I am going to try to post weekly and worry less about my reviews. I let myself get hung up on whether I thought my reviews are good enough. If I'm being honest, I've always had a hard time articulating what I did or didn't like about a book. I remember wishing when I was younger that book reports could be more like "Solid Gold": I liked it. It had a good beat. You could dance to it. The end.
2010 in review:
I didn't keep track of everything I've read. If I had to guess I'd say it was only about 50 books, give or take 20. How's that for being precise?
My favorite book that I read last year was Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. I picked this one up at the library on a whim and just adored it: the tone, the characters (even the annoying son), the stuffy Britishness of it all.
Other notable reads: the Percy Jackson series helped me rediscover my love of Greek mythology, Serena by Ron Rash made me want to reread Shakespeare even as I hated every character in it (including the sympathetic ones), and well, I don't remember anything else. Isn't that sad?
So far this year I have read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford (loved it!), Little Bee by Chris Cleave (didn't quite work for me), This Is Not the Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness by Laura Munson (dragged, but I admire her moxy), Coraline by Neil Gaiman (not sure what to think), The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly (hated it!). I am currently reading My Antonia by Willa Cather and The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A. J. Jacobs, both of which I am enjoying immensely.
If I'm feeling energetic later this week perhaps I will try to put into words how much I hated The Tea Rose. It just irritated me that much. Note to self: If someone recommends a YA book by an author, read the YA book, not an adult book, or skip it altogether.
1 comments:
Hey! Welcome back! You are the third blogger, I hopefully kept in my google reader, to reappear this month. Google Reader is the greatest thing, as it takes no space or thought to keep a folder called "maybe they'll come back."
Of course Major Pettigrew was the best book of last year. (It was mine as well!) He was utterly charming, and sweet and the story was more than it seemed. I also like Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, a delightful old book from the 1930s, but there must be something about the name.
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