This will be a happier post than my last. Reading continues to bring me joy. When all else fails, a good book brightens my day! Here’s the list of what I read last year:
- The Dollhouse Murders by Betty Ren Wright
- Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline
- One Time by Sharon Creech
- Just Like That by Gary D. Schmidt
- Clues to the Universe by Christina Li
- When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller
- The Library of Lost Things by Laura Taylor Namey
- 365 Days to Alaska by Cathy Carr
- A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey
- Small Persons With Wings by Ellen Booraem
- Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum
- All Thirteen by Christina Soontornvat
- Breathing Underwater by Sarah Allen
- Your Heart My Sky by Margarita Engle
- Across the Pond by Joy McCullough
- Alone by Megan E. Freeman
- Prepped by Bethany Mangle
- Unsettled by Reem Faruqi
- Pawcasso by Remy Lai
- The Adventure is Now by Jess Redman
- Dress Coded by Carrie Firestone
- Many Points of Me by Caroline Gertler
- 96 Miles by J. L. Esplin
- How to Become a Planet by Nicole Melleby
- The Magical Imperfect by Chris Baron
- A Lovely Kind of Murder by Tessa Kelly
- Parked by Danielle Svetcov
- The Gilded Girl by Alyssa Colman
- Taking Up Space by Alyson Gerber
- I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912 by Lauren Tarshis
- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
- Frogkisser! by Garth Nix
- Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig
- #famous by Jilly Gagnon
- The Stars of Whistling Ridge by Cindy Baldwin
- All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban
- Of Princes and Promises by Sandhya Menon
- I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day
- Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood by Gary Paulsen
- Never Saw You Coming by Erin Hahn
- Beyond the Mapped Stars by Rosalyn Eves
- Yusuf Azeem is Not a Hero by Saadia Faruqi
- Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan
- Gilded by Marissa Meyer
- The Vanderbeekers Make a Wish by Karina Yan Glaser
- You’ll Be the Death of Me by Karen McManus
What I learned from reading this year: I like a good novel in verse, but I’m definitely picky about the style of verse (I highly prefer the straightforward type and not so much the flowery type); I’ll read and enjoy pretty much anything by Rick Riordan or Karen McManus; a good hook doesn’t mean the execution of the story will be done right (unfortunately); I enjoy a well-done magical realism even though I wouldn’t list that among my favorite genres; and I still love fantasy even though I don’t get to read them very often!
On that note, here are the books on the list I would recommend: All Thirteen by Christina Soontornvat, an excellent non fiction book about the soccer team in Thailand that got trapped in a flooded cave; Alone by Megan E. Freeman and The Magical Imperfect are two amazing novels in verse; and The Gilded Girl by Alyssa Colman is a super cute MG fantasy I really loved!
While I did read a few stinkers last year, I don’t want to point them out and be any more negative than I have to. It doesn’t matter anyway, I still love reading!
Little Joni 