Every Book I Read in 2019

Originally posted on 1/2/20.

Happy New Year, everybody! It's been a long time since I've been here.

So at the beginning of the year I made it a goal to read 50 books in 2019. I made it to...41. Wop-wop. Unfortunately, I had a bad reading slump between April and September this year. That was the time that my long-term travel experience ended and was looking for a new home, so I was understandably very stressed. In September, I decided to read one book every day for a week and that helped me remember that reading every day is crucial to my mental wellbeing, and I shouldn't let whatever chaos is going on in my life break that habit.

So here's a list of all the books I've read this year with a one or two sentence review. Some of these have longer posts waiting to be published, some of these I have already talked about on this site. I put a star next to my favorites. The next post will be a look at how my 2019's bookish resolutions went, and what the resolutions for 2020 will be.

1. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami.* A great start to the year. A dose of surrealism always does me good.

2. The Pisces by Melissa Broder.* I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, but it's still a highlight of this year for being very thought provoking.

3. Kraken by China Mieville. I loved Mieville's Perdito Street Station, but this one did not grab me in the same way.

4. Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. I am not inclined to recommend this to anyone who is already familiar with her previous work as I found this book redundant. This would be better for business types who have not read anything by her.

5. This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson. Fun, but it seemed like it was made for a younger and more British audience.

6. Child of Fortune by Yuko Tsushima.* Loved this book! I've been trying to write a review for this book forever. I have so much to say about this book that I don't know what to say.

7. Literary Witches: A Celebration of Magical Women Writers by Taisia Kitaiskaia.* An enchanting collection of prose poems that recommended authors I would never have checked out before.

8. Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube by Blair Bravermen. Sigh...men are the worst.

9. Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa.* A very sweet book about what makes life worth living.

10. Bury What We Cannot Take by Kirsten Chen.* A thrilling story about an impossible choice.

11. Circe by Madeline Miller.* Worth the hype!

12. Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World by Penelope Bagieu.* Despite some translation issues (tenses change in the middle of sentences and it's really jarring) this is an enjoyable and beautifully illustrated book that taught me about some amazing women.

13. Fragments of Horror by Junji Ito. Not better than his other collection Shiver, but it's still solid.

14. The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle.* A compelling retelling of a classic work.

15. Monstress Vol. 1 by Marjorie Liu. A little too heavy in what I call "epic-fantasy babble," but I think I might have a new favorite series to follow based on the illustrations alone.

16. The Life Changing Manga of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. I may have liked this better than the original. It is definitely more adorable than the original.

17. Adulthood is a Myth: A Sarah Scribbles Collection by Sarah Anderson. It's okay. I'm fine with just reading these comics online, honestly.

18. Magical Places by Nikki Van de Car. I always like a travel book that acknowledges that Neo-Pagans exist.

19. The Illustrated Herbiary by Maia Toll. The artwork is gorgeous, but I would have liked it better if it had actual spells instead of plant-themed meditations.

20. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamiko. It was fine. Just another slice-of-life high school coming of age story that I didn't really feel.

21. Pretty Deadly Vol. 1 by Kelly Sue Deconnick. Wow, I have no memory of this book.

22. Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor. A good second book in the trilogy but sheesh, her family needs to calm the fuck down.

23. The Secret Lives of Unicorns by Dr. Temisa Seraphini. Six year old me is squealing.

24. Basic Witches by Jaya Saxena & Jess Zimmerman. A little too basic for me, but it's fun.

25. The Prophet by Kahil Gibran.* An entire reading experience comprised of, "So that's where that quote comes from!"

26. Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc by David Elliott. A potentially interesting premise, but I wasn't thrilled by the execution.

27. The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami.* Bite sized strangeness, perfect for waiting for the bus while running errands.

28. The Girl From the Other Side: Siuil, a Run Vol. 1 by Nagabe. Cute, and has a very nice art style. Not much happens in the first volume though.

29. Monstress Vol. 2 by Marjorie Liu. The "epic-fantasy babble" is making it a little hard to remember what's going on in this series.

30. Saga Vol. 9 by Brian K. Vaughan. Oof, I did not like that cliffhanger. No sir.

31. On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden.* A beautifully illustrated space opera with a very sweet lesbian romance.

32. Tentacle by Rita Indiana. On paper, this should have been my kind of book. In practice, it was not.

33. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Surprisingly sad.

34. Tales from the Inner City by Shaun Tan.* Cemented Shaun Tan as one of the best author/illustrators of children's books working today in my mind.

35. Cats of the Louvre by Taiyo Masumoto.* The recent Cats musical movie adaptation should have been animated in this style.

36. Safari Honeymoon by Jesse Jacobs. The story of rich, entitled tourists in a bizarre jungle hellscape.

37. Goddess Rituals by Roni Jay. Beautifully illustrated, with information on goddesses from different cultures and interesting rituals.

38. City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. I did not like this as much as everyone else seems to. I got too exasperated with the characters.

39. Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death by Caitlin Doughty. I would have loved this as a morbid little child.

40. The Hidden Witch by Molly Knox Ostertag.* A great second book in a series. I think I liked this better than the first.

41. The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O'Neill.* I want one! I want a little tea dragon! Any chance that there's plushies somewhere?