As the year comes close to the end, it's time we look back on our Goodreads reading challenge and regret making such a high goal. I had originally set my goal to over 50 since I was feeling overly confident and possibly a bit delusional. I used to read on average around 50 books per year but this year just wasn't the time for me. I went ahead and changed my goal back down to 20.. but let's see how close I am to finishing this year.
This year, I have read 14 of my 20 book goal meaning I have 6 books left to read this year. Here are a list of the books I've read so far and my ratings for each one
1. Last Night at the Telegraph Club
by Malinda Lo ★★★/★★★★★
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"Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.
America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day."
America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day."
2. Bright Dead Things by Ada Limon ★★★★/★★★★★
"A book of bravado and introspection, of 21st century feminist swagger and harrowing terror and loss, this fourth collection considers how we build our identities out of place and human contact—tracing in intimate detail the various ways the speaker’s sense of self both shifts and perseveres as she moves from New York City to rural Kentucky, loses a dear parent, ages past the capriciousness of youth, and falls in love. Limón has often been a poet who wears her heart on her sleeve, but in these extraordinary poems that heart becomes a “huge beating genius machine” striving to embrace and understand the fullness of the present moment. “I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying,” the poet writes. Building on the legacies of forebears such as Frank O’Hara, Sharon Olds, and Mark Doty, Limón’s work is consistently generous and accessible—though every observed moment feels complexly thought, felt, and lived."
"At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He's popular and well-adjusted, star of the school football team, while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her job at Marianne's house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers--one they are determined to conceal.
A year later, they're both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other."
A year later, they're both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other."
"In 1903, a student at a military academy sent some of his verses to a well-known Austrian poet, requesting an assessment of their value. The older artist, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), replied to the novice in this series of letters—an amazing archive of remarkable insights into the ideas behind Rilke's greatest poetry. The ten letters reproduced here were written during an important stage in Rilke's artistic development, and they contain many of the themes that later appeared in his best works. The poet himself afterwards stated that his letters contained part of his creative genius, making this volume essential reading for scholars, poetry lovers, and anyone with an interest in Rilke, German poetry, or the creative impulse."
5. Rilke on Love by Rainer Maria Rilke ★★★/★★★★★
6. The Hurting Kind by Ada Limon ★★★★★/★★★★★
7. Sweet, Young, and Worried by Blythe Baird ★★★/★★★★★
8. Next Level Basic by Stassi Schroeder ★★★/★★★★★
9. Pageboy by Elliot Page ★★★★★/★★★★★
10. the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins ★★★/★★★★★
11. Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo ★★★/★★★★★
12. Percy Jackson and the Chalice of Gods by Rick Riordan ★★★★/★★★★★
13. Worry by Alexandra Tanner ★★★/★★★★★
14. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros ★★★★/★★★★★
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