't always like books where the end totally changes what came before, but this has really tied my brain in knots since I finished it. I thought while I was reading it that it was incredibly sad. The end completely sent the sadness factor off the charts. Like Pi, I'm happier with the fantasy than the reality. (Subjectively speaking.)

Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish
I really tried. It was slow reading for me because I didn't really get it or like it, but I read half of it. But when I got offended as well, I knew it was finally time to give up.

11. Make Me Love You

12. Commonwealth
I liked this. The author has a way of making people seem very relatable and real, but with poetic language.

13. The Winter People
This had really interesting and creepy elements to it, but ultimately I found it unsatisfying. The plot was too scattered among a few people who got linked at the end, so not all of them felt very fleshed out. And the big twists were annoying to me - the character who set things in motion seemed to be lacking motivation. The writing was good though.

14. The Sun Is Also a Star
A very sweet YA romance, with two young people who meet a day before the girl and her family are to be deported. I was a little dizzied by the changes in perspective, but I enjoyed that the author would sometimes switch to people who seemed inconsequential to the story.

15. If the Duke Demands

16. We Were Liars
A YA psychological thriller, chosen by the popsugar reading challenge book group. It was a quick read, and interesting enough, but seemed to only exist in order to build up to a plot twist, which I had predicted some variation of. The twist seemed too harsh to me, since there was no time to actually resolve it. And even though it seemed like it was meant to produce sobs in the reader, and even though I cry at dog food commercials, I didn't. But hey, there's my unreliable narrator book for the challenge!

17. Cloud of Sparrows
Guess what - the art museum has a book club! So that would be another one that I will try to read along with, while never going to the actual meetings. This was a very promising start to it (for me, the book club is not new). The writing was lyrical, the plot fascinating and often brutal.

18. Click: The Magic of Instant Connections
My horoscope told me to read this :) I enjoy the way the Brafmans bring together various research to make a story.

19. The Underground Railroad
Several reviews that I read about this book complained about Whitehead's clinical perspective. I actually found that it worked for me, since it enabled me to endure all the horrors that the main character, Cora, was subjected to. Only after I was finished with the book did they all pile on, leaving me in tears at all that was suffered and all the people who were lost. It felt strange to have so many of the characters taken away from us, as fast as we got close to them, but it seems like that echoed Cora's own life experience. This book is going to stay with me for quite a while.

20. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
This did a nice job of covering many of the ways that big data is being used in our lives now, and how the lack of transparency leads to unfairness where discrimination can be coded by proxy, how the lack of feedback means assumptions are acted on without ever being challenged, and how using data that is most easily collected, rather than that which is most appropriate, can have unintended consequences. As a data professional, I got a lot out of a social justice approach to data analysis.

21. Difficult Women
I liked the first story in this book, but the next several left me unmoved. I knew I would finish it just because I love the author, but I was starting to feel let down. But then the good ones started coming much faster! And the ones that I liked, I generally loved. Most of the stories were pretty bleak, but some felt like they had a glimmer of light, whether it was a belief that love could exist, or that we're not irreparably damaged by our pasts. A couple had a surreal element that fit in seamlessly.

22. The Princess Diarist
Lesson for the day: no matter how interesting the author's life or situation, reading the journals of a 19-year-old is still unnecessary. (Exceptions may be made for Malala or some others.)

23. Buns

24. They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement

25. Swing Time
For much of this book, I was enjoying it, and yet had no problem putting it down. The last 60 pages were much more compelling! I liked her commentary on many issues of race and appropriation, as well as friendship, motherhood, and self-realization, but nothing really felt resolved. Still, I really enjoyed Smith's writing.

26. The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line
This was very fun. I'm happy to have Veronica Mars on the bookshelf!

27. Twist
Oops, I missed one! It was fun.

28. The Woman in Cabin 10
I kind of detested the main character. And was both irritated and bored for the first half of the book. But I did want to find out how it ended.

29. Station Eleven
I didn't know I was getting into a dystopian novel, but I really enjoyed it! The concept was terrifying, since it seemed more realistic than most dystopian books I've read. The characters were interesting and well-developed, and I was surprised by some of the connections.

30. The Tsar of Love and Techno
What a gorgeous, amazing, funny, bleak book! The author wove stories together so seamlessly - there would be an aha moment when I realized connections, but it was never distracting. I finished each story with a broken heart.

31. Upstream: Selected Essays
Mary Oliver writes essays about nature as beautifully as she writes poems about it! She is such an observer, and yet she involves herself in it in interesting ways, trying to save the sea gull, or digging up the turtle's eggs. I was less moved by her essays about her literary heroes, but mostly because I don't feel like I know them all well enough to see them as she does.

32. Turn Right at Machu Pichu
I learned a bit about the history of the Incas, the history of the "discovery", the mysteries behind the sites, and the adventure of exploring it.

33. People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges
I guess this was my fourth book I read from the astrology list, and I've enjoyed them all. This is a very light-hearted and snarky quick read.

34. Norse Mythology
My mythology prompt is satisfied, and so am I! Of course Neil Gaiman can make this really entertaining. The gods seemed so human and petty. My biggest complaint is that I never figured out Loki's motives.

35. The Ocean at the End of the Lane
I thought I would hate audiobooks, but it turns out that as long as they're read by Gaiman, they're awesome! It was so good that I found myself taking the long way when driving, and then not wanting to get out of the car. I ended up cheating and finishing it in book form, just to keep myself from spending Monday night sitting in my car in the driveway. Only complaint was about the first kitten's fate :(

36. Autumn Bridge
Loved this. It was the sequel to Cloud of Sparrows, and full of intrigue, magic, and history.

37. The Book Thief
Do I just hate books everyone loves because I'm contrary?
I was not a fan. I felt like his writing was contrived when he muddled up senses, even though I often like that same device from other authors. I didn't like Death as the narrator. And I HATED all the constant spoilers from Death. When the book ended, of course I ugly cried for 50 pages or so. But it was like The English Patient - I felt, not emotionally involved, but emotionally manipulated, and I was angry with the book for it.

38. The Duchess Deal

39. Thrill Me

40. Treasure Me
Wow, I did not see that coming! It's not often that I am so surprised by a twist...

41. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
Sara's book club choice...

42. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
This was so good - very honest, very insightful, heartbreaking, and yet often funny. I found it interesting that, although I didn't share the traumas that shaped her, I related so thoroughly to many of her feelings of insecurity and inadequacy.

43. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
First, I wasn't sure if I would like the book since I had already seen the movie... But the movie compressed more than 30 years of history and made it all seem like it was concurrent, and like it was the beginning of the story when it was actually the end. Of course, it had a great cast and was a good movie (and had Mahershala Ami :) ), but the book was so much more.
I am amazed that such important people in our history were made invisible. And honestly, I'm amazed that our racist country, especially Virginia where they were currently having such issues with segregation, let them be important at all. I really enjoyed the book, especially when she gave the civil rights perspectives of what else was happening in the country.

44. Every Anxious Wave
For much of this book, I enjoyed the concept, but found something didn't ring true for me - possibly because of a woman writing a male main character. But I really enjoyed the end!

45. Hope in the Dark
Exactly the book I was needing! I've been feeling pretty hopeless and ineffectual. Solnit makes the case that we need to actively focus on some of the positive impacts of activists, especially since often success is really just an absence of the negative results we're working to avoid.

46. The Bear and the Nightingale
I'm so happy the sequel is out in just a couple months! I pretty much loved this. The atmosphere was lovely, and the fantasy elements were understated at first. The heroine was strong, and the relationships interesting.

47. The Timewaster Letters
This book made me laugh out loud so many times.

48. If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers
I liked the idea behind the book (letters written to strangers), but the actual focus of the writing ended up being more on the search for purpose and God of a twenty-something white girl.

49. Wilde in Love
Eloisa James always makes it worthwhile. But this is far from my favorite of hers.