Books I Read and Other Assorted Oddities

 I lucked out and got to go to the bookstore twice recently. Here's what I got this time: I got Love and Gelato  for book club. I loved Project Hail Mary  so much I had to buy a copy. I only have a fancy copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , so I bought this one so I don't have to use my fancy one. Then I've seen Assassin's Apprentice  by Robin Hobb be recommended so much, that I decided to pick it up and add it to my TBR.

 I've once again read through my entire rotation. Here are my categories as they stand now: Fantasy:  The Courting of Bristol Keats  by Mary E. Pearson (100%) Sci-Fi:  A Wrinkle in Time  by Madeleine L'Engle (62%) Realistic Fiction:  Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine  by Gail Honeyman (100%) Young Readers:  Old Yeller  by Fred Gipson (21%) Brandon Sanderson:  The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England  (61%) Nonfiction:  The Anxious Generation  by Jonathan Haidt (48%) Classic:  Les Misérables  by Victor Hugo (4%) Mystery/Thriller:  The Brothers Hawthorne  by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (12%) Historical Fiction:  The Nightingale  by Kristin Hannah (70%) Audio:  Three Dark Crowns  by Kendare Blake (37%) I need to roll for fantasy and realistic fiction. For realistic fiction, I'm going to be reading Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch for book club. It happened to slot righ...

I went to an author event hosted in my town where Pearson was promoting this book. I bought it and started reading it, and it's take me quite a while to get through it. Bristol Keats has grown up on the run. Running from what? Her parents have never said, and yet they move frequently, live roughly, and drift from one small town to another. Until Bowskeep. And then, after her mother disappears, and her father dies, Bristol and her sisters are alone, poor, and unsure what to do next. Until Bristol is approached by someone who says they can make a deal with her. She meets the Fae king, Tyghan, and is whisked off on an adventure to save her father and find the truth. In all, this book had some issues... It wasn't terrible, the romance was OK, but some of the tropes were difficult to stomach. In all, though, I did finish it, which is more than I can say for some other novels that fit this genre. Let's start with characters. Bristol was likeable enough. She was fiercely independe...

 I joined a new book club of ladies in my neighborhood, and I'm super excited to read more and get to talk about it with people I don't know as well. I'm excited to have a place where I feel like I fit in. This month, we read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine  by Gail Honeyman. Eleanor is completely fine. She has a job (working in accounts), she has a flat (furnished with odd, mismatched pieces), she has her weekly phone calls with mummy, and vodka to numb. Some weekends, she doesn't use her voice from the time she leaves work on Friday until she goes back to work on Monday. Eleanor doesn't really have any friends, but she does have a timetabled life, the same schedule, and the same stores. That is, until she sees the singer. Eleanor just knows from this one glance that a relationship with this man is right around the corner. She does everything she can to find out everything about him, going so far as to find out where he lives and follow him on social media. Eve...

 One of my favorite parts of Christmas is getting books, and I've gotten several lately. Someone in my neighborhood hosts a book exchange for the ladies in the neighborhood. It's one of my favorite parts of the year, and I always buy my books well in advance. This year, I took The Midnight Library  by Matt Haig. I ended up with The Last Bookshop in Prague  by Helen Parusel which is a historical fiction. My coworkers also host a book exchange, and it is legitimately one of the highlights of my year. We do this so we don't have to worry about getting each other gifts, and it is so much fun. We all look forward to it, and again, I buy my books well in advance. This year, I took Everything is Tuberculosis  by John Green and Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I got back: Fractal Noise  by Christopher Paolini, and The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones I'm super excited to add both of these to my TBR lists. We also had a really big health scare for me around Thank...

 Since I finished both A Monster Calls  and Speak  pretty much back to back, I had those two categories to roll for. I rolled first for young readers: For this one, I took a percentile die and a D10. The roll was 18, which turned out to be Old Yeller  by Fred Gipson. I have actually never read this one - I read Where the Red Fern Grows  instead. So that'll go into my rotation. Next, I rolled for realistic fiction: I rolled a 5 for this one, and that was.... GO TO THE BOOKSTORE!!! 🎊 So we went to the bookstore, and I bought Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine  by Gail Honeyman for a book club I'm excited to be joining for this year. So, there we go, two new books added into the rotation!

 I set out this year with the goal to read 15 books. I ended with 19, which was exciting. This year, I read:  Mistborn: Secret History  by Brandon Sanderson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Return of the King  by J.R.R. Tolkien ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Hobbit  by J.R.R. Tolkien ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Chodenko ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Hawthorne Legacy  by Jennifer Lynn Barnes ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Woman of No Importance  by Sonia Purnell ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The House of My Mother  by Shari Franke ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Midnight Library  by Matt Haig ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Doomsday Mother  by John Glatt ⭐⭐⭐ Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Project Hail Mary  by Andy Weir ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Beyond the Wand  by Tom Felton ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Golden Orchard by Flora Ahn ⭐⭐⭐ Ready Player One  by Ernest Cline ⭐⭐⭐ Tress of the Emerald Sea  by Brandon Sanderson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Final Gambit  by Jennifer Lynn Barnes ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Monster Calls  by Patrick Ness ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Speak ...