Happy New Year! Every year I take on these reading challenges and really bite off more than I can chew, if I'm being completely honest. I almost finished the Popsugar one... I'll write about that later. This is my list from the much more do-able Modern Mrs. Darcy list!
A debut author: The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna by Juliet Grimes. I got this a couple of years ago at a bookstore in Wethersfield, CT (RIP, That Book Store... another casualty of covid that I might never get over). If I'd known how fantastic it was, I wouldn't have let it sit on the shelf for so long. It's not a happy book or a funny book. I recommended it to a friend who said she liked it but it was really depressing. Yeah, that's true. Not a lot of happy things happen to Stella but the writing is so gorgeous.
A book recommended by a source you trust: Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller. I heard about this on the Reading Glasses podcast. More accurately, I didn't hear about it. They said to read it, but go into it knowing nothing, so that's what I did, and it was so great.
A local author: Sea Wife by Amity Gaige. A family leaves it all behind to go live on a boat. It's romantic and harrowing.
A book outside my (genre) comfort zone: Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn. Look, Anne recommended it on her podcast (What Should I Read Next?) and in her summer reading guide, so even though I really don't like romance novels, I went for it. I was not impressed but I gave it a shot. Someday I'll have to examine why I don't like romance novels. They bore and frustrate me at the same time.
A book in translation: Convenience Store Woman by Syaka Murata. A young woman who has trouble fitting into the world finds her perfect niche as a clerk in a convenience store. Translated from Japanese. I really enjoyed this one.
A book nominated for an award in 2020: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead came out in 2019 but was nominated for this year's National Book Award. A story of race and juvenile justice...?... in Florida, inspired by a real place.
A reread: Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh, because her new book came out this year.
A classic you didn't read in school: the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Sparks. A teacher takes on a group of favorite students at an all-girls' school in Scotland.
Three books by the same author: The Poet X, With the Fire on High, and Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo. Three young adult novels (two in verse) that deal with life as a teenage girl of Black and Dominican descent in New York, Philadelphia, and the Dominican Republic. Her characters are so perfectly drawn that you believe they're real people you know. The author reads the audiobooks herself. I don't read a lot of YA but for work I'm getting back into it, and I was so impressed with these!
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