New Year, New Me: January, February & March Wrap-Up

I realize saying “new year, new me” in a post going up in April is more “not really new year, same me with irregular posting times,” but still. Let me have this.

I’m posting twice in one month!! Okay. Well, more like twice in four weeks.

Fine, twice in OVER four weeks. But that’s still frequent for me.

Plus, what I’ve been lacking in regularly posting I’ve been making up for in excessive amounts of reading, so let’s get into it.

We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

Well, we all know that the entire world is on fire.

Luckily, we’re bookworms, and we’ve been training for social distancing our entire lives.

I mean, I for one was already working remotely, already spending an excess of time in my pajamas, and already rarely socializing.

So I’m living the dream.

JUST KIDDING I WANT TO GO OUTSIDE PLEASE LET THIS END SOON THANK YOU.

What I’ve been up to…I had a tweet do really well, or at least way better than mine usually do, and immediately panicked for 6 hours because like 10 people got mad at me for it. (One of them had a very creative style for curse word-based threats. I would have respected it, if it hadn’t scared the bejesus out of me.)

I have also been reading A LOT, and playing a great deal of Animal Crossing. Like, a concerning amount of Animal Crossing. If there were a reference manual titled HOW EMMA IS DOING, PSYCHOLOGICALLY SPEAKING, both of these things would be starred and bolded and highlighted and italicized and bedazzled and generally made eye-catching in order to carry across the warning that these are VERY BAD SIGNS FOR ME, PERSONALLY.

I, like the entire world, am having a very terrible mental health month. In fact I am kind of concerned about myself.

But let’s ignore that and talk about books! Why address problems when you could ignore them and hope they just go away, you know?

The last time I did a wrap up was November 2019, so I am…not going to look back and see if I achieved those goals. Sorry, past me.

Instead: new goals! And probably I will never see if I fulfilled these either.

GOALS FOR APRIL

Read 20+ books

Post approx one review / day on Goodreads

At least kind of blog (this one is stolen verbatim from November)

Keep up with habit tracker

Stay active on Twitter

Reduce owned TBR (as I write this, it’s at 156!!!)

Read ARCs

If I can pat myself on the back…I have it kind of together, comparatively. (With the comparison being me at other times.)

Turns out all I needed was for the entire world to be canceled!

I will continue to read and play Animal Crossing and listen to podcasts and stay inside and wait for the world to turn back on and hope my brain starts working again.

Also eating a lot of sweets. Like, an unfeasible amount of sweets, really. If I’m being real with you.

Time to get into what I read! Also, all of these books have full reviews on Goodreads. I know. I’m as shocked as you are.

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1. The Life and Medieval Times of Kit Sweetly by Jamie Pacton

Read: January 1-2 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2.5 stars

I was kindly sent this ARC by Page Street, famous (to me) for extremely beautiful covers.

I mean, look at that masterpiece. A real stunner.

Unfortunately, the actual contents of this fell flat for me. And for this reason I will weep forever. Or at least feel kinda sad from time to time when I think about it.

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2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Read: January 3-5 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Frankenstein is the story of what happens when you procrastinate.

And also resurrection and monsters are involved in said procrastination. But I digress.

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3. No Flying in the House by Betty Brock

Read: January 6 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3 stars

DOES ANYONE ELSE REMEMBER THIS BOOK.

I read it when I was little, and it is the story of a little girl who is a fairy, and she has a tiny pet talking dog (who is also a fairy), and there is an evil talking gold kitty toy (who is also, ultimately, a fairy).

It was even weirder than I remembered.

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4. 25 Days ’til Christmas by Poppy Alexander

Read: January 7-8 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3 stars

Yes, I read this book about Christmas in January.

And I wish I could say that I bought it in December and just didn’t get to it in time. But that would be a lie.

Also this is like the darkest Christmas book ever, so maybe for the best that I didn’t read it when twas the season.

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5. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

Read: January 10 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4.5 stars

Let it be known that any book with beautiful illustrations and gorgeous handwriting and lovely words and also lots of nice animals is a-okay with me.

Especially if there’s cake involved. More books should involve cake, I think.

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6. Too Much is Not Enough by Andrew Rannells

Read: January 9-10 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3 stars

True fans (just kidding) know that I do not ever even so much as try to read ARCs on time, and if you didn’t know, here I am reading this book 10 months after it came out.

(And mentioning it on my blog three months after that.)

It was a fine book.

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7. Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes (reread)

Read: January 10-11 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2.5 stars

I did not even like this book the first time I read it, and yet I immediately picked it up after I finished binge-watching the second season of the show with my favorite person in order to better recall what they’d changed.

I do not know why I am like this. At least I raised the rating a half star. That’s kind of productive.

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8. Modern Love edited by Daniel Jones

Read: January 12 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

Here is what is better than a made-up story: A real story.

Here is the best kind of real story: A love story.

Here is a book that is made up of real love stories.

I: am a happy camper.

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9. Educated by Tara Westover

Read: January 13-14 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4.5 stars

Speaking of real stories being better than made-up ones!

Also, as I’m writing this, I’m remembering that I dreamed about this book last night.

Yes. Three months after I read it, this book has stayed with me to the extent that I am DREAMING about it. What more of a review do you need?

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10. Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn

Read: January 15 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

I mean, this book is set in New York City and about a mathematician and calligrapher falling in love.

Plus it’s filled with ice cream and friendship and celebrities and long walks and handwriting and fancy stores.

Pretty dreamy if you ask me.

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11. Beach Read by Emily Henry

Read: January 17 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

Have I ever been so blessed in my entire life as I was to receive an ARC of this?

No. And I never will be again.

Unless I get another ARC of an Emily Henry book but that’s beside the point. Like everything she writes, this book is a gift from the heavens.

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12. Going into Town by Roz Chast

Read: January 20-21 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

This book is like going to New York with a really funny and also panicky friend, except minus the inescapable pee smell and twenty miles of walking and plus a lot of lowkey headache-inducing but creative illustrations.

Pretty sweet, overall.

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13. Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes by Kathleen West

Read: January 22 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 1 star

I received an ARC of this book in order to participate in a blog tour, but then I forgot what date I signed up for in the Google form and I never got a follow-up email about it so. Big fail on my end.

Which is probably for the best because I hated this a lot.

What a nightmare.

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14. Dreamland (YA edition) by Sam Quinones

Read: January 24-26 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 1.5 stars

I do not know why there are YA editions of nonfiction books.

I especially do not know why this one ended up in my possession, because I certainly did not request it from the publisher and definitely had 0 interest in reading it.

Apparently YA editions remove all nuance from complex stories. Either that or the original version of this sucks too.

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15. Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Read: January 27-28 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 5 stars

Woohoo!!! The first 5 star rating of the year!!

I have to tell you, literary fiction has really been the MVP of 2020 thus far. (With some notable exceptions.)

Also, I read the large print version of this because it was on Book Outlet and that only added to my experience. 10/10.

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16. The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson

Read: January 29 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3 stars

You ever read a book so disappointing that even thinking too hard about it makes you disappointed again?

Anyway. Here’s this book that I read.

That’s all I have to say about it. (To prove that statement a blatant lie, here’s my full review of it.)

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17. Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant by Roz Chast

Read: January 28-29 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

Remember what I said about Going into Town earlier, up there?

Take all of that stuff and replace the New York things with death and you have this book.

Weird to laugh about death but when you think about it, isn’t that all millennials and Gen Z laugh about anyway? Very on-brand stuff.

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18. Layoverland by Gabby Noone

Read: February 3 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 5 stars

I have given my mother precisely one recommendation this year, and it was for this.

The fact that absolutely everyone isn’t talking about this book absolutely all of the time is a travesty and I will never forgive ANY of you for it!

(I will forgive. But I won’t forget.)

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19. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Read: February 3-6 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4.5 stars

The only thing I should really have to say about this book is that before I even finished it, I decided I would read everything Ann Patchett has ever written.

I bought another book of hers while still reading this one! Fairly rave review, no?

(Ignore the fact that I haven’t read it yet. I’ll get there eventually.)

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20. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Read: February 7-8 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2 stars

I picked up this book at half-price and spent the first quarter of it absolutely convinced that I had read it already, but it wasn’t on my shelves.

Then I realized I had not liked it the first time and decided not to read it.

Past me had the right idea.

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21. Can You Ever Forgive Me? by Lee Israel

Read: February 9 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2 stars

I read this book, so I feel qualified to answer the question its title is asking.

The answer is yes, I can forgive Lee Israel for the lying and the forgery and the deceit and the criminal activity.

What I can’t forgive her for is this book.

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22. Holy Lands by Amanda Sthers

Read: February 10 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3 stars

I easily could have loved this book, or at the very least liked it a lot, except it was under 200 pages and epistolary and therefore made up of approximately as many words as a text message.

So all the reasons that made it the perfect thing for me to pick up in mid-February were the same that made it hard for me to really appreciate it. Such is life, I guess.

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23. Anne of Windy Poplars by LM Montgomery

Read: February 11-12 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2 stars

All aboard the disappointment train! Choo, choo!

Or stay aboard, rather, because we were on board for the last three books. But this stop is the most disappointing of all.

Anne Book 1: 5 stars. Anne Book 2: 5 stars. Anne Book 3: 5 stars. And here we are at book 4. Why must I suffer.

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24. Other-Wordly by Yee-Lum Mak

Read: February 13 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4.5 stars

This is a tiny little book with beautiful illustrations and on each page there are a few relatedly lovely words from languages from around the world.

It is absolutely perfect, in other words.

I would like to live inside it.

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25. Tweet Cute by Emma Lord

Read: February 17 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2.5 stars

If you think it should be illegal for me to dislike a contemporary I anticipated, especially when said contemporary contains a New York setting and grilled cheese and unique dessert recipes and love to hate romance and other things I love, I agree.

Let’s get a petition circulating so I never have to go through this pain again.

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26. My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward by Mark Lukach

Read: February 16-17 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2 stars

I have read a shocking number of memoirs this year. Many of them have been written by women. Many of them have been absolutely fantastic.

A couple of them have been stories clearly co-opted from women in the authors’ lives with a good deal of mansplaining on the side. Un-relatedly, a couple have been by men.

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27. I Might Regret This by Abbi Jacobson

Read: February 18 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2 stars

Broad City rules. This is a fact. It might sound like an opinion, but it isn’t. It’s inarguable.

I have always been Team Abbi just ever so slightly more than Team Ilana (I am much more Abbi than Ilana, and I am obsessed with myself).

Which is why it sucked extra that I did not care for Abbi’s book at all.

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28. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Read: February 17-19 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 5 stars

AND FEBRUARY COMES IN FOR ANOTHER FIVE STAR RATING!!!

February truly killing it.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: also truly killing it.

This book is so, so, so, sososososo good.

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29. Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

Read: February 20-21 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4.5 stars

This is just simply dreamy.

(Also, I can’t stop using the word dreamy.)

I loved reading this. It cheered me right up. And yes, it felt half finding-yourself women’s fiction and half rom-com, and yes I kind of wish it had been one or the other, but overall I want to reread this right now.

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30. Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

Read: February 21 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2 stars

I did not have fun while reading this book, and then EVEN WORSE, I had a panic attack while writing the review! (Largely not the book’s fault.)

Okay fine, it was not at all the book’s fault, but it is still now inarguable that this book has wreaked nought but suffering and havoc on my life.

Upsetting stuff.

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31. The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater (reread)

Read: February 24 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3.5 stars

I need to get back to this reread. Seriously. It’s been two months. Where the hell do I get off?

Although knowing me, it was probably like a calendar year between when I reread The Raven Boys and when I got to this one.

Anyway. This book has Gansey in it, so it’s automatically okay in my book. (Buh dum ch.)

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32. The Night Country by Melissa Albert

Read: February 23-24 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4.5 stars

What a year it’s been for the 4.5 star rating. So many books I don’t really have anything to complain about but am not quite in love with!!

I’ll take it over the usual cornucopia of one stars that is my reading life.

This was a dark twisty bloody fairytale and so of course I loved it. Also this series always makes me think about rice krispie treats because I ate them while reading the first book, and that can only be a positive.

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33. The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White

Read: February 25 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 1.5 stars

This book be BORING. (I used alliteration, for flair.)

That’s really all I have to say about this, unless I were to copy and paste chunks of my review here, so I’ll use the remaining space to talk about something else. Anyone else thinking about the wide variance in chocolate chip cookies as a food right now? Like, it’s almost always the same ingredients. Crazy how different they can be.

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34. Know My Name by Chanel Miller

Read: February 26 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 5 stars

AAAAAND FEBRUARY COMING IN WITH ITS THIRD FIVE STAR RATING! Someone tell February it didn’t need to go this hard!!! It’s stealing the fun from the other months.

(No, seriously. I haven’t rated a book five stars since this one. HELP.)

This book is pure magnificence and that’s all you need to know.

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35. Here Is Real Magic by Nate Staniforth

Read: February 27-28 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3 stars

Emma’s my name, reading ARCs two years after they came out is my game 🙂

Publishers LOVE me!! I’m a real charmer.

Especially when I rate the book meh and give it a meh review and also that meh review is the top one on Goodreads. Real crowd-pleasing stuff.

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36. 1984 by George Orwell

Read: February 27-March 1 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3.5 stars

I don’t want to talk about the happy-go-lucky and politically hopeful mindset I was in when I read this book. I’ll just say shoutout to George Orwell and shoutout to democratic socialism.

Also, this would have worked better as essays, and I’m not sorry about it.

Double also, it took me a weirdly long time to read this.

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37. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Read: March 2-3 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3 stars

I think it should be illegal for me to be disappointed.

I’m fragile and I don’t deserve it.

It should especially be illegal for books to start out in a really promising way, so that I think they’ll be five star reads, and then they do a total 180 and end up meh. Cruel and unusual.

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38. Somewhere Only We Know by Maurene Goo

Read: March 4 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 1 star

I loved – okay, Really Liked – the other book I read by Maurene Goo. So much so that I immediately bought her other books.

That was perhaps not a good decision.

This had almost none of the things I liked about The Way You Make Me Feel, and the ones it did have were somehow also nightmarish. UGH.

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39. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (reread)

Read: March 7-9 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 5 stars

When I am sad and need my soul healed, I read The Little Prince.

Easy, one-step process.

Even better if it’s the 75th anniversary edition and contains lots of Bonus Content in order to extra distract my addled brain and heart!!

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40. Stay Sweet by Siobhan Vivian

Read: March 11 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 1 star

I need to stop reading young adult contemporaries that market themselves as feminist.

It rarely works out for me, and also those books are rarely actually feminist in any way I recognize.

This book looks super-cute but do not be fooled. It is a monster.

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41. Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

Read: March 14 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

I (kind of) read this as a buddy read with the loml, so that was automatically the best part of my reading experience.

The second best part is that this is an incredibly empathetic story with deeply lovable and real characters!!!

But Lily was the first-best part.

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42. Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden

Read: March 12-14 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4.5 stars

When I was typing out the title I first wrote “Long Live the Tribe of T Kira Madden,” which 1) true, and 2) I am off to go join that tribe.

Brb.

Also, remember what I said earlier about how I am passionate about reading ARCs incredibly late? Yeah. That.

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43. Kiss Me in New York by Catherine Rider

Read: March 15 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 1 star

Proud of the not like other girls trope for writing a whole book by itself!!

Also this had more exclamation points than my aunt’s Facebook posts.

A real nightmare all around.

(I copied and pasted this from my Goodreads review.)

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44. Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard (reread)

Read: March 18 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

While my soul was partially healed by The Little Prince and Ask Again, Yes, it was re-destroyed by Kiss Me in New York (bad) and Stay Sweet (bad) and Tribe of Fatherless Girls (very good, but sad). So I picked this up to heal myself once more.

IMAGINE THE CONDITION OF MY SOUL WHEN IT WASN’T AS GOOD AS I REMEMBERED.

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45. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen (reread)

Read: March 10-19 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 5 stars

But not to worry about the condition of my heart. I mean, do, because it is very much still in shambles, but I also got to live a dream.

I was paid to reread Pride & Prejudice!!! For a work project!!! How dreamy is that?

My faith in humanity is restored! (Not really but you know what I mean.)

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46. Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs

Read: March 19-20 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

I love memoirs.

I love people’s stories. I love and admire people who can tell stories of immense suffering with immense grace and empathy and forgiveness.

After Lisa Brennan-Jobs published this, a lot of people (including her family) tried to shut her down. Imagine her strength.

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47. The Wicked King by Holly Black

Read: March 21 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3 stars

Hang on, I’m getting a call…

Yup. It’s confirmed. The fact that I enjoyed reading this book is the single biggest plot twist of the year, and possibly ever, in the history of the world.

Sorry, action movies. You’ll get em next time.

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48. One Year at Ellsmere by Faith Erin Hicks

Read: March 22 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2.5 stars

Here is something I need to get through my head.

I love magical realism.

I love graphic novels.

I do not love the combination of the two.

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49. Inside the Shadow City by Kirsten Miller (reread)

Read: March 22-23 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

Anyone else get a huge outsize impression of what being a teenager would be like due to reading this at 9?

No? Just me?

Anyway, this book made me into a tiny little feminist, and also made me want to commit crime. The perfect middle grade read!

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50. My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Read: March 24 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4.5 stars

Other than my review of Everything is Horrible and Wonderful, this is the most personal review I’ve ever written!

It actually took me days to post it because I had to build up the confidence to do so!

Read it if you want but I am going to move right along!

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51. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour: An Introduction by JD Salinger

Read: March 25-26 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4.5 stars

And here we have the source of my heart-hurting-ness.

Well, not really. But isn’t it easy to blame your problems on inanimate objects? I highly recommend doing so if you haven’t tried it.

It’s really that I would very much like to re-be the me that was reading Franny and Zooey for the first time. For many reasons. And that’s that!

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52. The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black

Read: March 26 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2 stars

Not to worry everyone!

People expressed concern that I was growing “soft,” that I would not be “providing” the “relentless” “stream” of “cynical,” “hateful” “unpopular opinion” “negative” reviews of YA bestsellers, but twas not to be!

We are right back to our regularly scheduled program with this one.

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53. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Read: March 26 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 1 star

God, I wish I were still taking English classes.

I would love to write the essay equivalent of a one star review of this book. I want to tear this book apart using its own words against it.

I WANT JUSTICE FOR THE REAL-LIFE RESIDENTS OF SMALL RURAL TOWNS IN MAINE!

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54. The Shortest Distance Between Love & Hate by Sandy Hall

Read: March 30 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 1 star

Back to back one-star reads are good for the constitution. They make you strong and tough and not at all want to curl up in a ball and read the same 4 books over and over for the rest of your days.

One of the very first comments on my review of this was “Imagine if the publisher saw this.” You know, if you needed a reason to assume this is a very mean review, other than everything about me.

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54. Whisper to Me by Nick Lake

Read: March 31 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2 stars

And finish up a month of zero five star ratings (out of 20 books!) with four low ratings in a row.

What a time to be alive. Especially as me.

This one basically threw everything at the wall to see what stuck. Very little stuck.

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Woohoo!!! 54 books, all wrapped up!

Now it’s time for the moment we’ve all been waiting for…

My average rating for the year so far…

is…

3.27!

That is actually…very good for me.

Well. I have only posted once so far this year.

The upside for that little post is that it’s the top one!

By default.

1. MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE WHOLE YEAR (ONLY 3 MONTHS LATE)

Nice.

Yaaaay! All three months wrapped up! We’re on the right track!

Or better than the usual track.

So, low bar.

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them?

Have you rated anything 5 stars so far this year? If so, what?