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onelittlebookgeek · 4 years

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Book Challenge 2020 (100 books!!) (I did it!!)

After forgetting to track my reading for three years, I started recording my reading on Tumblr last year again, and I’m committed to continuing that this year!

This year is my final year of my Bachelor’s Degrees (I’m finishing English in June) and I’m planning to do a gap year from September on, so now more university after June (at least as far as 2020 is concerned).

I do not really foresee any issues or obstacles to reading this year, except of course finishing my thesis which will probably take quite some time, so I do expect a decline around April until early June. Although I do have a lot more time off in my gap year, I used to read a lot of mandatory books for my studies, so I don’t know whether having a gap year will mean reading more books. Since I’m not doing any university studying, I am interested in reading academic books by myself, studying by myself. Those books are often longer, denser and just take more time to get through; consequently, I might read fewer books in the same amount of energy and time spent reading.

To make a (somewhat) long story short: my expectations are in line with the amount of books I’ve read in the last years, so I’m expecting to read 75 books this year!

Update: it’s mid-October and I’ve already read 99 books this year, so I’ve finished my original goal of 75 books! Now I’m going for 100 books (which should be easy to do, and after that we’ll just see how it goes!).

The crossed book is the one I’m currently reading, I’ve written reviews for books that have a (x) behind them, with the (x) being a link to my Goodreads review!

Update: Today (November 23) I’ve read 114 books so I’ve finished my challenge of 100 books! Right now, I’m still 25 books ahead schedule! Let’s see if I can keep that energy up!

January

The Fire Next Time - James Baldwin (5/5) (x)

Serpent and Dove (Serpent and Dove #1) - Shelby Mahurin (4/5) (x)

Lethal White (Cormoran Strike #4) - Robert Galbraith (4/5)

Weirdos from Another Planet (Calvin and Hobbes #4) - Bill Watterson) (5/5)

Selected Poems - E.E. Cummings (5/5) (x)

Niets zal ons redden maar een beetje liefde is oké - Henk van Straten (Dutch) (4/5) (x)

, said the shotgun to the head. - Saul Williams (4/5)

Loud and Yellow Laughter - Sindiswa Busuku-Mathese (3/5)

Fireborn (The Aurelian Cycle #1) - Rosaria Munda (4/5)

Sylvia Plath Poems Chosen by Carol Ann Duffy - Sylvia Plath (4/5) (x)

The Comedy of Errors - William Shakespeare (3/5) (x)

Nieuwe Herinneringen - Remco Campert (Dutch) (2/5)

Dido, Queen of Carthage - Christopher Marlowe (3/5)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid (4/5)

Alles wat er was - Stine Jensen (Dutch) (3/5)

Zij in de geschiedenis - Alies Pegtel (Dutch) (4/5) (x)

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (reread) (5/5)

February

Prometheus Bound - Aeschylus (3/5)

The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus #1) - Rick Riordan (reread) (4/5)

The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus #2) - Rick Riordan (reread) (4/5)

So You Want to Talk About Race - Ijeoma Oluo (4/5)

The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus #3) - Rick Riordan (reread) (4/5)

Educated - Tara Westover (3/5)

Prometheus on Caucasus - Lucian of Samosata (3/5)

March

Reading Old English: A Primer and First Reader - Robert Hasenfratz (4/5) (x)

Still Foolin’ ‘Em: Where I’ve Been, Where I’m Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys? - Billy Crystal (3/5)

The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4) - Rick Riordan (reread) (4/5)

Quick Question: New Poems - John Ashberry (1/5) (x)

Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose - Michael H. Short (3/5) (x)

The Call of the Wild - Jack London (2/5) (x)

The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus #5) - Rick Riordan (reread) (4/5)

April

The Waste Land - T.S. Eliot (reread) (5/5)

And Still I Rise - Maya Angelou (4/5)

Poëzie in Utrechtse Muren - Ingmar Heytze (Dutch) (5/5) (x)

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf (4/5)

Mijn dood en ik - Remco Campert (4/5)

Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster - Mike Davis (3/5)

Native Son - Richard Wright (2/5)

Dido, Queen of Carthage - Christopher Marlowe (reread) (4/5)

May

The Plague - Albert Camus (4/5)

Absalom! Absalom! - William Faulkner (4/5)

Modernism’s Mythic Pose: Gender, Genre, Solo Performance - Carrie J. Preston (2/5)

James Joyce and Sexuality - Richard Brown (3/5)

June

Daisy Jones & the Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid (4/5) (x)

Modernism, Sex and Gender - Alison Pease and Celia Marshik (3/5)

The Burial at Thebes: Sophocles’ Antigone - Seamus Heaney (4/5)

The Host - Stephanie Meyer (reread) (4/5)

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games #1) - Suzanne Collins (reread) (4/5)

Catching Fire (The Hunger Games #2) - Suzanne Collins (reread) (4/5) (x)

A Terrible Beauty is Born - W.B. Yeats (4/5)

Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3) - Suzanne Collins (reread) (4/5)

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism - Robin DiAngelo (4/5)

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Y. Davis (4/5)

The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) - Brandon Sanderson (4/5)

Everything Leads to You - Nina LaCour (2/5) (x)

The Tempest - William Shakespeare (reread) (3/5)

July

Hag-Seed - Margaret Atwood (4/5) (x)

American Slavery (A Very Short Introduction) - Andrea Heather William (reread) (3/5)

Angels & Demons (Robert Langdom #1) - Dan Brown (4/5) (x)

Mythos: A Retelling of Myths of Ancient Greece - Stephen Fry (4/5) (x)

Mean Time - Carol Ann Duffy (3/5)

Lijfrente - Vrouwkje Tuinman (Dutch) (4/5)

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games #0) - Suzanne Collins (3/5) (x)

Sonnets from the Portuguese - Elizabeth Barrett Browning (3/5)

A Room of One’s Own - Virginia Woolf (reread) (5/5)

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (4/5)

Onbreekbaar - Hans Hagen (Dutch) (1/5) (x)

The Penelopiad - Margaret Atwoord (reread) (4/5)

The Importance of Being Ernest - Oscar Wilde (5/5)

Het goede leven: een briefwisseling - Piet Gerbrandy & Andreas Kinneging (Dutch) (2/5) (x)

Constructions of the Classical Body - James Porter (3/5)

August

The Complete Poems - Anne Sexton (4/5)

The Kissing Booth (The Kissing Booth #1) - Beth Reekles (2/5) (x)

The Daily Show: The Book - Chris Smith (4/5) (x)

The Duchess Deal (Girl meets Duke #1) - Tessa Dare (3/5)

Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehesi Coates (4/5)

Fragments - Heraclitus (transl. by Brooks Haxton) (2/5) (x)

Animal Farm - George Orwell (reread) (5/5)

The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1) - Rick Riordan (reread) (4/5)

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings #1) - Mackenzi Lee (reread) (4/5)

Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto (4/5)

Catilina’s Riddle (Roma sub Rosa #3) - Steven Saylor (2/5) (x)

When Dimple met Rishi (Dimple and Rishi #1) - Sandhya Memon (1/5) (x)

Adulthood is a Myth (Sarah’s Scribbles #1) - Sarah Andersen (4/5)

September

Normal People - Sally Rooney (3/5) (x)

Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age - Donna Zuckerberg (4/5)

Sadie: A Novel - Courtney Summers (4/5)

The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus (4/5)

Vloedlijnen - Piet Gerbrandy (Dutch) (4/5)

Red, White and Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston (reread) (4/5)

This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor - Adam Kay (4/5)

Envelope Poems - Emily Dickinson (4/5) (x)

A Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot #10) - Agatha Christie (3/5) (x)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce (4/5)

October

Titus Andronicus - William Shakespeare (4/5) (x)

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Hercule Poirot #1) - Agatha Christie (4/5) (x)

Het verhaal van Aeneas - Vergilius (trans. to Dutch) (reread) (4/5)

If Beale Street Could Talk - James Baldwin (2/5)

Lesbia, Verzen van Liefde en Spot - Catullus (Dutch) (transl. by Paul Claes) (4/5) (x)

The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah (4/5) (x)

The Cat Inside - William S. Burroughs (reread) (5/5)

The Murder on the Links (Hercule Poirot #2) - Agatha Christie (3/5)

November

Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid (3/5) (x)

Narratology and Classics: a Practical Guide - Irene de Jong (3/5) (x)

The Murder of Roger Akroyd (Hercule Poirot #4) - Agatha Christie (4/5) (x)

The ABC Murders (Hercule Poirot #11) - Agatha Christie (4/5)

The Great Cat (Poetry Collection) - ed. by Emily Fragos (3/5) (x)

Weapons of Math Destruction - Cathy O’Neil (4/5)

The Northern Lights (His Dark Materials #1) - Philip Pullman (4/5)

Vincent van Gogh en zijn brieven - Leo Jansen (Dutch) (3/5)

My Dark Vanessa - Kate Elizabeth Russell (4/5)

The Fill-In Boyfriend - Kasie West (reread) (4/5)

Poirot Investigates (Hercule Poirot #3) - Agatha Christie (1/5)

My 2019 challenge

My 2016 challenge

My 2015 challenge

My 2014 challenge

My 2013 challenge

#2020 book challenge #onelittlebookgeek #2020 #goodreads #goodreads challenge #book challenge

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likeadove · 7 years

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(fic) we could plant a house, we could build a tree (6/?)

Summary: Seven-year-old Rey decides it’s her duty to annoy the crap out of Ben Solo every single day she’s alive. Modern-day AU.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

FFN AO3

It’s warm outside. Finally.

It’s another Saturday. Rey is about fifteen feet up into the massive oak tree that’s in the home’s backyard, one leg dangling off a sturdy branch and the other balancing her sketchbook. Her tongue is barely jutting out between her lips in concentration, her gaze flicking back and forth between her drawing and Rose and Paige. The two sisters are sitting in the shade of the tree, reading. A small, portable stereo sits on the grass next to Paige, blaring music. It’s one of the view possessions the sisters had had with them in their shared backpack.

Rey pauses and frowns down at her work. Rose’s hand isn’t proportional to the rest of her body and Rey can’t quite fix it—

She tries not to huff in frustration.

The music stops and Paige quickly starts the CD over again. Rey sighs. More Gwen Stefani. Paige is obsessed. Rey imagines the look on Ben’s face if he knew how much No Doubt Rey is subjected to while at home… It makes her smile a little.

A few minutes pass and Rey erases Rose’s hand for the third time.

Birds chirp. Rose gasps at something exciting she’s come across in her book on spaceships, promptly reading the section aloud. Rey and Paige perk up slightly from what they’re doing, providing vaguely interested commentary. Rose grins, diving back into her book. Her joy is palpable, and Paige and Rey share a companionable smile over the top of her head.

When the spring sun is almost too warm, Paige rummages around in her backpack and pulls out bags of Goldfish. Rose takes hers without looking away from her book, and Paige tosses Rey’s snack up to her with practiced ease. Rey catches it with one hand.

It’s peaceful. It’s kinship.

Saturday’s are starting to rival Friday’s as Rey’s favorite day of the week.

Several weeks later marks the beginning of May, and Rey finds herself walking out into the garden Luke keeps behind the studios. It’s a Wednesday, which means Rey has a sketching class. She is, once again, the youngest of all the students, picking a grassy spot away from most of the others. She makes herself comfortable and gathers the supplies she knows she’ll need. Luke is gesturing to the nature around them, undoubtedly encouraging them to sketch whatever inspires them—

Suddenly Rey is uneasy.

Ben typically sits in on this class with her, painting or doing homework or listening to music or napping. And he never misses. In fact, the last time he missed a class was because—

Rey drums her fingers against her knee, fretting. There’s the same familiar twinge she’d felt last time, that something is wrong with Ben.

She moves to gather her things when Luke is swiftly there, looking down at her with a raised eyebrow. Rey stares up at him fiercely, because hadn’t he let her leave last time? But Luke gives a firm shake of his head and Rey stills, hand slowly pulling back out her sketchpad, cheeks flushing with frustration.

The rest of the class drags by and Rey draws nothing, body tense the entire time.

Luke dismisses the class when the sun starts to set. The evening is warm and pleasant, and the students who don’t drive themselves lounge outside in the gardens while waiting for their rides.

But Maz won’t be here for another half hour, at least.

Luke keeps an annoyingly close eye on her, but eventually he gets distracted by other students showing him their work. He briefly looks away and Rey dashes inside the studio, backpack bouncing against her back.

It’s quiet in the entryway for a brief, brief moment.

There’s a shattering sound and then loud shouting. Rey finds herself rooted to the spot, apprehension making her too nervous to move. But then the part of her that needs to check on Ben kicks in. She marches through the entryway and heads straight for the kitchen-office. The shouting becomes louder.

“—have to get a control on your anger—”

“Because you’re such a great fucking example—”

“Your mother and I—"

“I don’t give a shit what you and—”

Rey pauses right outside the door frame, suddenly feeling very much like a nine-year-old. This has nothing to do with her, this really isn’t any of her business, she should turn around leave—

There’s a rustling of footsteps, and before Rey can decide either way, Ben is standing in the hallway looking down at her. There’s blood all over his left hand and the expression on his face is inscrutable. A second later a man emerges behind him, looking flustered. Rey immediately recognizes him from the family portrait that had been on Ben’s nightstand.

This is Ben’s father. And he looks deeply uncomfortable.

“Uh, you lost, kid?”

The endearment makes Rey bristle.

“Rey.” Ben’s voice is soft and controlled. “Go grab some wet paper towels for my hand.”

She moves to obey without a word. As she walks into the kitchen-office she hears Ben address his father in low, hushed tones.

When she makes her way back to Ben his father is already gone.

Luke is furious.

She’ll have to spend the rest of the week dusting and sweeping and mopping the studio. “You can’t keep going around behind my back without my permission,” he’d said. Rey has never seen her mentor this upset with her before, and his disappointment makes her wince with guilt. But Luke’s tone doesn’t hold much anger, and Rey has a feeling she’s getting off rather lightly.

“You smashed my favorite mug!” he admonishes Ben as they sit around the table in the kitchen-office. Ben is dabbing at the gouges and cuts across his knuckles and across the back of his left hand. Rey has never seen this much blood at once before. “And Han left before I got to even—”

Ben fixes a hard look on Luke before jerking his head subtly to Rey.

Once again he is keeping her out of the loop. She slumps a little in her seat.

The phone rings and Luke throws up his hand in exasperation. “That’s probably your mother. If that doesn’t stop bleeding I’m taking you to the emergency room for stitches.” He leaves, footsteps retreating down the hall toward the entryway.

Silence. Ben stands, tossing blood soaked paper towels into the trash and gathering fresh ones.

And Rey decides to ask for the umpteenth time, “Why do you live with Luke?”

Ben sits in the chair across from her, dark hair sweaty and falling into his brown eyes. He shakes his head slowly, not looking at her. “I don’t know, Rey,” he says slowly. “I think…I think you’re too young to be caught up in all of this.”

Rey sticks her chin out and sits up as straight as possible. She feels it again, that inherent need to protect Ben Solo. That need to shoulder whatever it is that burdens him. “I just want to know more about you.” She shrugs and waits knowingly.

Ah, that gets him.

He sighs and looks at her closely for a long moment. “Alright, fine.” More blood seeps through the fresh paper towels he has pressed against his hand. “People can give you shit sometimes, you know, when you’re a senator’s kid. When I was in eighth grade a couple of other guys and I, we, uh, we got in a fight…” Ben won’t meet her eyes.

“You started it,” Rey concludes, fiddling with a strap on her backpack. Her eyes dart to the clock on the microwave. Maz will be here any minute.

Ben nods, looking down. “They said some stuff, anyway it doesn’t matter what they said now. I put them both in the hospital. Paralyzed one. I didn’t mean, I didn’t…It just happened.” He stops, and Rey realized he’s waiting for her reaction. Waiting for her horror.

Rey has been called many names in her nine years of life. Ugly, homeless rat, scrawny little turd. One time an older boy at the home had called her a “spawn of methhead fucks” which she thought was at least slightly original. Insults typically roll off her back. But if someone said horrible things about Rose or Ben or Paige in front of her…she could easily imagine the fury she might feel.

She remains quiet and Ben hesitantly continues. “The whole thing caused a lot of bad press for my parents, especially my mom. She thought it might be better if I came and lived with my uncle. Got out of the political eye.” He looks at his bleeding hand and winces. And says nothing else.

Rey takes a moment and runs over everything he’s told her. She thinks of Ben shoving ice cream in her face. Ben is good, she thinks. He has changed, and all that other stuff is in the past. He is different now. She thinks this because she’s only nine years old.

Rey shrugs at him. “That’s it?”

His lips part in surprise and he looks as if he’s about to speak when Luke walks back into the room, looking deeply irritated. His expression reminds Rey of Ben.

“Your ride is here,” he says to Rey. And then his gaze pins itself furiously to his nephew. “You need stitches. And you’re making me a new mug.”

For most love comes for free They don't pay the high cost Of mental custody I'll pay bail for a guarantee Please make space for me In the time yet to be

“Excuse Me Mr” by No Doubt

A:N:

I live for the angst y’all.

Thanks to everyone who has been reading! One more installment for ’99 before we jump into the new millennium. Fun times. Thanks everyone for reading. If you liked let me know!

#bethany writes #reylo fanfic #reylo #reylo fanfiction #star wars fanfiction #Ben Solo/Kylo Ren #rey

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