What Did T. Read in 2022?
Best Non-fiction: Sapiens; The Comfort Crisis; Think Like a Monk; The Coddling of the American Mind (4-way tie!!)
Best Psychology: What Happened to You?
Best Adult Fiction: We are the Light
Best Historical Fiction: Mary Jane
Best Middle Grades (MG): Nowhere Boy
Best Young Adult (YA): I Must Betray You; If These Wings Could Fly
Best Book by BIPOC Author: This is My America
1. Cultish: Understanding the Language of Fanaticism – Really enjoyed this book at how fanaticism is born of language. The author examines everything from Heaven’s Gate to Amway, from the Waco standoff to Bikram yoga. What makes us follow the leaders we do? Is there a scientific basis for “brainwashing”? (No. No one can make people believe something they don’t want to believe) And what do members of the political left and right have in common? “It’s not that smart people aren’t capable of believing in cultish things. It’s that smart people are better at defending beliefs they arrive at with non-smart reasons.” 4 stars
2. The Personal Librarian: –It was fine but nothing spectacular. The idea of the racist JP Morgan's librarian actually being a Black woman is very intriguing, but the execution was mediocre. The first 20% of the book dragged interminably, and there was a lot of over-explanation of ideas that should have been "shown" and not "told." The book picked up after that and became interesting, but then the ending was very on-the-nose (one day, Black people will reach back through history and claim me as one of their own and I'll be recognized for who I really am!!) 2.5 stars
4. 96 Miles (MG) This book held zero interest for me, and I predict it will also hold zero interest for my 8th graders. This is a survivalist tale of a pair of brothers who have to walk 96 miles down a deserted highway, searching for water. It felt interminable and was a ripoff of Neal and Jared Shusterman’s superior book, Dry. 1 star
5. Gone to the Woods (MG) Non-fiction memoir of Gary Paulsen’s life. One central character, one timeline, told in 3rd person. The last 20% of it feels like a different book because it goes incredibly fast, through years of Paulsen’s life. While interesting in some places, students who have never read Paulsen will be confused by the ending of “What the hell” as the 80-year-old Paulsen takes out his notebook. 3.5 stars
6. What About Will (MG) Another book by Ellen Hopkins! This one is geared toward kids and focuses on a boy whose brother develops a drug addiction. It was okay but Hopkins’ books for older readers (Crank, Glass, Identity, etc) are far better, in my opinion. 3 stars
7. Compound (YA) A billionaire survivalist builds a vast underground compound to protect his family from the threat of nuclear attack. Then one day while they are out camping, it happens – the communication that a nuke has been launched and is heading straight for the Pacific Northwest. The Yannakakis family races to their underground compound, which is set to self-lock and re-open in 15 years, after the threat of radiation is gone. But after 6 years living underground, Eli discovers an internet signal -- and an IM from his twin brother, long thought to have been a victim of the nuclear fallout. Is all of this a hoax? - You have to suspend a LOT of disbelief here, but kids will like it. 3 stars
8. Peak (MG) This is the first book in a 4-book arc. Peak Marcello is 14 years old and the son of a world-famous mountain climber. After getting in trouble with the New York City police for climbing a skyscraper, Peak is banished to Nepal, where his father is currently leading an expedition up Mt. Everest. Seeing a great business opportunity, Peak’s father intends to help Peak reach the summit, thereby making him the youngest person in the world to reach the “top of the world.” Along the way, Peak meets other mountaineers, Tibetan monks, sherpas, and Nepalese. He also manages to choose his own destiny, deciding for himself who in his life he wants to emulate. 3 stars
9. The Running Dream (MG/YA) Solid story about a 17-year-old track star who loses her leg in a bus accident and has to adapt to a different life than she envisioned. The chapters are short and sweet; I could see 8th graders going for this! 3.5 stars
10. Nowhere Boy (MG) I read in consideration for 8th grade lit circles. The story of 13-year-old Max, whose parents move the family temporarily to Belgium, intersects with the story of 14-year-old Ahmed, a Syrian refugee, who only needs a place to hide. I cannot recommend this book highly enough! “I will do my work until the end.” 5 BIG, SHINY GOLD STARS!
11. The Anthropocene Reviewed I’d known John Green had debilitating OCD sooner, I would have read more of his books. Now, the author of YA favorites Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars takes up his pen to write essays. In #theanthropocenereviewed Green provides deeply personal Yelp reviews on everything from Canadian geese to CNN. 4 stars
12. We Were Never Here - this book did was repetitive (“stop. Stop. STOP!”) and there was too much that just didn’t seem to make sense. 2 stars
13. A Night Divided (MG) A good look at life behind the Berlin Wall and the lengths to which East Germans went in order to escape. 3 stars
14. The Making of Biblical Womanhood - I had such high hopes for this book — after all, it was endorsed by Kristen Kobes DuMez of Jesus & John Wayne! — but the two books could not be more dissimilar :-( While both address Christian patriarchy in modern culture, DuMez is a MUCH, MUCH better writer. I found The Making of Biblical Womanhood dry, repetitive, and boring. I found myself shouting, “OH!! Are you advocating these points ‘as a historian’?!? Because you’ve only told me that 53 times so far and I was starting to forget!”Here’s an example of the writing: “As a medieval historian who specializes in English sermons, the debate over gender-inclusive translations amuses me. It amuses me because the accusers depict gender-inclusive Bible translations as a modern, secular trend fueled by the feminist movement. Yet, as a medieval historian, I know that Christians translated Scripture in gender-inclusive ways long before the feminist movement.” I literally found myself searching for a digital copy of the book just so I could Ctrl+F and type in “historian.” There’s ethos and establishing your credibility and then there’s beating people over the head with it to such an extent that it makes you seem suspect. Also, the attempts at turning this into some kind of personal narrative fell very, very flat. As you sat on the sun-dappled floor of your children’s treehouse, you contemplated the role of women in the church (as a medieval historian, of course)? As you mowed the lawn, you reflected on the pain of attending a complementarian church? As you scrubbed the dishes, you washed away your anger at the church leaders who clearly knew less than you, as a medieval historian? It just didn’t work. Either write an apologetic and argue your point or write a memoir and use a narrative structure. Trying to do both made this book even more stilted than it had to be. Nonetheless, Barr did make some good points on Bible translations and how they’ve been used to entrench patriarchal ideas. I wish there had been more of that because those arguments were convincing. However, many of her other arguments about how women have been subjugated only in recent history? I found those arguments and her accompanying “research” quite weak. 2 stars
15. The Book Thief (YA) Read if a second time! A fellow English teacher once described this as “a book with words so thick you can chew them” and that is an apt description. There area lot of Holocaust books out there, but this is the only one I know that is narrated by Death itself. 4 stars
16. Salt Fat Acid Heat - I loved this book on the fundamentals of cooking. My students make fun of me for eating M&M's for dinner, but this book has me wanting to cook. I listened to the audiobook read by the author, and she sounds like such a delightful person. Interweaving tales of her own kitchen mishaps, Nosrat explains how minor variations in salt, fat, acid, and heat can make or break a meal; how to change the elements of these staples to create meals from various parts of the world; and advice on learning to become a better cook. I loved it so much, I bought the hard copy to keep as a reference in my kitchen as I begin to try out her techniques and recommendations! 5 STARS!!!
17. City of Thieves - During the siege of Leningrad, a Cossack and a Jew are tasked with the impossible: locate and retrieve a dozen eggs in a land that is literally consuming itself in starvation. I did not love this book…the torture and horror scenes were too much for me. 2 stars
18. The Magnolia Palace - This book took me foreverrrrrr to get through. For being about an interesting woman (Helen Clay Frick) who lived during an interesting time (the dawn of the Jazz Age), this book was decidedly uninteresting. 2 stars
19. Mary Jane - For lovers of Daisy Jones & the Six comes this spectacular Bildungsroman by Jessica A. Blau! Set in Gerald Ford’s 1975 America and featuring a colorful cast of characters, this story of choir girl Mary Jane breaking free from her straight-laced Baltimore-suburb parents is sure to delight. The book as a whole is wonderful, although the ending did feel as if the author abandoned all previous character development. 4 stars
20. Dark Night of the Soul (St. John of the Cross) read a quarter of this book before giving up. And this is something I’d wanted to read for YEARS! I don’t know if San Juan de la Cruz was a terrible writer or if he just had a terrible translator, but this book was painful. I’m an English teacher, and I love words but these were tortured. Here’s ONE SINGLE SENTENCE:
“During the time, then, of the aridities of this night of sense (wherein God effects the change of which we have spoken above, drawing forth the soul from the life of sense into that of the spirit — that is, from meditation to contemplation — wherein it no longer has any power to work or to reason with its faculties concerning the things of God, as has been said), spiritual persons suffer great trials, by reason not so much of the aridities which they suffer, as of the fear which they have of being lost on the road, thinking that all spiritual blessing is over for them and that God has abandoned them since they find no help or pleasure in good things.” Are you kidding me, Juan? Was there really no better way of saying this?! I’m done with medieval mystics for awhile. 1 star
21. What Happened to You? - Trauma + Psychology + Oprah = a 4.5 star rating on GoodReads from 20,000+ reviews! This is a PHENOMENAL book on the effects of trauma and the importance of meaningful connections in reaching dysregulated humans. By changing the conversation from “What is wrong with you?” to “what happened to you?” we start to uncover the reasons why people act the way they do. Highly recommend for anyone who works with kids or just wants to understand how the mind and body interact. 5 STARS!!!
22. Honor - A story of loving, leaving, and reckoning with India 🇮🇳4 stars
23. A Kind of Spark (MG) An OwnVoice book by an author who is herself neurodiverse. The main character is autistic and determined to raise money to honor the “witches” burned in her Scottish village centuries ago. Like her, these women were targeted for being different. I didn’t like this book because I found the teacher unrealistic. Yes, teachers can be bullies, but this teacher felt completely over the top. 2.5 stars
24. Show Me a Sign (MG) Read and evaluated for 8th grade lit circles. Too young— main character is 12. A pretty lackluster look at the start of American Sign Language (ASL). I also found the central message troubling — when confronted with wrong, it is better to lead by living a good and virtuous life than to speak out against it. This reeks of privilege, especially since racism is the direct issue being referenced! Silence IS violence. I wouldn’t want my students absorbing the message here. But also, I think most of them would find this book boring. 2 stars
25. Verify (MG/YA) In futuristic Chicago, crime has been eradicated and the streets are beautified by art. Merriam's mother was an artist who worked for the government -- as all artists do -- before tragically dying in a freak accident. Meri has always assumed her mother's last paintings were an abstract aberration for her mother. But what if they are really something else entirely? When a stranger gives her a piece of paper -- now all but illegal -- with the unknown word "Verify" on it, Meri types the word into a school computer to learn the definition. When sirens begin wailing and the police show up to comb the premises, it soon becomes apparent that her mother was involved with something far greater and more dangerous than our heroine can imagine. ** I found the first 60% of this book riveting. Then it lost some steam. The number of times this girl gets "jostled," "shoved," or "tripped" are head-scratching -- the author needs a new device to propel the plot forward. Also, the number of times Meri beats someone up with a dictionary! We get it. Words have power. Don't overuse the trope. 3.5 stars
26. Paradise on Fire (MG) Adauga, aka "Addy," is the daughter of Nigerian-American parents who died in an apartment fire while trying to save her. Now living with her grandmother Bibi in the South Bronx, Addy is obsessed with maps. After all, if you know where you are, and you know where all the exits are, you are less likely to ever be trapped. When Bibi enrolls Addy in a Wilderness Adventure Camp in the Pacific Northwest, Addy's anxiety kicks into overdrive: how can she plot an escape from a vast forest?! But when wildfires begin to consume the surrounding area, Addy's maps and attention to detail are all her friends have to count on. Jewell Parker Rhodes wrote this book in response to the California wildfires of 2018. I know her best as the author of adult books, but during the pandemic, this book took shape, inspired by her beliefs that 1) global warming is something we cannot ignore and 2) systemic injustices extend to POC's lack of access to nature and the wild. This book was fine, but I do not forsee my super-conservative district embracing a novel that so overtly addresses climate change.
27. The Last Cuentista (MG) In the near future, Halley’s Comet is on a collision course with Earth. Knowing this, the government builds a ship to transport the best scientists, computer programmers, and botanists onto a “Goldilocks Planet” that can support human life. The travelers wake from their cryogenic sleep 300+ light years later as the ship arrives. But…a nefarious group called The Collective seized control in the intervening time, and Petra Peña awakens to discover a society in which stories (cuentos) are forbidden. Stories, after all, are a way of recalling history and protecting culture. And in this universe, multiculturalism is shunned in favor of samesness. ** It’s an interesting book; very different from other 8th grade lit circle books; a lot of Spanish in this novel. 4 stars
28. Closer to Nowhere (MG) Previewed this book (told in verse) for possible inclusion in 8th grade lit circles. Too young. Ellen Hopkins is a standup writer but this book was just kind of okay. First of all, the main characters are still in elementary school and refer repeatedly to "recess"! The Lexile level is 490L. The book follows Cal and Hannah, cousins who are children of identical twins. When Cal's mother dies, he goes to live with Hannah's family since his own father is in prison. While Cal has PTSD and constantly acts out, Hannah is the most popular girl in their grade. Eventually, the cousins come to understand each other better. 3 stars
29. Legend (YA) In a futuristic United States, June is picked as best-of-the-best for special training by the government. She is on the hunt for the Most Wanted, a boy called Day, who allegedly killed June’s brother. But all is not as it seems in this dystopia. 3 stars
30. The Golden Couple - I love these authors and I totally dug this book about a couple in marriage counseling.
31. The Shape of Thunder (MG) Cora and Quinn have been best friends forever. Then Quinn’s brother committed a hate crime by taking dad’s guns and shooting people of color — including Cora’s sister, Mabel. Now, the erstwhile best friends are determined to use time-travel to stop the school shooting. *** Did not like. Read it for consideration in 8th grade lit circles; this book is far too young for 8th graders. I don’t know any 14-year-olds who would convince themselves they could maybe time travel through an oak tree. 2 stars
32. Dopamine Nation - This is a non-fiction book about how we are literally pleasuring ourselves to death. Pain and pleasure will always seek equilibrium. I listened to the audiobook of this and found the author’s disgust and shock at her own patients really off-putting, despite the thought-provoking observations. 3 stars
33. Light on Life - I did not understand most of this famous yoga book by BKS Iyengar. I don’t think Iyengar is a good writer, but I definitely want to try his better-known book Light on Yoga. 1.5 stars
34. The Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna (MG) I insisted we consider this book for 8th grade lit circles. That was a mistake. I found the plot wandering and was bored by the characters. Since it was about the Mexican Revolution, I thought it would be really interesting, but I had a tough time finishing it. - 1 star
35. Bittersweet - Drawing on traditions in Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and mystical Judaism, Cain wonders at the human capacity to yearn for that “other, beautiful world.” How do we create a life full of meaning? How do we move forward from loss, without every really moving on? Paraphrase of my favorite point: What are you separated from? What or whom have you lost? Maybe these patterns shaped your psyche and you’re destined to relive them again and again. Maybe you’ll do a lot of work to heal, but these will always be your default mode, waiting to take over if you let down your guard. Or maybe the love you lost or the love you wished for and never had: That love exists eternally. It shifts its shape, but it’s always there. The task is to recognize it in its new form. 3 stars
36. The Love of My Life - Nothing super memorable except for the description in the middle of a subjective medical experience. That was fascinating. Everything else was forgettable. 2.5 stars
37. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - This book should be required reading for all Sapiens! Harari takes us all the way from the Cognitive Revolution — when homo sapiens developed myths, legends, and ideas that they collectively agreed to live by — through the Agricultural Revolution and up through the Scientific Revolution.
There is so much here that I won’t try to encapsulate it all because I’d never be able to do it justice. This book is over 500 pages. You might be better served with the audiobook, although I found I myself frustrated that I couldn’t highlight and fold down the pages of that version! One part I particularly liked was the explanation of biochemistry and happiness in chapter 19 – basically that all people have a baseline happiness setpoint that they cannot rise above. That may seem crazy depressing and damning to some people, but I actually found it quite comforting. I suppose I’ve always felt rather guilty for not being more “fun” and “cheerful” and “positive!!!!” like so many people insist is imperative for interacting with others, forming better relationships, and maintaining a healthy balance with work. But maybe I’m just not quite built that way, and it’s nothing to do with moral failing to *think positive*!The ending was kind of bizarre because it ventured into the realm of “what might come next?” but it was still a truly great read! How many books genuinely combine physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology, sociology, history, and psychology?! Not many, my friends. Not many. This one does :-) 5 STARS!!
38. Breathless - Murder in the mountains ⛰ Didn’t really understand the climax; it was confusing. The heroine was not particularly likable. But on the whole, it was an engaging read and kept me interested. 3.5 stars
39. Verity - It was okay. It kept me engaged but I still don’t understand the 4.5-star rating or the 12-week library wait time (I snagged a skip-the-line copy). I found the foreshadowing heavy-handed: suspense readers aren’t stupid- if you say something once, we’ll pick up on the clue; we don’t need you to say it four times! I also felt some of the pieces did not have an adequate resolution or explanation; why were they even in there? Ultimately, this book was fine, but I enjoyed Rock, Paper, Scissors by Alice Feeney better. Also, The Push by Audrey Audrain. And Goodnight Beautiful by Aimee Molloy -3 stars
40. Why We Sleep - I quit this book 9 months ago. It’s rated so highly that I tried it again, and almost quit it 3 more times. This is verrrrrrry dry at most points. Nonetheless, it does have some really good information if you can wade through the rest. For example: sleeping only 6ish hours per night is associated with vastly increased cases of cancer, dementia, heart attacks, etc. We NEED to sleep, yet many people simply refuse to give their bodies the 8 hours of time-in-bed that we need. I also learned that going without sleep for 22ish hours makes one 6 times more likely to get in a car crash, the same as being legally drunk. BUT if you are both drunk AND sleep-deprived (which many late-partying people are), you are 30 times more likely to get in a wreck. Another thing I learned is that taking a hot bath or shower before bed can help you sleep because when the water evaporates off your skin, it cools your overall body temperature which triggers sleep. Additionally, I learned that it’s not TIME that brings clarity, but rather time spent dreaming. When we sleep, our memory sets to work to make sense of all we’ve learned. So you really should “sleep on it” when facing a difficult problem. Finally, I learned that there is not a single sleeping pill on the market that actually improves sleep: they may help make you unconscious but they are really detrimental in terms of actually increasing REM and NREM sleep — both of which people need in order to survive. I had no idea that Americans are literally killings themselves via a lack of adequate sleep, and recommend this audiobook (or at least sections of it) to anyone curious about shut-eye. 3 stars
41. The Yamas & Niyamas - loved this book. It was really easy to read and understand. The author used some clunky metaphors and examples (stop calling them jewels, Deborah! And no one wants to know about a friend’s child who “held his stools”), but other than that, it’s a great book that makes yogic philosophy very accessible. 4 stars
42. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions & Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure - This is about how we have shifted from being a society that encourages the civil discourse of opposing ideologies to a society that values "emotional safety" above everything else. The authors coin the term "safetyism" to denote the thinking that IDEAS themselves can be harmful, damaging, and violent. Rather than teaching our students how to listen to and rebut ideas, we have taught them to expect "trigger warnings" and anticipate victimhood. I think everyone in education (and outside of education) should read this! FIVE STARS!!!
43. House Arrest (MG) A book in verse. Timothy is put under house arrest after stealing a wallet to pay for his brother’s life-saving medication. Writing in his court-ordered journal, he recounts his father’s abandonment, mother’s exhaustion, and the weekly appointments with his therapist and probation officer. Nothing surprising here but it was fine. 3 stars
44. Under the Tuscan Sun - Hello, my name is Rich Author. I know, I know. You are thinking, “We know you’re rich, you are a professor with summers off who bought a second home in a foreign country!” But let me assure you, many professors are actually on food stamps and lack the basic protections of unionized public school teachers (https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/...). Not me, though! I’m well off enough to own a home in one of the most expensive cities in AMERICA and then buy a second home in Italy. But that’s not all… I also want to detail for you how many dozens of rose bushes I bought and olive tree saplings I bought and did I mention that on one trip I also purchased NINE pairs of expensive Italian leather shoes to bring back to America with me? I did! And at the very end of my book, please note that my husband and I bought a SECOND Tuscan property and an additional orchard because sometimes rich people run out of ideas for what to do with their money. But don’t worry, everyone here LOVES me because I made them famous by writing a book wherein I use the word “Etruscan” 52,000 times. And to add further insult to injury, I have an innate inability to separate helping and main verbs (It always has been nice here. We never have traveled there before…) which is maddening to read, but I don’t care!! Fortunately, even though I also overruse the puzzling word “necklaces,” and even though my paragraphs literally DO NOT MAKE ANY SENSE because they are random sentences strung together (like necklaces!!!!!!), my book still deserves some stars because even I cannot ruin the Italian countryside. 2.5 stars
45. Other Words for Home (MG) This quick read told in the voice of a Syrian immigrant shows students what it’s like to be an Arab in America. I don’t think we can recommend this for lit circles because 1) the protagonist explains that getting her period is the reason she starts wearing a hijab (I don’t want ignorant people now questioning the ESOL students in our school and 2) kids HATE whenwhen literature ends en media res! However, as an adult, I got the symbolism and the conclusion and I loved the book! 4 stars
46. Lies My Teacher Told Me - this book is too good NOT to mention. If you're curious about what is taught in public schools and why, you may find this interesting. What I appreciate about this book is that the author took 12 of the most commonly used history textbooks and he uses those as his baseline. (The 2007 version updates with 6 additional textbooks, but I started with the older version and then switched to a newer printing). Then he makes a claim: “Only 5 of the 12 textbooks list racism, racial prejudice, or any term beginning with race in their indexes” (p 137) and he’ll cite it. That’s an objective statement that there really isn’t room to argue with. From there, he can make a claim like, how the hell do we explain to students what’s wrong with America today when their 800-page AMERICAN textbook doesn’t index race?! (Me paraphrasing). He also doesn’t just list a bunch of carte blanche generalizations… he takes a few very key topics — Christopher Columbus, Reconstruction, etc — and focuses on those. Here is my one qualm with this book: I started reading the older (1995) edition, as mentioned. Then I bought a copy of the 2018 edition thinking that it was going to be massively updated, even from the middle (2007) edition. Unfortunately, the author announced right in the Preface that he had no intention of replicating the amount of research he had done for the earlier edition. He writes, "So this new paperback is not a third edition. The only new words in it are in this preface." Well, damn. You've got no new substance in the past 11 years? With all that's happened in the world? Why should I give you all these additional dollars, then? But other than that, it was great. Highly recommend! 4 stars
47. I Must Betray You (YA) An incredible look at communist Romania an under totalitarian dictator. I had no idea about “the man who out-Stalined Stalin.” Through the eyes of 17-year-old Cristian Florescu readers experience the indomitable spirit of the Romanian people fighting for their freedom. 5 STARS!!!
48. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - I think this is a few thousand years old. It was really hard to understand, even translated from Sanskrit.
49. The Comfort Crisis - Michael Easter travels to the Arctic Circle to hunt caribou and reflects back on his research about humans and comfort. During a trip to Bhutan, he met with a llama or monk (can't remember specifically) to ask about the Bhutanese way of living and dying. The holy man noted that Westerners are obsessed with happiness and comfort, and we approach life like a checklist: here are all the things I have to do, see, and attain while on this planet. We spend next to no time contemplating death -- or other uncomfortable things -- because we are scared of them. As a result, we are unhappy. In contrast, Bhutan ranks only 161st for national GDP but it's people are consistently ranked amongst the happiest on earth. Why? The guru explains, "In the West, you measure personal comfort by income, so your government chases a high GDP. Our government recognizes that wealth and income are not the same thing, so they set out with the end goal not of increasing our nation's wealth, but rather its happiness." He goes on to explain that by recognizing the reality of Death, the Bhutanese can live a fuller and happier life. To paraphrase, "It's like there's a 500 foot cliff in front of us and we're all walking toward it. Westerners refuse to acknowledge the cliff. But if you acknowledge that the cliff is coming for everyone, you can make different choices: you can choose to slow down; or you can take a more scenic route; you can stop to really enjoy the journey." There was just so much great stuff in here to think about! 5 STARS!!!!
50. Antigone Rising - This book is definitely not for everyone, but if you’re an academic or a feminist, you will love it! 4 stars
51. The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle - gave it 150+ pages. If you love WWII books, you may adore this but I couldn’t stay interested. 1 star
52. Romeo & Juliet - Not looking forward to teaching this. What a dumb story. A 13-year-old and a 17-year-old fall in love for like 4 days. Many people die. The end. 2 stars
53. First Born - WOOOOOWWW what a ride! Katie and Molly Raven are identical twins. When Katie turns up dead in her NYC apartment, Molly flies in from London, determined to discover the truth of what happened. But nothing is as clear as it seems in this mystery thriller. 4 stars
54. Of Mice & Men - Love this Steinbeck class about 2 migrant workers in search of the American Dream. It’s short and sweet and even teenage boys love it. 5 stars
55. The Fault in Our Stars (YA) It’s good for what it is, Young Adult lit. The angst and melodrama are heavy — two teens dying of cancer fall in love!! — but you can’t deny that John Green is an exceptional writer. There’s plenty here that can be used in a literature study, which is what I’ll be using it for. 3.5 stars
56. The 1619 Project - Ahhhhh the book that launched a thousand election campaigns on Critical Race Theory! This was not a bad book — but it was an extremely long and involved book. Essentially, this is a history textbook told with a racial lens. I read it (well, I listened to it) in order to understand the firestorm that ignited over Critical Race Theory. This book does a great job of providing an alternative perspective on American history. I wouldn’t use it instead of a traditional history book, but definitely in conjunction with one! I particularly appreciated the point the author(s) makes about how we have this false idea of uninterrupted American progress when it comes to race; this is CLEARLY not the case! I believe if you are going to voice an opinion on something – such as CRT – you have an obligation to go straight to the sources and investigate for yourself, rather than depending on political talking heads. It’s not a quick or easy read, but it’s necessary. 3 stars
57. To Kill a Mockingbird - Read for a second or third time. It’s still good, but I’d rather teach Of Mice & Men to cover the same themes. I mostly like this book for the autobiographical details about Harper Lee and Truman Capote. 4 stars
58. Night - Always so hard to read, but such an important book that I literally typed out the last third of the book when I couldn’t get it to print properly. Even the 16-year-old boys in my class liked this book, Wiesel’s account of his experiences in concentration camps at the end of WWII. 5 stars
59. A Raisin in the Sun - The story of a Black family in the 1950s, this play is a classic. It’s really thought-provoking in its recounting of issues like red-lining, internalized racism, and prejudice. The kids didn’t love it. 4 stars
60. 12 Rules for Life - Really good rules for life. Very heavy on the Christian perspective, though. 4 stars
61. The Pact - The story of 3 Black men who grow up in the Newark projects during the crack epidemic of the 80s will appeal to students. These guys saw each other all the way through high school, college, AND medical school by their commitment to each other and their dream. This is not great writing but a good story! 3.5 stars
62. Clap When You Land (YA) -Camino and Yahaira are sisters who have never met — who don’t even know about each other until their father’s death exposes the depths of his double life. Dual narrative, interesting story. 4 stars
63. How it All Blew Up (YA) - Amir Azadi is being held at the airport because he and his Iranian parents were "causing a disturbance" on an international flight from Rome. It's all a misunderstanding, Amir wants to say. We aren't terrorists, I'm just not the perfect Muslim son. 4 stars
64. Grown (YA) - a Gateway nominee, this book will hold interest for teens. Inspired by the R. Kelly rape accusations and convictions, it is, however, very hard to read. 3 stars
65. Punching the Air (YA) After spending years working with men from the prison-industrial complex, I thought I was ready to read this book. No. This book about an artistic boy who finds himself in prison is a TOUGH read. A novel in verse by the INCREDIBLE Ibi Zoboi is a book for all teens to read. 4 stars
66. Girl on the Run (YA) Katelyn sets up a dating profile page for her mother, she has no idea the danger she's put them both in. Within seconds, facial recognition software has recognized her mother's photo, catapulting both their lives into a terrifying chase. Who IS Katelyn's mother, if not the person she's always known? (An overwrought story about a girl whose mother has been lying to her for her entire life.) 2 stars
67. With the Fire on High (YA) This book is like Como Agua Para Chocolate by Laura Esquival — but modern and for teens and by Acevedo! Emoni has a gift: her cooking instantly transports people. But growing up as a single Black Puerto Rican mother in Philly, her choices feel limited…4 stars
68. Golden Arm (YA) Laz could be a baseball legend if he weren’t poor as dirt and playing for one of the worst teams in the state. When news reaches his family that their trailer park is being torn down, things look bleaker than ever. With his brother getting mixed up in drugs and his future on the line, it is uncertain if Laz’s “golden arm” will be enough to save them. Then a wealthy family invited Laz to move into their basement so he can play ball for one of the best teams in the state, and suddenly his life is turned around. Or so it seems…4 stars
69. Internment (YA) This book was a Gateway, which is puzzling to me. I’m liberal, but this book is for real leftist propaganda :-( I can see a lot of parents being pissed I lent this book to their kids. The author takes an incredibly important topic and beats readers over the head with it. The themes are not so much explored as eviscerated. The premise is this: a xenophobic, racist man is elected to the White House and immediately enacts a Muslim ban. When American Muslims are rounded up and sent to internment camps, one girl and her friend rebel and stand up to tyranny. This was an interesting premise, but really, really on-the-nose. 2.5 stars
70. Black Cake - Really struggled to get through this book. Appreciate the insight into Caribbean culture. 2 stars
71. What I Carry (YA) LOVED this book that author Jennifer Longo wrote at the insistence of her adopted daughter, about a rootless girl growing up in foster care in America. Muir (named after conservationist John Muir) is about to age out of the foster care system. She's managed to survive 17 years by attaching to no one and nothing, depending only on herself -- and her caseworker Joelle -- for survival. With one year to go, Joelle convinces Muir to stay on a tiny island in the Pacific Northwest, where Muir promises herself she will not fall in love with any of the inhabitants. I loved everything about this book, and it treats fostering and adopting with the gravitas and perspective they deserve. 4 stars
72. Monday’s Not Coming (YA) - Read twice! This is one of the most disturbing YA books I have ever read. Monday’s disappearance, Claudia’s frantic searching, and the adults’ laissez faire attitude kept me reading, however. I think students will struggle with the timeline shifts (I know I did) but I will still recommend it. 4 stars
73. Daisy Darker - Nothing will beat Rock Paper Scissors, but this updated take on Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” is pretty good. The matriarch of the Darker family has always known she will die at the age of 80. She invites the entire Darker clan to celebrate her final birthday on Halloween at her home atop a tiny island. And then she drops dead, as one by one, they follow suit. 3 stars
74. The Happiness Hypothesis - There are three good ways to change the way you cope with adversity: cognitive behavioral therapy, meditation, and Prozac (or similar drugs). All three will help you bring the parts of your mind to a place where they can work together instead of against each other. The stories we tell ourselves when adversity strikes are also really important, and you should spend at least 15 minutes a day for several days after a traumatic event journaling in order to make meaning out of it. Write (or voice-to-text) whatever you want but try to answer these two questions by the end:
Why did this happen? What good night I derive from it? 3 stars
75. If These Wings Could Fly (YA) - A murder of crows descends upon Auburn, Pennsylvania, and magical realism follows them. Leighton Barnes lives in a house that heals itself after every episode of her father’s violence. The whole town is complicit in ignoring the evils it holds while blaming the crows. “Maybe fear is the toll women pay to exist in this world at all.” 5 stars!
76. This is My America (YA) - DAMN.🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥Tracy Beaumont has written over 350 letters to the founder of Innocence X, a firm that is clearly a fictionalized version of Bryan Stevenson’s (Just Mercy) Equal Justice Initiative. The reason? Tracy’s dad has been sitting on death row for seven years, and his time is about to run out. Then, just when things start to look up, her brother Jamal is accused of killing his white girlfriend. It’s hard to hold on to hope when there are so many in her town who want to see her family fall. This book calls out complicity. It will make some people mad. But maybe being mad is ok, if you also open your mind a little…4 stars
77. Be Not Far From Me (YA) When Ashley catches her boyfriend hooking up with his ex-girlfriend on their group camping trip, she punches him in the face and drunkenly takes off running into the woods. As the most outdoorsy of their friend group, Ashley expects to make it back to civilization quite easily; and everyone else assumes that’s exactly what she did when they can’t find her the next morning. Instead, she faces injury, disorientation, and severe malnourishment as she tries to survive the same woods that killed her friend years ago. 3.5 stars; survivalist fiction feels exhausting
78. When We Were Bright and Beautiful - I really don’t know how to rate or review this novel. Billy Quinn, a handsome but shy Princeton scholar is accused of raping his erstwhile girlfriend when she was unconscious. His rich and powerful New York family gathers around to buoy him up as the press descends on the Quinn family. But as the trial turns out to be about something else entirely, the narrative falls apart. Things don’t make sense and aren’t fully explained. Still, it kept me reading. 3.5 stars
79. Opium & Absinthe - A great Gothic Romance! It lacked the unreliable narrator I expected (since she was always dosed with opium or morphine), but it still surprised me! When Tillie Pembroke’s sister turns up dead with two holes in her neck, everyone suspects vampires. After all, Bram Stoker’s Dracula has just been published. Tillie is determined to discover her sister’s killer…that is, if she can break the drug addiction that is sweeping New York’s elite young women… 4 stars
80. Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow - Meh. Had some great observations about human beliefs but became bogged down. Hard to follow and stay focused on. I enjoyed the author’s book Sapiens much more. 2 stars
81. If We Were Villains - I hate teaching Shakespeare. But I was attracted by the skull on this cover with Halloween coming up. It was fine, but nothing great. If you don’t like Shakespeare, you will definitely be frustrated by the pages of Middle Ages script. It’s a Romeo & Juliet tragedy, with also plot elements of Twelfth Night, The Tempest, and Hamlet, in addition to the obvious allusions. 3 stars
82. Dracula - This was really good! Can’t believe I waited so long to read the story of a band of brothers (and one woman) trying to defeat the undead! 🧟 It would make an excellent study for a feminist critique, also. I don’t think it needed 488 pages to tell (some of the back and forth got quite long) but it was great overall :-) 4 stars
83. Other Birds -An interesting, magical book in time for Halloween! Saw the twist from a mile away, but anything set on an island in South Carolina is a win for me :-) 3.5 stars
84. Karma: A Yogi’s Guide to Crafting Your Destiny -This is a really hard book for me to rate.I underlined something on almost every page, but I still feel like I only “got” maybe 10% of the book? On some of the pages I wrote, “this guy is nuts” and on some of the pages I wrote, “WOW THIS IS AMAZING.” I still don’t really understand what karma is, but I have a better understanding of what it’s not. Maybe more intelligent or more intuitive people will understand more? I honestly don’t know… 3 stars
85. The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over - It was fine but definitely dated… the very idea that a man would write a book including terms like “The bitch flip” to describe how a woman tosses her hair is 😱😱😱😱2.5 stars
86. Hester - An interesting and thought-provoking novel about who or what might have inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write The Scarlet Letter. Because what really is a witch anyway?
87. Think Like a Monk - An amazing look at meditation, breath work, service to others, visualization, and chanting to help bring the monkey mind under control! I loved this book, but I don’t know if that’s the yoga student in me? 5 stars!!!!
88. We Are the Light - There are no words for this book, but I’ll try: From the author of Every Exquisite Thing and Silver Linings Playbook comes this amazing story of a town trying to heal in the wake of a mass shooting. There is no other author in the world who understands mental health setbacks like Matthew Quick. That’s probably because he himself battles the demons, too. Read this novel 🔥🔥🔥4 stars
89. Dark Matter - Started out really strong, exploring the possibility of the multiverse and infinite iterations of the self … got bogged down and left some loose ends though. 3 stars
90. The Main - It was okay. I like an unreliable narrator in most instances and a neurodivergent one is especially a pleasure. But the names of the characters -- Detective Stark, Mr. Black, Mr. Rosso (Red), Mr. Snow, Molly Grey -- were over the top. In addition, the denouement was overly long and drawn out. 3 stars
91. Somebody’s Daughter - There were some beautiful lines, but this is a memoir about a woman’s fraught relationships with her parents has been told so many times before. It just didn’t really resonate. 2.5 stars
92. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - What a book to end the year with! Sam “Mazer” and Sadie Green meet in a hospital when they are young. Sadie helps Sam recover his voice and work through his trauma, and Sam helps Sadie discover her gift for gaming. Over the next 25 years, Sam and Sadie become something beyond lovers: they become gaming partners. It’s a good book :) 4 stars
93. Crying in H-Mart - This is a memoir of a Korean American’s experience losing her mother and trying to keep a piece of her through her cooking. The food descriptions are amazing, but the pacing seemed a bit off. 3.5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment