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suchagiantnerd · 8 years

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46 Books, 1 Year

In 2016 I didn’t QUITE make it to my goal of reading 50 books, but I sh*t out an adorable human instead so I don’t feel too bad. Because of the pregnancy and baby-having, I also decided to cut myself some slack and didn’t take notes after finishing each book (which I usually do), so this year’s reviews are not as detailed as usual. But if you’re interested in learning more about any of these reads, just message me and I can chat more about them!

1. The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country / Helen Russell I am obsessed with the Danish concept of hygge (which loosely translates to ‘coziness’). I wanted to learn more about how to live a life full of hygge and other ways of increasing happiness. This is a fitting read for this time of year. January doesn’t have to be cold and depressing; it can be full of candlelight, soft blankets, comforting food, and friends and family. The message seems to be to nestle in and hibernate together!

2. Dragonfly in Amber / Diana Gabaldon The second book in the Outlander series follows Claire and Jamie as the battle of Culloden approaches. Can they stop it? Or does attempting to change history result in even worse outcomes?

3. Voyager / Diana Gabaldon I can’t say much about the third book in the Outlander series, as it will spoil some big plot twists. So I’ll just say that the sex scenes are as great as ever!

4. Six Metres of Pavement / Farzana Doctor Set in Toronto, this story follows three broken people as they slowly find community and acceptance with each other - Ismail grieves his infant daughter years after her death (which was ultimately his fault), Celia, recently widowed, deals with loneliness and feeling unwanted, and Fatima, a queer university student, deals with the fallout of coming out to her traditional family. A heartwarming read, though the plot feels a bit too contrived.

5. The Light Between Oceans / M.L. Stedman You best read this one before the movie comes out! Or is it already out and I’m that out of touch now? This story will make you want to visit all the barren, lonely lighthouses you can find. It will also make you thank god for your relatively uncomplicated life. This book is heartbreaking and features baby-stealing (with the best of intentions), WWI PTSD, and a look at life (for better or worse) in small town Australia.

6. Cinder / Marissa Meyer You thought for a second I’d forgone my first love, YA Dystopian? Nuh uh! This is the first in a series that works fairytale characters into a futuristic world full of spaceships, robots, and a violent lunar people. “Cinder” obviously pays homage to Cinderella. But instead of one glass slipper, she’s got one bionic leg and is an expert mechanic.

7. Circling the Sun / Paula McLain Based on the real-life love triangle between Beryl Markham, Karen Blixen and Denys Finch Hatton in while colonial Kenya, McLain takes us from Beryl’s “wild” childhood without a mother figure playing with her Kipsigis (a Kenyan tribe) best friend and riding horses, to her bold and sometimes disastrous adult years training horses, falling in and out of love and lust, and eventually becoming one of the first women to fly solo across the Atlantic. This is a well-written and dreamy story, but ignores most of the world outside the expat community. Is that irresponsible? I don’t know.

8. Wolf Winter / Cecilia Ekback If there’s a better “dead of winter” read, I don’t know what it is. I loved this tale taking place in 1717 in Swedish Lapland. A disparate group of settlers struggles to survive a particularly brutal winter just after one of their members turns up dead. Was it actually an animal attack? Many of the settlers believe otherwise as suspicion and cabin fever set in.

9. Behind the Beautiful Forevers / Katherine Boo This non-fiction account of a Mumbai slum reads like a novel. Journalist Katherine Boo spent months getting to know the slum’s residents, gaining insight into their hopes and dreams, the drudgery of their day-to-day existence, and the political and personal ties between them all. Their stories will break your heart.

10. Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong - and What You Really Need to Know / Emily Oster I’ve always dreaded pregnancy, mainly because of all the policing of pregnant women’s bodies. This book is a nice antidote to all of that. When Oster, a statistician, became pregnant for the first time, she gathered together all of the valid studies about caffeine and alcohol consumption, gardening, certain foods, owning cats, etc, etc, etc and and complied their results, determining what’s really harmful to a growing baby and what’s not. Have your cup of coffee in the morning, ladies. And a glass of wine now and then is just fine! But no ciggies. No ciggies at all.

11. The Heart Goes Last / Margaret Atwood Atwood’s latest novel does not disappoint. Set in a near-dystopian future, a new gated community takes the prison-as-business model one step further. Rotating every month, half of the population acts as prisoners in an actual prison, while the other half maintain the town or work as prison guards. It’s efficient, right? Less housing required, the prisoners all do work to help the town, everyone gets a salary. But it just might be too good to be true…

12. Drums of Autumn / Diana Gabaldon Once again, I can’t say much about the fourth book in the Outlander series for fear of spoilers except that Jamie and Claire are a bit older now, and there’s a new generation of sexy Scottish people to populate your daydreams.

13. Fifteen Dogs / Andre Alexis I don’t know what to say about this book other than I both loved it and hated it? This is also the book my book club has spent the most time ever talking about. Set in Toronto, it follows 15 dogs staying the night at a veterinary clinic who are suddenly blessed/cursed with human consciousness. What follows is occasionally comedic, but mostly violent and terribly sad.

14. I Just Want to Pee Alone / Some Kick Ass Mom Bloggers I should probably have waited to read this collection of true stories until after I’d had the baby. In one story, a woman describes her post-birth vagina as a sad old elephant.

15. The Damned / Andrew Pyper Pyper is great at sketching out a truly creepy character. In this story, Dan is haunted by his deceased twin sister, who happened to be a sociopath while alive. Now that she’s dead, her ability to torture him seems to have no bounds. I also really liked the book’s setting of Detroit.

16. Scarlet / Marissa Meyer The second book in the “Lunar Chronicles” series, this book focuses on a Red Riding Hood-inspired protagonist. And the love interest is pretty wolf-like. Oooh mama!

17. The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century / Steven Pinker Full disclosure: This is a grammar book. Basically you shouldn’t read this unless you write for a living / want to really improve your writing. I’m not even sure I should have read it. Some tips were great, others were too detailed for me to grasp, others I already forget.

18. Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time / Jeff Speck Though this book focuses on American cities, it applies to anywhere. If you’re an amateur urban planning nerd like me, you’ll love this book. Two fun factoids - trees increase a neighbourhood’s value and liveability A LOT and you’re more likely to suffer a heart attack in the few hours after you’ve been driving a car. Driving in a city is THAT stressful.

19. How to Be a Woman / Caitlin Moran In this non-fiction tome of memories / essays, well-known British feminist Moran takes on body image, sex, working in the music industry, pregnancy and childbirth, living in poverty, and abortion.

20. The Jade Peony / Wayson Choy This novel reads more like a series of related short stories, and follows the childhoods and teenage years of three siblings, Jook-Liang, Jung-Sum and Sek-Lung living in Vancouver’s Chinatown in the 1930s and 40s. This is a touching book, and each child deals with their own stresses and troubles from losing a beloved grandmother to realizing one’s sexuality to the difficulties of life as a child of new immigrants.

21. Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman / Lindy West Lindy West is my hero, and the author of my favourite piece of comedic writing ever, a hilarious review of Jurassic Park from beginning to end. She’s also a fiercely intelligent feminist and this is her first book. It’s about trying to make herself as small and quiet as possible, only to realize that that’s bullshit. As women, we should be as big and loud as we want.

22. I Was Told There’d Be Cake / Sloane Crosley This is a non-fiction collection of stories from Crosley’s life. Who is she? I didn’t know before and I still don’t really know, but she’s a Jewish New Yorker who is a good writer and is pretty funny. This collection is not heavy in the least - it’s just some funny and amusing anecdotes from a regular person’s life.

23. Tampa / Alissa Nutting Hooooooooo boy. What can I say about this one? Nutting tells the story of Celeste Price, a 26-year old middle school teacher who is a pedophile. And Price is relentless in her pursuit of the perfect victims, searching for boys just on the cusp of puberty. This is kind of a reverse “Lolita”. But I gather it’s way grittier (I have not read “Lolita” so I can’t say for sure). Nutting is a good writer and her style is very, shall we say, visceral? But this book is not for everyone.

24. The Widow / Fiona Barton This book felt like Barton’s attempt to get on the “Gone Girl” / “The Girl on the Train” bandwagon, and it fell short. I don’t recommend it. I also hated the main character, a simpering weakling of a woman.

25. Time Zero / Carolyn Cohagan This feels like a “The Giver” of our time. It’s also a truly feminist YA dystopian novel. In it, Cohagan has created a world (in what used to be Manhattan) run by men with a set of very harsh rules for women. In a poignant twist, all of the rules in the novel are actual rules that various women around the world today have to live under. I really believe this book should be added to the public school curriculum.

26. Battle Royale / Koushun Tatami Before “The Hunger Games”, there was “Battle Royale”. Set in a dystopian Japan, each year in a government experiment, random classes of ninth graders are sent to secluded locations and forced to kill each other until one survivor remains. To prevent runaways, each student must also wear a collar which explodes if the student tries to escape. YIKES. A cult classic, this is a sad and violent read full of interesting characters.

27. Before the Fall / Noah Hawley A private plane crashes into the Atlantic ocean, and of the 11 people on board, only two survive - a young boy and the lone outsider, an aspiring artist who’d recently befriended one of the rich passengers. This is a tight, scintillating thriller, and as the mystery of what (or who) caused the crash unfolds, we get an inside look at each of the passenger’s thoughts and backgrounds. I didn’t love the resolution, but the excellent lead-up was worth the read.

28. The Passage / Justin Cronin I reread this for the third time in advance of the release of “The City of Mirrors” (book 30), the third in this trilogy. This remains my favourite book / series of all time. It’s a dystopian/sci-fi/thriller/epic full of an amazing cast of characters and spanning over a century.

29. The Twelve / Justin Cronin I also reread the second book in “The Passage” trilogy.

30. The City of Mirrors / Justin Cronin As expected, the final book in this trilogy both thrilled me and broke my heart.

31. The Haunting of Maddy Clare / Simone St. James I just wanted a good old-fashioned book about a ghost set in the British countryside. This book was that, but was cheesier than I thought it would be. And unexpectedly involved a sexy romance sub-plot which was enjoyable and terrible at the same time.

32. The Girls / Emma Cline In the summer of 1969, bored and naive teenager Evie befriends a mysterious older girl named Suzanne, who slowly brings her into the folds of a Manson-inspired cult. The Manson-y cult leader isn’t quite as big a character as you might think, and the book, like the title, really does focus on the relationships between young girls that we can all relate to - the idolization, the obsessiveness, the jealously, the fervent love we sometimes feel for each other.

33. The Last Star / Rick Yancey I had to read the final book in “The Fifth Wave” alien trilogy, and much like the “Divergent” series, this series gets worse with each tome.

34. The Bluest Eye / Toni Morrison Penola is a young Black girl growing up in Ohio in the post-Great Depression era. Her life is shit. Daughter to an abusive father and an overtired and busy working mother, teased at school, and simply put, already beaten down by life, all Pecola wants are for her eyes to turn blue. This is a classic and an important read for these times.

35. Indian Horse / Richard Wagamese This novel tells the story of Saul, an Ojibway boy sent to a residential school after his family spends a few years trying to protect him from just such a fate. Saul’s only escape from the horrors of the school is his growing love of hockey. It turns out that he’s a gifted player, and his talent allows him a chance at a better life. All Canadians should read this book. The racism Saul experiences in the 1970s is still alive and well today all across this country.

36. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child / J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne If you’re a Potter fan, you’ve also already read this, and if you’re not, you don’t care!

37. After Birth / Elisa Albert I read this novel in preparation for motherhood. In it, we meet Ari, a first-time mother dealing with feelings of loneliness and the emotional fallout of her caesarian section. She cannot get over it, and her anger and sadness are palpable. She later befriends mother-to-be Mina, and the two develop their own little support system (or should I call it a lifeline?). This is a much needed story about pregnancy, birth, mothering, female friendship, and the importance of support from friends, family, and the medical profession.

38. Sex Object: A Memoir / Jessica Valenti In this collection of anecdotes from feminist and journalist Valenti, she tackles issues of sexism, harassment, internet trolling and your everyday, run-of-the-mill misogyny against the backdrop of her youth and young adulthood in New York. Add this to your growing feminist library (we all have one, right?)

39. Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue: How to Raise Your Kids Free of Gender Stereotypes / Christia Spears Brown, PhD The title says it all. But as you’ve probably seen, Fern wears a lot of pink. You can’t say no to hand-me-downs and gifts! I guess I’ll work to combat gender stereotypes in other ways…

40. Middlesex / Jeffrey Eugenides This is a sprawling coming-of-age story about Cal, who is intersex. When born, Cal appeared to be a girl and was raised as such. As they go through puberty, Cal’s transformation is more confusing and painful than that of most, and they start to question their identity. Eugenides also details the strange and somewhat taboo history of Cal’s family, illustrating that nothing occurs in a vacuum. We exist in the context of our families. This was a thoughtful and engaging read.

41. Everything I Never Told You / Celeste Ng This novel explores all the things we don’t tell those we are closest to - our spouses, our children, our parents, our siblings - and the fallout of these omissions. It also explores the unique challenges of a mixed-race family living in 1970s America including overt and subtle racism, feelings of not belonging, and questioning one’s own identity. On top of all this, Ng has also rolled in a gripping mystery.

42. The Japanese Lover / Isabel Allende Allende is one of my favourite authors, but this book fell flat. The dialogue felt forced and preachy, and the characters, especially the Japanese ones, were often stereotypes. A tale of illicit love and Japanese internment camps (sounds promising, right?) I would skip this one, especially if you’ve never read Allende before.

43. North American Lake Monsters / Nathan Ballingrud I was so excited to read this collection of strange and scary short stories, but it was a disappointment. Ballingrud does not take any of these stories far enough, and the endings were almost all vague and left things up in the air. I don’t consider this tactic all that artistic anymore, it just seems lazy. COMMIT TO AN ENDING, authors, COMMIT TO A DANG ENDING!

44. Cold Mountain / Charles Frazier Towards the end of the Civil War, soldier Inman has had enough. Recovering from a serious neck wound in hospital, he decides to defect and make his way home to Cold Mountain and his love, Ada. Meanwhile, back on Cold Mountain, Ada’s fallen on hard times and is in serious survival mode. As Inman makes his long way home, Frazier paints a broken and bloody countryside on the cusp of something new.

45. Mrs. Poe / Lynn Cullen This is a juicy historical fiction novel about the love triangle between Edgar Allan Poe, his wife, and his contemporary, writer Frances Osgood. Surprisingly, the delicate ingenue Mrs. Poe seems like the creepiest one of the three (whether or not this is based on fact, I don’t know). I loved the setting, the plot, and the literati cast of characters, but the style of writing was a bit fluffy. It felt as though Cullen was writing with a future movie deal in mind.

46. All My Puny Sorrows / Miriam Toews Set in Winnipeg and Toronto, this story follows a Mennonite family plagued by tragedy after tragedy. Toews explores issues of intergenerational trauma, suicide, mental health, the damaging effects of patriarchy, and how amidst all that, love still flourishes.

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