100in2019

[100in2019]

100 books in 326 days

31,485 total pages Avg 315 pp/book Avg 3.26 days/book Avg 97 pp/day Avg rating 3.36 stars

Ratings: ★★★★★ 10 ★★★★☆ 34 ★★★☆☆ 41 ★★☆☆☆ 12 ★☆☆☆☆ 3

Book Types: 28 non-fiction, 72 fiction 22 non-English, 78 English

Author Demographics: 53 women, 45 men 2 non-binary/gender fluid 52 authors of color, including 4 native/indigenous authors 35 author countries of origin

Regional Breakdown: 9 Sub-Saharan Africa, 7 MENA 8 Central/LatAm/Caribbean, 11 Asia 1 Oceania, 19 Europe, 45 US/Canada

[100in2019]

★★★☆☆   •  Nov 20-22 •   288 pp

A millennial writes about climate change, and she also happens to be a Kennedy. Overall a good introductory book into the world of how capitalist consumer culture generates unseen negative externalities for the environment. I was annoyed at how persistently and gratuitously the author kept inserting herself into the book (we don't need to know about your skiing trip or NYT wedding announcement (lol) to set up your next topic). The sense of humor / pop culture references are extremely specific (college-educated wealthy white lady); the book was not the better for this.

[100in2019]

★★★★★   •   Nov 18-19   •   352 pp

I wanted to throw this book at a wall when I finished. Not bc it was bad, but bc of the sheer magnitude of racial injustice that dogs this country's remembered and forgotten history. It shouldn't be shocking, but I'm not deadened to it yet. Smoothly written and rigorously researched, this was a gripping account of how whites tyrannized the oil rich Osage Natives with murder and graft in the early 1900s. Expertly investigates rule of law's limitations, and sheds much needed modern light on this horrific homicidal exploitation of indigenous people.

[100in2019]

★★★☆☆   •  Nov 13-17 •   448 pp

The most I got from this was a glimpse into the history of the second Italo-Ethiopian War, of which I knew very little. Not many characters were particularly compelling to me -- I really wanted to like Hirut, and even Aster’s complicated womanhood, but couldn't really bring myself to connect with their stilted motivations. The prose had nice albeit tryhard flourishes but it felt more like reading a homework assignment than a gripping novel: I could see the trappings that make it "worthwhile literature" but I didn't really enjoy the ride as much as I thought I would.

[100in2019]

★★★★☆   •   Nov 8-12   •   328 pp

Hobbesian depravity reigns when everyone in an unnamed city mysteriously goes blind. A wonderfully dark premise by which to explore human behavior and psychology. Saramago knew only a woman left sighted would serve others, though it’s damning that her heroism manifests in servitude. I disliked the more contrived scenarios (e.g., blind women meekly accepting gang rape for food). The style mimicked disorienting blindness: this book is written in ~100 long, run-on sentences without standard punctuation to guide the reader.

[100in2019]

★★★☆☆   •  Nov 7-8  •   429 pp

A perfectly serviceable pop thriller, though a couple of plot devices were pretty lazy (e.g., alcoholism to make the narrator unreliable, an evil murderer explaining everything at the end for no reason). The constant name dropping of old black and white movie titles to evoke certain suspense tropes was annoyingly unsubtle (you don’t have to keep talking about Bergman’s Gaslight for people to understand that is what you’re trying to represent). If you can get over the clichés, it’s good for mindless entertainment on a plane ride.

[100in2019]

★★★☆☆   •  Nov 5-7  •   210 pp

Disaffected millennial suffers from depression and misanthropy. Extremely hateable Millie (hope this isn’t an approximation of "Millennial") is an arrogant 20-something who’s semi-aware of social performance but unable to act it out herself. Not a “fun” read, but Butler shines at writing self-absorbed internal monologues, showcasing the subtle cruelties and humiliations of everyday social interactions, and illustrating the self-sheltering delusions all of us craft against blaring reality.

[100in2019]

★★★★☆   •   Nov 3-5   •   320 pp

Memorable characters written deftly in a Hugoesque, sweeping encapsulation of 1960s Istanbul. The premise attracted me to the book: the titular 10 minutes 38 seconds refers to the final moments of time spent by the corpse of a murdered prostitute processing observations and memories from her life. But this device was merely cosmetic -- I expected something more experimental along the lines of Pamuk rather than the skin for fairly standard linear narration. Overall a moving story with polished writing.

[100in2019]

★★★☆☆   •  Oct 30-Nov 2  •   240 pp

A mixed bag of stories: some had no discernible point, some were deeply unsettling. This collection overall made me feel like I was slowly descending into madness, where even a mundane set-up could start to feel low-key ominous. Schweblin has a knack for the slow burn, steadily crafting an atmosphere that feels sinister without always resorting to shocking imagery or violence typically found in the horror genre. Endings are not her strong suit, however. Many felt unsatisfying and sudden.

[100in2019]

★★★★☆   •   Oct 28-29   •   190 pp

A kaleidoscopic view of Chicana life. Cisneros glides seamlessly from the POV of young girls to witches scorned in her short stories, with a cutting eye for slice-of-life anecdotes and subtle representations of the Mexican American community. There is chameleonic range in her writing style, each story crafted individually to showcase the voice of the featured character. My only wish were for some of the stories to go on longer so the window into that world wouldn't be as fleeting.

[100in2019]

★★★★☆   •   Oct 26-28   •   303 pp

Well-curated and researched essays that examine views on American life as a millennial college graduate. Tolentino could go on about commodification for days and I’d read it all: commodification of the self, gender, sex, identity, all through the lens of the Internet. Each essay had excellent insights but the narrative flow would meander at times before being lassoed back for a quick conclusion. The religion and wedding essays were the least interesting (though it could just be I’m uninterested in those topics). 

[100in2019]

★★☆☆☆   •  Oct 22-25  •   354 pp

Occasionally funny though ultimately contrived. The drama felt as staged as the taxidermied menagerie; I couldn't fully invest in the Mortons' psychological turmoil as it vacillated between the cartoonish and the cliché. Arnett does have a knack for writing about viscera while there are some concise prose gems throughout (e.g., "Nothing made an animal look less alive than tension leaked from the spine"). The book doesn't evolve much beyond its narrow gimmick of dead animal erotica, unfortunately.

[100in2019]

★★★☆☆   •   Oct 18-21   •   368 pp

Fiction comes to life in this story of Nour, a Syrian preteen who flees civil war and journeys across North Africa. Nour's plight parallels a story her late father would tell, one of a young mapmaking apprentice whose adventures inspire Nour to persist. The themes and cadence of the story made for an entertaining read, but Joukhadar falls short in his attempts to inject profundity or surprises into the plot (why couldn't the mother just *say* "go to Ceuta"? Why have an unnecessarily cryptic map?)

[100in2019]

★★★☆☆   •   Oct 16-17   •   178 pp

Mailhot presents raw, uninhibited introspection into her mental health struggles, slowly revealing in devastating passing fragments the abuse she has endured throughout life. The stream-of-consciousness structure is fitting for her story, though it's hard to disentangle the different figures she discusses if you have any lapses in attention. The book was difficult to read at times; it kills my soul a little to watch women go back to abusers or men that aren't treating them well.

[100in2019]

★★★★★   •   Oct 4-15   •   513 pp

I am *shooketh* at Liu's bleak answer to the Fermi Paradox: life in the cosmos is a zero sum game. Some of the best high concept sci-fi I've read, with the most imaginative, epic scenes of devastation. Liu is gifted in envisioning extreme human behavior in the aggregate (e.g., the Battle of Darkness, the Great Ravine), but he lacks skill in fleshing out individual characters and their motivations. Though the characters are one-dimensional vessels that exist just to carry out the plot, I'll forgive flaws because of the insanely metal concepts.

[100in2019]

★★☆☆☆   •   Oct 1-3   •   272 pp

A black Nigerian wakes up to find he has turned into a redheaded, green-eyed white man. He flees into the streets of Lagos and faces a new world of privilege and prejudice. The premise and satirical potential were excellent but execution fell short. The female characters were pretty one-dimensional and Furo had a criminally uninteresting internal life given his circumstances. Igoni's parallel sexual transformation also came out of nowhere (I had to read back I was so confused). But the pidgin and side characters made me miss Lagos.

[100in2019]

★★☆☆☆   •   Sep 26-30   •   311 pp

Do all books about monks have to be so horny? I guess it's my fault for reading multiple books about monks this year. Religious history is not my thing, but this was an interesting enough look into Egypt's brief Christian era, especially given the Coptic Church's vehement rejection of the way Ziedan portrayed their beloved Bishop Cyril. Men jockeying for power over religious dogma were par for the course but the takes on sex and temptation were puerile at best. I'm disappointed I learned about Hypatia for the first time through this book.