Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

While this book was making the rounds around our house while I was reading it last week, this song was constantly in my head. You're welcome for the earworm.

I don't really have a strong opinion about this novel. Apparently it is beloved in young adult circles and I myself have talked about how much I love Sanderson's epic adult novels, but this book was meh for me.

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson is the first in a trilogy.  It tells the story of David, who was a young boy when an "Epic," a superhuman with bad intentions, kills his father.  David lives his life to kill this Epic who goes by the moniker Steelheart.  David hooks up with a group of like-minded individuals who also want to destroy Epics.  Adventures, fights, and battles ensure.

It's pretty clever and does a good job of throwing shade at all the superhero constructs of good versus evil. It's really just evil here.  Why would we assume that superhumans would do good if they had unlimited power?  The writing is good because Brandon Sanderson is a good writer.  David's motivations are incredibly well laid out and his tortuous analogies and metaphors were brilliant. The opening scene is exciting and the world building is interesting.

But.

There aren't any women in the book. Two of the members of the team David hooks up with are women. One is essentially a textbook who does research off page. One is just this really hot girl that David just can't stop thinking about.  The book would not pass the Bechdel test and I was really disappointed in Sanderson for this. 

Also, there's so much fighting and so many action scenes. I just didn't care and it started to become so repetitive that by the time we got to the end and the big climactic fight, I was basically just skimming the pages to be able to finish the book.  I think it probably would have been exciting and surprising if Sanderson hadn't already exhausted my limited ability to care about shooting, blowing up, and running away. 

So, in the end, I say meh. I don't know what to say here. I'd probably recommend this wholeheartedly to a teenage boy (who I've already given Ender's Game and Ready Player One recs to). I would not recommend this to anyone in my book club.  Know your audience. I wasn't the right person for this book.

Tress of the Emerald Sea (Hoid's Travails #1) by Brandon Sanderson

This month we read Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson for my IRL book club.

Brandon Sanderson (I listen to a podcast where they call him Brando Sando and I don't know why, but it tickles me in just the right place)  is the author of a lot of books set in his expanded fantasy world of  Cosmere. Tress of the Emerald Sea is a standalone book set in this world. 

Okay, here's the deal. Tress lives on an isolated island. When her beloved, Charlie, the duke's son, is captured by the Sorceress in the Midnight Sea, Tress decides to go after him. The seas in this place are dangerous, though. They are created by spores (not water) that rain down from the twelve different moons of the planet. The spores are unstable, reacting to water in an explosive way.  However, ships sail these seas. 

She befriends a talking rat named Huck and manages to be a perfect sailor who eventually worms her way into the heart of all the crew onboard the pirate ship the Crow's Song, which is naturally captained by Crow, a spore-eater. Can Tress save Charlie? Can Tress save herself?

Look, did some of this backstory bore you? Oh, good, I'm not alone. 

The book is told from the POV of Hoid, the cabin boy who is under a curse placed on him by the Sorceress that makes most of what he says nonsense. And why did Brando Sando need to have a dude intermediary? Because Brando Sando is not a good enough writer to write female characters. It is my big beef with this book. Because Hoid is not reliable (he's under a curse placed on him by the Sorceress), how does he know what Tress is thinking or doing? He doesn't. So Tress becomes one-dimensional and we spend too long trying to figure out if what Hoid is saying is at all important. 

But something happened at the end that I did not expect and I felt REALLY DUMB because it was sort of obvious in retrospect, but it made me reevaluate my stance on Sanderson's writing - that stance being that he's a plodding author whose dialogue is clunky and his sentence structure is a crime against humanity. However, maybe I'm wrong? The ending of this book tells me that I'm wrong. Maybe. Actually, no. He's still not a great writer, but he's great at plot. That's fair, right?

Also, this book has so many preachy moments in it. I don't need that. 

Eh.  This was going to be 2/5 stars, but I bumped it to 3/5 stars because the ENDING. It really got me. 

Lines of note:

Tress didn’t want to act suspicious, so she didn’t execute her plan at first. (location 1532)

Just. How did this make it through editing? SUSPICIOUSLY!!!

Hat mentions (why hats?):

He was wearing a traveling coat and even a hat. The duke considered hats improper wear except during travel. (location 371)

One figure in particular—standing right at the prow of the ship, wearing a hat with a tall black feather—looked ominous. (location 936)

With the black-plumed hat, their face was lost in shadow as the sun shone from near the horizon, silhouetting them. (location 945)

Captain Crow—judging by the plume in her hat—had harsh lines for a face, with tan skin and a scowl deep as the ocean. (location 987)

...wind blowing the black feather in her hat. (location 1269)

Her hat hung on a peg by the door...(location 2608)

She took her hat off the peg, went out the door, then locked it behind her. (location 2621)

the captain in her plumed hat (location 4089)

“Tell me…what is your opinion on tiny pirate hats?” (location 4481)

He’d been sitting there making a list of all the hats she owned. (location 4675)

She pulled on her hat, wavered for a moment, but then decided. (location 4896)

stolen Huck’s tiny pirate hat (location 5303)

Or, if trees won’t fit, maybe some paintings of dogs wearing hats. (location 5317)

The captain soon emerged onto the deck of the Two Cups sporting a long captain’s jacket and a hat with a plume. (location 5484)

Also, the only thing he was wearing was a tiny pirate hat. (location 5502)

******************

Have you ever read Brando Sando? Do you care about spores reacting to water? Do you even know what that means? 

Accidental Rereads

I was recently reading two books at the same time and every time I would start reading these books, this feeling of deja vu would wash over me. It was as if I had read these books before, but I could not find a record of reading either of them. So, anyway, here are two books I'm pretty sure I've read before, but here's my  "official" record of doing so.

Book #1

The Address by Fiona Davis switches perspectives from Sara Smythe in the 1880s, when she is recruited from her job in London to manage a new apartment building called The Dakota in New York City and Bailey Camden, newly out of rehab in the New York City of the 1980s while she stays at her cousin's place in The Dakota. Soon, the historical secrets of The Dakota start to unravel.

Because I'm pretty sure I've read this before, I found it to be predictable. However, I'm pretty sure there's some shocking scenes in there. I also sort of thought the author just threw all the big stuff from history into one book, even if it didn't really fit (the introduction of Nellie Bly had me snort in disbelief). It also reminded me of The Lost Apothecary in which the absolutely untrained heroine solves a historical mystery that no one else has solved in centuries after she finds one small artifact. (Also, the 1980s character alcoholic persona was not appealing in any way. Was I supposed to be rooting for her? I did not.)

But I did end up learning a lot about early NYC and the architecture and I enjoyed all the things I looked up.  The history part of this historical fiction was solid.

*shrug* It's fine. 3/5 stars

Lines of note:

The city was made up of a mishmash of buildings crowded together like a mouth with too many teeth. (page 32)

He smelled like wood chips and grease. Not a bad combination, surprisingly. She'd market it as ManSmell, The Cologne. (page 90) 

Things I looked up:

Battenberg cake (page 8) - I did not remember this term from GBBO, but it's one of those cakes that when you slice into it, it makes a pattern, generally a checkerboard.

Henry Hardenbergh (page 12) - An American architect and early designer of those newfangled skyscrapers.

Shantung and dupioni (page 21) - Silk plain weave fabrics often used in wedding gowns. Shantung is similar to dupioni, but is slightly thinner and less irregular. 

The Dakota (basically every page in the book) - Apartment building constructed between 1880 and 1884, designed by the aforementioned Hardenbergh. One of the first large developments in the Upper West Side and remains standing as the oldest luxury apartment building in NYC and continues to be a sought after address for many celebrities, business people, and artists. If you have heard of this building in popular culture, you might know it as the place John Lennon and Yoko Ono lived and Lennon was murdered outside of it. 

By Ajay Suresh from New York, NY, USA - The Dakota, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80475406

Washington pie (page 151) - An American sandwich cake (not a pie at all!) filled with jam and dusted with powdered sugar. Said to be an antecedent to the Boston cream pie. 

Washington pie. Not sure how it's different from a Victorian sponge.

Al Hirschfeld's Ninas (page 169) - Hirschfeld was an American caricaturist who was known for placing the name NINA in his drawings. Nina was his daughter and he started this practice after she was born.

Book #2

So, while I was reading a hard copy of The Address, I had an ebook copy of The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) by Brandon Sanderson on my Kindle. Sanderson is a controversial figure in the world of fantasy. He's frequently recommended as a good entry way into SFF, but he's also had some incidents with homophobia and some people think his writing is cliched.  

In this story, we meet Vin, a street urchin who we soon learn is able to manipulate metals to perform various feats, including swaying people's emotions, sort of fly, and have enhanced physical senses. She gets hooked up with Kelsier, who is recruiting the best of the best from the Underworld, to overthrow The Lord Ruler, the powerful despot who has reigned for a thousand years.  Adventures ensue.

It's fine. It's an interesting world. It's an interesting collection of characters. It's fantasy without spells, creatures, or maps and that's sort of interesting, right? How the world is developed is the most noteworthy part of the book.

Because the writing is simple, the dialogue clunky, and Sanderson's ability to understand what a young woman like Vin would actually do and say is quite limited. The characters are hardly developed and it's hard to see where anyone grows at all - they all start as heroes and end as heroes. *sigh*

It's fine. It's a fine book. I can see why it gets suggested as an intro to urban fantasy, but I won't be reading any further in the series.

3/5 stars

November 2014 Books

Festive in Death by J.D. Robb (Kindle book) - Fine, I actually read this in October, but I didn't actually do enough reading in October to justify a round-up of posts (oh, really, NGS, you read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire again? - you don't say).  I was a bit dumbfounded as to why the publisher released this book, set during the Christmas holiday, in September. Weird. Also, the In Death series is done. Robb has nothing left to say. Unless she really shakes it up (KILL ROARKE! KILL ROARKE! - I would love to see Eve without her abusive husband around) in the next installment, I might never read another one again and be totally okay with that.

NOTE: I'm a big talker. I will never stop reading this series.

The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson (Kindle books) - The books are Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, and Hero of the Ages. This is fantasy done well, with excellent world building and perfect lessons in politics and the human endeavor.  The last book took what you thought you knew and turned it on its head and made me want to reread it all over again in light of what I now knew. It was magical and wonderful and I can't say enough good things about these books. Please read them so I can talk to somebody about them!

The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson (Kindle book) -  This is a continuation of the original trilogy, set hundreds of years in the future from where we last left. I did not enjoy this one as much, partly because the characters were just not as fully fleshed out from the beginning. 

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Kindle book) - I got sucked into reading this book because someone on Pop Culture Happy Hour recommended the sequel, Ancillary Sword, and when I did my "research" on the original book, I learned it had won the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke awards, and decided I needed to figure out what was going on with this book. And it was okay the first time through and MARVELOUS upon a second reading.  It definitely deserves your time and effort to go through it a second time.

I've also been reading some trashy romance series.  Just ask me if you want to know more about Courtney Milan's The Brothers Sinister books (I've read the first four and they are deliciously decadent historical fiction) or Olivia Cunning's The Sinners on Tour books (dreamy). 

Books I want to read over Christmas break (weeks away! days to just read!):
Reread Ancillary Justice and read Ancillary Sword for the first time
Read the entire The Magicians Trilogy by Lev Grossman (I've read the first two, but they're worth reading again and the third book is out now, so I can complete the whole thing!)

What else should I put on my reading list?

September 2022 Book List

 9/1: Dawn (Xenogenesis #1) by Octavia E. Butler (library, 1987) - Super thought-provoking without being preachy. Sci-fi at its finest. 5/5 stars

9/1: Moon Called (Mercy Thompson #1) by Patricia Briggs (library, 2006) - Reread of the start to a much beloved series.  I stand by my earlier claim that it seems like a Sookie Stackhouse ripoff and the world still did not hook me. 3/5 stars

9/2: Hot Milk by Deborah Levy (library, 2016) - Introspective look at a mother-daughter relationship.  It didn't hook me, but it's short, so if you like that sort of thing, it's not a huge time commitment. 2.5/5 stars

9/6: Jade War (Green Bone saga #2) by Fonda Lee (library, 2019) - Such a great series. I really love this gangster/urban fantasy world and stayed up way too late reading. 5/5 stars

9/7: Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly (library, 2017) - Clever little book. I really enjoyed it and wish I could write half as well as Fennelly. 5/5 stars

9/11: Jade Legacy (Green Bone saga #3) by Fonda Lee (library, 2021) - I cannot express to you how absolutely wonderful this big book was. I loved every second of this trilogy. 5/5 very enthusiastic stars

9/12: Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor (library, 2019) - The first novella was absolutely amazing. The other two were not as stellar, but still pretty good. 5/5 for the first novella, but 4/5 overall

9/15: The Address by Fiona Davis (library, 2017) - Good history, predictable story. 3/5 stars

9/15: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) by Brandon Sanderson (library ebook, 2006) - It's fine. Fine. Fantasy at its most mediocre. 3/5 stars

9/18: Devil in Spring (Ravenels #3) by Lisa Kleypas (library ebook, 2017)- Funny dialogue, terrible characters. What are you going to do? 4/5 stars

9/22: Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20) by JR Ward (library ebook, 2022) - The last two books in this series have been incredibly lackluster. I'll probably read the next one because it's about an interesting character, but if it's not any good, I'll probably stop reading. The series has become bloated with too many characters and storylines and it has stopped being about romance and it's more about what's going on in the vampire world overall and that's not really why I'm reading these books. 2.5/5 stars

9/23: Iluminae (The Illuminae Files #1) by Aime Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (library, 2015) - This is yet another time when I say I would have liked this a lot more when I was a teenager. I'm an old-ass person now and I don't have time for teen shenanigans, even though I liked the premise of the novel.  3/5 stars

9/24: Legacy by Nora Roberts (library ebook, 2021) - I read this while recovering from my COVID booster. It was pleasant to read, but follows the same exact formula as The Obsession. 3/5 stars

9/24: Separate Beds by LaVyrle Spencer (library, 2003) - This was set in the Twin Cities and I liked that the characters went to school at the University of Minnesota and I really enjoyed the descriptions of campus. Other than that, I have to say this book was kind of boring, I don't enjoy motherhood as the defining feature of life trope, and the politics were quite conservative. *shrug* Not for me. 2.5/5 stars

9/26: Adulthood Rites (Xenogenesis #2) by Octavia E. Butler (library, 1988) - The big questions continue from Dawn and the brilliant writing remains. 5/5 stars

9/27: Undead and Unwed (Undead #1) by MaryJanice Davidson (library audiobook, 2004) - This "humorous" book about a woman who becomes queen of the vampires by accident does not hold up well. The homophobia and ableist language are jarring in 2022. I like the Twin Cities location and setting, but would not recommend overall. 2/5 stars

Total: 16 books

Average star rating: 3.6/5 (which seems crazy because I had so many five star reads, but I guess they were balanced out by some not great reads)

Sort of read, but not really

9/18: Raft of Stars by Andrew Graff (library, 2021) - This was our book club pick and it was well-written and I am not here to slag on Graff, but there was violence against children by adults and no one in the small town was doing anything, and it just cut too close and I skimmed most of this so I could talk about it at book club. I think I'd probably read more from this author, but the content was not my jam.

Did Not Finish

Shipped by Angie Hockman - Almost right away, I wanted to strangle the main character and then the hero told her she shouldn't let other men call her pet names at work because it was unprofessional, as if she can control other men and then I hated both of them and then I just stopped reading. DNF at 15%.

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki - It's really a good book, but its content was about childhood mental illness and I just couldn't really deal with it at this point in my life. I found myself doing just about anything I could to avoid reading it, so I finally gave myself the grace to just bow out. I think Ozeki is a fascinating writer and the structure was pretty interesting, but it just wasn't the book for me right now.  DNF at page 240 (44%).

Curse of the Mistwraiths (The Wars of Light and Shadow Vol. 1) by Janny Wurts - I am noticing a trend in my DNF books which is that I just stop reading when a book isn't vibing for me. I think this is probably a wonderful book, but after 100 pages of just not knowing what was happening and having new characters introduced every three pages, I just kind of gave up.  I imagine a more patient reader would love this, but I am not that reader. DNF at page 106 (18%).

Some Books

Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane by Suzanne Collins - Yep. It's official. I really like this Overlander series by Collins. I'm desperate for my library to get the third book in the series that I've requested.

The School Story by Andrew Clements - This is the second children's book I've read recently that the protagonist engages in some willfully underhanded/mean/smartassish manner (The Great Brain is the other) and, at the end of the story, gets praised for their behavior. I do not like this. As a matter of fact, I despise it. If, as I presume, we want to teach our children something when we read to them or they read for themselves, perhaps we should not be teaching them to be little mini douchebags? I was not a fan and do not recommend this book at all.

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli - In this book, a new girl, a girl with odd ideas and strange mannerisms and quirky behaviors, comes to a school. This is the story of her rise and fall. It is beautiful. The ending is unsatisfying in a good way. It is unsatisfying because of course you want to know the real ending, but you never will, just like the narrator never will, and you will always wonder. Or you will write your ending, always think whatever you wanted to happen happened. I'm still haunted by the ending of this book. Love it.

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson - This was just brilliant. I loved it, couldn't put it down, and then would recap what I read to my husband. Clearly my recaps did not do the book justice because BB kept staring at me, wondering what all the fuss was about. (At one point he asked if it was a book about non-zombie zombies and I could not tell him he was wrong.) On the surface, this is a book about three people living in a world different from our own, a world in which magic has abandoned the people, and now the world must continue on. But that's a superficial read, a read I'm perfectly fine with most of the time. But, in reality, it's a story of politics, religion, and tolerance. And it was wonderfully executed.

What I Read: August 2026

Listen, the reading was happening this month and it was good, but not great.

August 1: Dungeon Crawler Carl (DCC #1) by Matt Dinniman (audiobook narrated by Jeff Hays, 2020) - I relistened to this one because the local bookstore does DCC events regularly and I felt like I had forgotten half of the book. Still 4/5 stars for me. 

August 7: Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson (library ebook, 2023) - Book club pick for the month. Meh. 3/5 stars

August 8: Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register by Ann Larson (book I own, 2026)  - Should be required reading, especially for anyone who has avoided working retail jobs. 4/5 stars

August 13: The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden (library audiobook narrated by Michael Crouch, January LaVoy, author note read by the author, 2024) - Super interesting, although what I really wanted was a book about the Halifax explosion rather than WWI. 4/5 stars

August 15: Homebound by Portia Elan (library, 2026) - Strong start, but the ending left me wanting something more. 3/5 stars

August 16: Carl's Doomsday Scenario (Dungeon Crawler Carl #2) by Matt Dinniman (owned ebook, 2021) - Carl, Donut, and Mongo continue their marauding ways through the dungeon. It's fun. This floor had a circus theme if that entices anyone to read it. 4/5 stars

August 18: Strange Pictures by Uketsu (library, 2022, translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion) - Multi-part mystery you might be able to solve by looking carefully at the pictures! Very clever and fun. Here's a quote that might strike some of you as hysterical.

He felt...nostalgic, rather than nervous. Once, there had been so many blogs like this.

Ah, blogs. The concept now almost seemed quaint. (page 14)

We're all quaint! 4/5 stars

August 24: A Resistance of Witches by Morgan Ryan (library ebook, 2025) - What a delightful debut! 4/5 stars

August 30: Birding with Benefits by Sarah T. Dubb (library, 2024) - Fine. Just fine. 3/5 stars

August 31: Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman (library audiobook narrated by Steve West, 2012) - I don't know, friends. Genre mashup that I don't think I'm smart enough for. 2.5/5 stars

Total:10 books

Average star rating: 3.55/5 stars

********************

Did you read a 5/5 in August? What was it? I need something REALLY GOOD. (For all you recommending Whistler, I have to admit I'm 10% in to the audiobook and considering DNFing it. Does it get better? It has to get better, right?)

2019 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge

Here are the results from my 2019 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge. I like to do these reading challenges because if left to my own devices, I'd read trashy romances over and over again, so this really broadens the scope of my reading and I come across some new favorites (as well as some duds) along the way. This year I was able to reread a few old favorites, too. Here's my 2018 list, if you're interested.

Challenge List
1. A book becoming a movie in 2019: The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn (library) - This was certainly a page turner, but I dislike books told from the POV of addicts and I knew all the "twists" ahead of time. It's just not my type of novel. Also, there are some issues with the author, so all in all, not one I would necessarily recommend.

2. A book that makes you nostalgic: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (book on my bookshelf!) - I've read is so many time and it still makes me chuckle. I wish I didn't have to think about what Rowling is like in real life, though.

3. A book written by a musician (fiction or nonfiction): The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan (library) - Apparently Tan is a member of the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rock group that consists of writers. 

4. A book you think should be turned into a movie: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (library) - This was the book for our June book club. I thought it was a fun read and since the main characters are movie stars, I think the whole glitz and glamour and pretty gowns could really be played up on the big screen. The costuming would be amazing.

5. A book with at least one million ratings on Goodreads: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (library) - This is a terrible book that helped illuminate a lot about what is wrong with the world today. The tag on the front cover says "a fable about following your dream," but it should say "a story about how you should take advantage of everyone and everything in pursuit of your own selfishness and how to tell yourself you deserve all the good things."  This book made me SO ANGRY.

6. A book with a plant in the title or on the cover: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (library)

7. A reread of a  favorite book: Rock with Me by Kristen Proby (Kindle Purchase) - I love Proby's With Me in Seattle series and this is probably my favorite of the series.  If you're looking for a contemporary romance series, this might do it for you.

8. A book about a hobby: I reread Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. It's still excellent. (library)

9. A book you meant to read in 2018: The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis (library)

10. A book with "pop," "sugar," or "challenge" in the title: Pop Princess by Rachel Cohn (library) - Sort of a boring book with very little character development. It was an easy read, but not exactly a good one.

11. A book with an item of clothing or accessory on the cover: Squint by Chad Morris & Shelly Brown (library)

12. A book inspired by mythology, legend, or folklore: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Summer Sword by Rick Riordan (library)

13. A book published posthumously: My Year by Roald Dahl (library) - Beautiful prose about the changes of the seasons over the course of a year. There's a bit of "kids these days," but mostly is just a lovely retrospection on birds and flowers.

14. A book set in space: Abaddon's Gate by James S. A. Corey (library) - The third book in The Expanse series. This series is mind-boggling. It's serious stuff, but the moments of levity are there. Thumbs way up.

15. A book by two female authors: In early January, I read through the entire Max Monroe catalog.  Monroe is actually the duo of  romance authors Laurel Ulen Curtis and N.A. Alcorn.  These books are hilarious and I want more. I recommend you start with the Billionaire Bad Boy series, although I also deeply enjoyed the Mavericks Tackle Love series. Read them all. Laugh at all of them. (Kindle purchases)

16. A book with a title that contains "salty," "sweet," "bitter," or "spicy": Bittersweet by Sarina Bowen (Kindle purchase)

17. A book set in Scandinavia: The Absent One by Jussi Alder-Olsen (library)

18. A book that takes place in a single day: The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon (library)

19. A debut novel: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (library), From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein (library)

20. A book that's published in 2019: Vendetta in Death by JD Robb (Kindle purchase) - I keep reading them and I keep thinking they're snooze-inducing. We actually knew who the killer was from very early on, so it wasn't a mystery exactly. I don't know. Maybe I should give up on the series?  (You know I'll never stop.)

21. A book featured an extinct or imaginary creature: His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Navik  (library)

22. A book recommended by a celebrity you admire: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (library) This was an Oprah book club pick. I don't know if I admire Oprah, but I don't not admire her.

23. A book with "love" in the title: Love, Hate, and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed (library) - Maya Aziz is just a regular American Indian girl from a Muslim family who's trying to get through her life in a small midwestern town.  This book was an easy read, but it was pretty superficial, even for a YA novel. There's so many topics here - Islamaphobia, young love, the responsibilities of being the child of immigrants, religion, generational divides, friendship - but the story really ends up being about romance and while that's fine (the first word of the title is love!), it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for in a novel that had so many big ideas. Read The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon instead.

24. A book featuring an amateur detective: The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (library) - I haven't read a lot of Christie and this book reminded me why. The writing is so stilted and the characters are so oddly stiff. I didn't care when Colonel Prothoroe died and I didn't really care who killed him.  Miss Marple is almost a side character in the whole thing and I just wanted someone to hold on to.  It's probably sacrilege or something, but I'm probably not going to read any more from Christie any time soon.

25. A book about a family: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (library)

26. A book written by an author from Asia, Africa, or South America: When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon (library) - Another coming of age story about children of immigrants. It was okay - better than Love, Hate, and Other Filters, but not nearly as good as The Sun is Also a Star.

27. A book with a zodiac sign or astrology term in the title: Zodiac by Romina Russell (library) - I would describe this as fine. Girl is suddenly promoted to leader of her people while involved in a ill-fated love triangle in which neither guy is really worth her time.  The writing was fine, but I just didn't get invested in any of the characters.

28. A book you see someone reading on TV or in a movie: The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury (library) - Spencer Reid referenced this book in episode 20, season 5, entitled "A Thousand Words" that deals with a serial killer whose body is covered in tattoos.

29. A retelling of a classic: Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige (library)

30. A book with a question in the title: What's Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges (library) - Sad movie, sad book. There are some creepy elements here (he's in his twenties, pursuing a girl who is fifteen) that sort of took me out of the book, but I thought it was beautiful, spare prose with great insight into a young man who feels stuck in his life.

31. A book set on a college or university campus: We Are Okay by Nina LaCour (library) - A good book. It has remarkably little plot and mostly just talks about a young woman's feelings regarding the death of her family members. It was super well written. LaCour's a bit of a genius with words.

32. A book about someone with a superpower: Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson (library)

33. A book told from multiple character POVs: There There by Tommy Orange (library)

34. A book that includes a wedding: The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory (library) - A romance novel that seemed to hit every cliche without doing anything unusual, except maybe occasionally (very occasionally) address difficulties of being in an interracial relationship.

35. A book by an author whose first and last names start with the same letter: Almost Midnight by Rainbow Rowell (library) - Two very short, very fun stories from Rowell. She's a genius at writing easy-to-read, breezy tales.

36. A ghost story: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (Dr. BB's copy) - Jackson is a brilliant writer. I have no idea how she does it. I actually read this in a collection of a bunch of her works, including some short stories and she takes ordinary mundane scenes of daily domestic life and turns them into twisted, haunting tales that evoke creepiness in a sneaky way. She writes sparsely but effectively and Jackson may single-handedly turned me into a short story lover.

37. A book with a two-word title: The Power by Naomi Alderman (library)  - This was our January book club pick. I thought the concept was interesting, but didn't care much for the execution. Many people in my book club loved it though. It spurred lots of complaining about local politics in our discussion.

38. A novel based on a true story: Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (library)

39. A book revolving around a puzzle or game: War Cross by Marie Wu (library)

40. Your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge: The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (book on my bookshelf - given to my by my father-in-law) - The 2018 prompt "A book with a female author who uses a male pseudonym"

Advanced list!!

41. A "cli-fi" (climate fiction) book: Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (library)

42. A "choose-your-own-adventure" book: My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris (library) - This was a really fun idea, but sort of a failed execution. I can't really tell if it's supposed to be a parody of romances, in which case the humor was a bit off, or if it was supposed to actually be a romance, in which case the writing was really, really terrible. I wanted to love it and I hope it jump starts a trend (do you want this bossy alpha guy or the shy beta?!), but in the end I was glad when my character finally settled down and the book ended.

43. An "own voices" book: If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo (library) - A book by a trans woman about a trans woman. I had a fair number of criticisms of the book (the main character wouldn't have been able to afford the surgery, she was conventionally attractive as a woman) that basically came down to the idea that I thought this book was making the life of a trans woman fairly easy (and therefore, not typical), but those concerns were washed away when I read the author's note when the author said she did all that so that it would be appealing to cis folks like me.  Eh. I didn't think it was appealing because it didn't ring true, BUT I'm not the real audience here. If I were a young trans person, I don't know if I'd think it was a comforting or annoying book, but I'm glad there's at least something for those young readers to latch on to.

44. Read a book during the season it is set in: Christmas Light by Jolyse Barnett (free on Kindle) - This book was not good. The main character was all "I hate my life and I'm going to just whine about it instead of taking control and I let what everyone else thinks dictate every major decision I've ever made in my life and I never learn from my mistakes" and the dude was all "she's super annoying, but somehow I'm in love with her." Ugh. They both could have fallen out of the pages into my trash can and I'd have been happy.  There was an adorable golden retriever character named Sophie, though.

45. A LitRPG book: I reread Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (Kindle purchase) - It really is one of my favorites.  Also, none of the other books in this category were easily available to my local library.

46. A book with no chapters, unusual chapter headings, or unconventionally numbered chapters: Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg (library)

47. Two books that share the same title (1): Roomies by Christina Lauren (library) - A woman gets a crush on a man who sings at a train station, but when she is injured at the train station, he runs away. She marries him anyway so that he can perform for her favorite uncle's hit Broadway show.  I found this book to be fun to read if you didn't bother to stop and think about the plot at all. I'm not a fan of love at first sight and this book suffers from the "just stop and have a conversation" and the rest of your issues will go away trope, so it wasn't my favorite, but it wasn't an unpleasant read. I doubt I'll remember it in three months.

48. Two books that share the same title (2): Roomies by Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando (library) - Two girls are put together as roommates for their freshman year at college and this novel shows their communication over the summer before they meet. It was sort of a fun look at that scary transitional period of your life after you graduate high school, but before your "real life" begins. 

49. A book that has inspired a common phrase or idiom (e.g., Big Brother from 1984): Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (library) - This book introduced the word "grok" to the world. I read it in high school and adored it, but I could barely get through it this time around. I am not the audience for Heinlein's sermons, stilted writing, and misogyny anymore, I guess.

50: A book set in an abbey, cloister, monastery, vicarage, or convent:World without End by Ken Follett (library)

Wrap-up!

Books I loved: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Where the Crawdads Sing, Rock with Me, Fangirl, The Sun is Also a Star, His Majesty's Dragon, Homegoing, Ready Player One, World without End

Books I liked: The Kitchen God's Wife, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Abaddon's Gate, Bittersweet, The Absent One, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, An American Marriage, When Dimple Met Rishi, The Illustrated Man, There There, The Haunting of Hill House, Burial Rites, The Silkworm, Roomies by Lauren, Roomies by Zarr and Altebrando

Books I thought were fine: The Fifth Risk, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Summer Sword, My Year, From the Corner of the Oval, Love, Hate, and Other Filters, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, We Are Okay, Steelheart, The Power, Red Mars

Books I thought were terrible: The Woman in the Window, The Alchemist, Vendetta in Death, The Murder at the Vicarage, Dorothy Must Die, War Cross, My Lady's Choosing, If I Was Your Girl, Christmas Lights, Feast Your Eyes, Stranger in a Strange Land

Books I forgot ten minutes after I finished them:  Pop Princess, Squint, Zodiac, The Wedding Date, Almost Midnight