Top Ten Tuesday: Books on my Fall 2022 TBR

"Top Ten Tuesday" is a weekly bookish meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!

Look at me, teasing you with a singular post in my promised Summer Wrap Up, and then immediately turning around and compiling a list of the books I'm actually looking forward to reading this Fall. To be fair, I'm going to be very much grappling with the resolving of my feelings for the season past, at a minimum, until October 1st - what did I even do for the last three months, other than hide from the roofers for a week, venture off to Oregon twice, and do my best to get out of every camping trip I could? - so those other two promised posts are still forthcoming. However, "Top Ten Tuesday" waits for no emotionally-beleaguered late-twenty-something, so it's about time to get with the times! 

Before I begin this post, I would also like to state, I almost never actually manage to follow through on my TBRs: for starters, I am a notoriously fickle mood reader - which is something that drives my reads-one-Brandon-Sanderson-book-after-the-other brother absolutely batty - and furthermore, I seem to constantly assess my personal reading levels at a rate that is much more consistent than how I was ten years ago than I am now. 

For instance, take everything I say I'm going to read in November with a significant sprinkle of salt: as much as I'd like to pretend that NaNoWriMo isn't so much a compulsion as a particularly gratifying and personally challenging pastime, I'm not exactly known for the idea that "I can stop any time that I want," either. In fact, I'm more of a "If I write 1,000 more words in the next hour, I can get well on my way for hitting tomorrow's chapter goal, and also maybe make it to bed at 1am" kind of gal. I will always be a high-strung straight-A kid at heart; meeting my daily word count is the only thing that brings the emotional high of nailing school projects in my English classes back into tangible reach again. Unsurprisingly, I read almost nothing during November. 

But enough about all of these back-to-school-themed feelings. Let's take a look at some of these seriously aspirational TBR reads: 

september: sewing up summer mid-finishes

using the remainder of the month to complete the remaining pages 

of some of Summer's halfway-theres

1. The Blacktongue Thief, Christopher Beuhlman

A man is compelled by his debts within the Taker's Guild to follow along with a mysterious fighter on a mission, combating strange enemies far from the land he knows, tangling with magic and beasts he has only heard of in legend. 

I got about halfway into this fun, creative Fantasy during the summer, mostly while stuck on a camping trip. Even though I was absolutely loving what I was reading - the majority of the main cast beyond our protagonist is female, for instance, and there are lots of made-up Fantasy swear words, which I love just as much as regular swearing - and while I fully intended to finish the novel, I just got caught up in other things, and never quite made it to the end. However, my resolve is still firmly in completing this novel before the end of the year.

2. Tempests and Slaughter (The Numair Chronicles #1), Tamora Pierce 

Long ago, the boy who would become mythical Tortallan mage Numair Salmalin was simply Arram Draper, a promising student within the Imperial University of Carthak. There, he befriends Ozorne, powerful burgeoning heir to the throne, and Varice, a social butterfly with more cleverness than meets the eye. 

This was technically my final read of the Summer, if we're playing by Summer Book Bingo rules, but I never actually managed to make it across the finish line of the last page. Again, I'm stuck somewhere around halfway through, where it just felt like things might have been lagging a bit. However, this is another that I am bound and determined to see to its completion, so it's only a matter of time. 

3. The Best Cook in the World: Tales from my Momma's Table, Rick Bragg

From stolen ham hocks to backyard squirrel meat and seriously just so many biscuits, Bragg's heartfelt and enthralling narrative of his family's cooking journey is told through humorous anecdotes about rural living and how a sparse kitchen can still make a feast. 

Despite the fact that this book lived on my coffee table with the rest of my TBR all through Summer, I never actually got around to finishing this cooking-and-family inspired memoir, which is absolutely wild, because Cooking Memoirs are one of my absolute favorite things to read. Again, I had really been loving the whole thing, but got stuck somewhere around the middle, due to various environmental factors and a general lack of reading motivation (I had a massive Slump this Spring, remember?). I know it's good, which is why I'll get back to it eventually... hopefully sooner rather than later. 

october: creepin' it real

embracing the spooky season by getting in tune 

with some atmospheric and bone-chilling reads

 

4. finishing Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice 

The iconic and enthralling adventures of Louis, a recently turned vampire, and Lestat, the mysterious and enrapturing vamp who turned him, told better than any '90s Brad Pitt movie. 

You'll maybe have noticed a bit of a trend with me by now, but you'll never guess where my bookmark is still stuck in this particular paperback. That's right, the middle! I had been really enjoying this particular spooky read this past year, when the clock ran out on the end of October without me having reached the end. I ended up getting subsumed with thoughts of NaNo, and it accidentally dropped out of my hands until I had time again in December... which is no time to be reading about vampires. I've been "saving" it - mentally, at least - until we came around to October again this year! (And just in time, too, as the trailer for the new television series just dropped!) 

5. Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

A heartfelt plea from a newlywed family member sends a young woman to the Mexican countryside, where an imposing old house's even older lineage promises darker mysteries than she had bargained for. 

This has been a much-hyped title since its initial release in June 2020, and quickly thereafter found its way as an impulse purchase onto my Kindle after its price temporarily dipped below two dollars last year. I feel like the fervor has subsided enough that I can actually try my hand at reading it myself, without anyone else's opinion getting mixed up into it. 

6. Before the Devil Breaks You (The Diviners #3), Libba Bray

The Diviners face new enemies and old evils in a battle for not just the soul of New York City, but an America on the brink of change, while exploring the secrets of an asylum that houses more than just patients... 

I think this was the original series that taught my brother the lesson "When Savannah says 'soon,' she doesn't mean 'within three to five business days,' but really, 'eventually, hopefully before the sun burns out." He's been well and truly done with this series since the final installment - King of Crows (#4) - was released two years ago, and has since managed to even finish the Great and Terrible Beauty series beyond that, but I've been taking my sweet time enjoying these spooky installments. Besides, some of this stuff gets heavy, for YA. I'm just enjoying the ride. 

7. If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio

A passel of Shakespearean students find their off-stage dramatics overtaking their on-stage personas, in a play that leads to death. Ten years later, one of them is released from prison, serving time for a murder they may not have committed. 

I was recommended this novel by a fellow Shakespeare nerd back when it was released in 2017, and picked up a hardcover within the year. And then... promptly relegated it to the back of my shelf. I don't know if its the imposingness of its hardcover status or size or genre (I'm not a big fan of thrillers), or if its just its collegiate setting, but something about it has always felt easy to put off 'til the following Fall. Maybe I can break the cycle, and just tackle it this year? 

november: getting cozy with lit

a warm fireplace, hot chocolate, and throw blankets make 

for the ideal environment on a blustery November day

8. The Immortalists, Chloe Benjamin

Four siblings seek out a woman in their neighborhood who is rumored to predict when you will die, and over the next five decades, navigate their ways around fate and family while seeking their own fortunes. 

I picked this book up two years ago after hearing its praise on more than a few of my favorite bookstagram accounts, but still haven't managed to find a good time for it. Maybe it's the theme of family, or the Thanksgiving-welcome shades of brown on the cover, but this might be a really good one to get to this Fall. 

9. The Coward (Quest for Heroes #1), Stephen Aryan

Ten years after his heroic actions saved the land, a young hero is tired of hearing his name proclaimed in song. Even more unwelcome, however, is the new evil threatening the kingdom again, especially when it prompts the calls for him to return to the fray... and because he knows he only got lucky the first time. 

I picked this title up on a Barnes and Noble run with my brother over the Summer, and we were both drawn to the plot immediately for its sideways sort of description for its hero. I called dibs first, though, which means he's relegated to waiting for me to finish - the age-old story - before he can pick it up for himself. Or he'll just check out the audiobook from the library... that's a pretty common occurrence, too. 

10. Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi

A young woman struggles to untangle the mysteries of her gingerbread-loving mother - like her strange country of origin, and her enigmatic best friend - neither of which show any sign of existing any longer. 

I'm a huge fan of Oyeyemi's magical realism, especially books like Boy, Snow, Bird that serve the elements of adaptations from some of those folklore and fairy tale inspirations that still have a grip on our public consciousness. I've had this hardcover on my shelf for a while, which not only makes it a welcome cozy read, but a great way to get another book off of my TBR shelves.

What's in YOUR Top Ten? Let me know, in the comments below!

What I Read this Summer: My Summer Reading Challenges, Part One

Insert requisite "I can't believe Summer's over," blah blah blah. In fact, I can believe that Summer is over. The weather has turned, local schools are back in session, and my soul is plagued by a persistent itch to break out all of the Halloween decor early (Not until the 24th! We have it written down in the family calendar already). 

Besides, despite the fact that there are still plenty of tomatoes hanging out on the vines outside - Washington has had a miserable growing year for tomatoes - the seasons have officially begun to turn, from "Farmer's Market" to "Wildfire and Spiders." It's a more welcome transition than you might think. 

However, more importantly, the onset of September brings to a close yet another year's worth of Summer Reading Challenge Library Book Bingoes, and all of their affiliated distractions. 

The official close of the Seattle Public Library and Seattle Arts and Lectures series Adult Summer Reading Book Bingo was on September 6th, and I can't say that I didn't breathe a sigh of relief. Not because I wanted it to be over, necessarily, but because I actually managed to up last year's miserable performance, and get three individual Bingoes across my card! 

Out of the 25 possible squares, I successfully filled up THIRTEEN squares with the titles of books I read this summer. (There are also an additional five romance novels that I completed that didn't necessarily manage to work into the list, but you've already heard about two of them here.) Due to the nature of this online space supposedly being a Book Blog, and because I've managed very little else by way of updates over the course of this summer, I thought you might like to see what I've been busy reading, and why. 

JUNE

Square: A Book with a Blue Cover

Book: The Nest, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

I started off the Summer with the best of intentions of also tackling one of my other longstanding reading challenges: chipping away at the towering TBR stack lurking over my reading nook. So, when given such a deliberately ambiguous prompt, I selected one of the titles that has been sitting here the longest, purchased in hardcover in the Spring of my senior year of college. 

Unfortunately, I really, really didn't like it. 

The Nest follows a family of upper-class New Yorkians, specifically, a family of four siblings and their various spouses and children. The four were promised shares of a large nest egg, bequeathed by their late, wealthy father, that would become available to them all when the youngest was old enough to spend it responsibly... unfortunately, they never get the chance, as their oldest brother's indiscretions and legal trouble have scrubbed the whole thing clean right before they can legally access it. Now, they're forced to grapple with the various ways they've been banking on that money - to shore up failing businesses, to pay for college, to smooth the wrinkled edges of an expensive lifestyle - while contending with their own fragile family relationships. 

To break the entire cast of characters down to their bare essentials, everyone in The Nest falls into the following criteria: absurdly horny, morally repugnant, worthy of pity, and positively delusional. And yes, there are absolutely people who fit all four categories at once. 

Obviously book characters don't have to be good people. In fact, it's often more fun when they're not! But from a moral / ethical standpoint, these people were all over the place, and it's not fun reading a book where a good 70% of the total cast are making decisions that warrant a response of "What the hell are you thinking?" while shaking the book like you've got a hold on their shoulders. 

And then, even in the other characters, you get shades of xenophobia, racism, sexism, etc. For a book that includes two different major queer relationships, some of the other subtext of the book oriented around it carries this weird, mid-'00s flavors of homophobia. I'm sure these kinds of shading were included to round things out, make the entire world of the novel feel more real, but honestly, the overall impact was just really kind of sideways-preachy, like the author was presenting them in a way that made sure no one would accuse the author herself of being racist or homophobic. It was just what the characters were doing. 

Also, what the hell was that ending?? I won't detail the specifics, given the nature of spoilers and their associated social no-nos, but seriously? Come on. 

It was not an auspicious way to start the Summer's reading. 

Square: First Book by an Author (partnered with another square, "Most Recent Book by Same Author")

Book: Alanna: The First Adventure (Song of the Lioness #1), Tamora Pierce

Okay, don't get on me about this. I'm not a fake fan, I'm just someone whose first Tamora Pierce book was Trickster's Choice, and I've read pretty much every series since out of sequential order. And I've dragged my feet SO LONG over reading the Lioness Quartet. Strictly speaking, I have attempted this book multiple times before - including a format change, on audiobook - and I even had a copy of it that I ended up giving away a couple of years ago, absolutely determined that these books were just the Tamora Pierce novels I wouldn't read. 

However, my younger brother, equally set on me meeting him at his level, was so motivated at changing my mind that he ended up purchasing me a boxed set - one that matches my Daine boxed set - with the insistence that I give it another go. 

Then, he sat beside me as I read, and listened to all my mutterings and exclamations, in real time. Unbeknownst to me, he was also running the Stopwatch app on his phone as we were taking our time, only pausing it once when I got up to use the restroom. At the halfway mark, he boasted about what good time I was making; once I'd finished, he proudly showed me the score: two hours, sixteen minutes, and 42 seconds. 

Alanna: the First Adventure, is the first novel of the first series legendary YA Fantasy author Tamora Pierce first wrote back in 1983. Since then, her multiple series set in the world of Tortall have only served to continue to develop the rich, immersive landscape her many characters occupy. Alanna, a young noblewoman desperate to become a knight, switches places with her brother in order to be allowed to learn... along the way, she makes friends with a Rogue and a future King, squares up against school bullies, and proves her own merit against dark forces. And that's just the first book! 

I mean, not only was it worth it to finally get my brother a quarter of the way off my chest about it, but the book itself was quite good. Despite the decades she's been writing across, Tamora Pierce's voice rings incredibly consistent throughout the years, her stories are populated with compelling characters and incredible feats, and she is equal parts sentimental and light-hearted, which is a great juggling act for an author for teenagers. I love the realm of Tortall, and reading this after getting to know Beka, Kel, Daine and Ali already almost makes it feel like a prequel. I especially love seeing how much Alanna's story in turn shapes Kel's, who will always be one of my favorites. 

And yes, I'm genuinely excited to read the next in the series. Hopefully my little brother will help inspire the same kind of motivation from the other side of the state once he returns to college. 

Square: Debut Author

Book: Trail of Lightning (Sixth World #1), Rebecca Roanhorse 

I actually had attempted to read this book for the first time the previous summer, amidst a period of frustrating mental health and a near-desperate urge to pretend I was anywhere but Earth. Needless to say, a post-apocalyptic world of near-constant violence was not the right sandbox for my fragile mind to shovel knee-deep into, and I DNF'd within the first thirteen pages. 

The second attempt was actually made in the same location (Sunriver, OR), but in a more positive frame of mind: instead of the End-of-August Scaries (which are kind of like the Sunday Scaries, but with the Pavlovian instillation of back-to-school dread that hangs around from childhood far into your adult years), the only thing I was dealing with was still shaking off the ooze of a Springtime slump, and trying to work my way into a Summer Reading mindset. Because I really wanted to get this novel off of my TBR, I decided that instead of allowing myself to be overwhelmed by the violence, I was just going to push through it until it gave way to plot. And I found it! Also plus more violence. 

Trail of Lightning - the first in the Sixth World series - is set in Dinetah, the protected remnants of the Navajo reservation, left after a great flood and the appearance of mystical boundary walls wipes out access to the rest of the world. Maggie, whose monster-killing powers come as a byproduct of her powerful lineage, collects bounties on the heads of strange and terrifying creatures in order to get by. After she teams up with a confusing bigger-city medicine man at the behest of her mentor, the two track a developing evil causing mysterious disappearances, while it quickly becomes clear that someone has it out for her, too. 

My feelings on this book are a little confused. It belongs to one of my more rapidly-expanding least favorite genres (Post-Apocalyptic fiction, mainly due to last year's Water Knife, by Paolo Bacigalupi, which still makes me grimace every time I think about it, and which I hated so much I never pushed 'publish' on the blogpost I wrote about it because I was just so sick of thinking about it). Trail of Lightning really does manage to be both extremely violent and angry - with a lot of that violence and anger perpetrated against the female main character - and really freakin' grim in places. But... the mythology and world-building really IS THAT GOOD, just like pretty much everyone has been saying this entire time. 

There just aren't a lot of people out there that are this uniquely adept at translating Native American mythology into such a tangible and enthralling genre landscape. Fantasy names have long held the stereotype of being some keysmash abomination with a few extra Zs, Xs, and apostrophes thrown in, but in Roanhorse's book, she utilizes real Navajo; instead of the familiar and long-utilized Greek and Roman Gods, trotted out of their Pantheon every once in a while for accessible popular effect, she utilizes familiar characters from ancient and American folklore, like the trickster Coyote.

In fact, I've been so completely taken in by the actual world itself, that in the past two trips to Barnes and Noble, I've very nearly picked up the second in the series, Storm of Locusts. Maybe I will, when my stomach is strong enough. 

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, while tackling three of the longstanding books on my TBR was absolutely the move and a source of personal pride, I almost immediately added a total of NINE back onto my shelves the same month, thanks to a gift from a family member, a vacation impulse purchase, and a Book Outlet order. Then I bought a ton of books in July for my Bloggoversary and because I love thrifting, and more in August because I went on vacation again. You win some, you lose some, you never learn some.) 

JULY (Part One!)

Square: Recommended by Library Staff / Peak Pick

Book: Malibu Rising, Taylor Jenkins Reid

Maybe a stiff and uncomfortable camp chair, in the middle of a lush, green forest, wasn't the right environment to be reading a book about the dry, hot sand of a California beach... but then again, I finished it in very nearly one sitting, so what do I know?

In Malibu Rising, the annual party thrown by the Riva family - helmed by eldest sister Nina, almost-twin brothers Jay and Hud, and overshadowed youngest Kit - is the stuff of Malibu legend, and this year, it promises to be even more over-the-top than ever before. Over the course of one eventful day, each of the sibling's lives will be changed forever, as relationships are forged and broken, secrets are revealed, and ugly truths are confronted. By the end of the night, the party will end in a whirl of police sirens and flames.

Taylor Jenkins Reid is a pro at making her novels evoke a sense of time, style, and memory. Daisy Jones and the Six held fast to the magic of the '60s and '70s music scene of Downtown LA and California sun-soaked rock. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo centered a complex narrative around the glow of Old Hollywood soundstage lights, and a whirling catalogue of fake movie stars. She attempts the same here, by bringing the readers to the beaches of the '80s surf scene in Malibu, where the burgeoning glitterati of media glory intersect with modern perspectives on feminism and family. 

Unfortunately, unlike with her previous two books, I feel like Malibu Rising's attempt at a nostalgic, idealized form of time travel fell flat. With so much focus being placed on bringing forth a specific cultural timestamp, she wastes attention on establishing retro collateral - emphasizing how everyone does their hair, what they're wearing, who they're listening to - without making more concrete moves to build out her characters, instead. As a result, plenty of the cast feels shallow and insubstantial, lacking any kind of dimension. 

Again, I don't want to dispense any spoilers here; on the other hand, I don't really know if spoilers would altogether change any part of your reading experience... because while each of the Riva siblings does, in fact, find what they've been looking for or deserving, the expectations of them are established so completely obviously within the first 50 pages that their bestowal is less of a revelation than an eventuality. Attempts at foreshadowing are done so ham-handedly it's like Reid doesn't trust her audience to catch any kind of nuance, so she feels the need to hand it to them on a platter instead. 

And like I said, I read this in essentially one sitting, as my chronic insomnia and hatred of camping combined to perch me in a folding chair on a well-lit morning at 6am, and have the whole book finished before breakfast. If a bleary, uncomfortable camper can still manage to find your book overly simple while running on four hours of hard-ground sleep with no coffee, then maybe it could have used some more character development. 

Yes, I will be reading Carrie Soto Is Back anyways. I don't even know why you felt the need to ask. 

Square: Out of your Comfort Zone

Book: Ariel: the Restored Edition, Sylvia Plath

Two things that are totally true: one, I really, seriously do not get Poetry, and two, I have been going through a major Poetry period recently that I can't quite figure out how to explain. And no, I do not mean "poetry" in the overly-Instagram-friendly kind of way, I mean it in the way that I am a big fan of both abstract metaphors and occasional rhyming and this is a quick and convenient way to get access both of those things. Also, I like it when books are short. 

I've also been having a major Sylvia Plath fixation recently - in a "published journals and letters" kind of way, not in a "rereading The Bell Jar yet again" kind of way - so I figured that this would be a knockout way to get both a bookshelf-sitting collection of poetry and a difficult Bingo square out of the way at the same time. 

Unfortunately, I still seem to be one of those boring people who more enjoys Sylvia's fiction and journals, rather than her poetry. 

As always, she uses beautiful, evocative language, words that call to mind carefully assembled visuals and characters. Making heads or tails of them is kind of like constructing a puzzle very carefully, and in my case, required reading a couple of times over to get the clearest picture, like how we used to slowly tune my grandmother's old TV to sort through the static, in order to get to PBS after the younger cousins had cranked the knob out of focus.

Some of them were really quite lovely, while others felt more jumbled or deliberately inscrutable. Some included antiquated language that made it very obvious what time period Plath wrote in (in a "you definitely can't use those words anymore" kind of way), which I understand, but was still sensitive to in reading. 

Common themes included motherhood, with frequent uses of the word "baby," and dual usage of black-red color juxtaposition. Her feminist perspectives are definitely in full-force here, especially in poems like "Lady Lazarus" and "Lesbos." 

One particularly notable element of the collection that I read, was the inclusion of Frieda Hughes - Sylvia's daughter, and last living child with Ted Hughes - who wrote both the introduction as well as bonus material in the back. She served as a sobering relative force, who provided a necessary recontextualizing of Plath as a human and mother first, and an artist second; however, by the end of her materials it more appeared that she was foremost motivated by the defense of her father, and promotion of her own artistic views. 

I'm still not a Poetry kind of person. But I'm glad I was able to take an afternoon in a hammock to sort and sift through the words and images Plath constructed, almost like a kind of meditational practice. I'll be back to my Wendy Cope soon enough, but sometimes it's nice to riddle things out for yourself a bit. 

Square: LGBT Love Story

Book: So This Is Ever After, T. J. Lukens

I've actually already written a review for this one! You can check it out in my "So, You Accidentally Read Three Novels That Were Basically Fanfiction" post from back in July. 

With a total of eight books, July will probably go down as one of my greatest reading months out of the entire year, no doubt thanks to a couple of heartily welcome romance novels and two of my favorite childhood middle grade series ever. Hence, this blog post will be divided into several more portions: next up, the second half of July and all of August, and after, the rest of the Romance novels I read! 

Did you undertake any reading challenges this summer? What was the hottest read of the hottest months, for you? Let me know, in the comments below!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Read in 2012 (Ten Years Ago!)

"Top Ten Tuesday" is a weekly bookish shareable, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!

Ah, 2012. This time last decade, the harried summers of my high school years had faded out into the languid anticipation of what was sure to be "the best years of my life in college" (Spoiler alert: they weren't, but that's fine). 

I was prepping for Sorority Recruitment at UW, while trying to make the most of the (relative) freedom of summer, while taking care of my three younger siblings, while splitting what remained of my scant attention between miraculously losing five pounds before the next family vacation and figuring out how to reply to peoples' texts on my brand new iPhone fast enough they wouldn't think I was ignoring them (Which is something I still have problems doing. I think of texts like interacting with a lazy breed of carrier pigeons: I see you hanging around on my windowsill, and I'll get to you when I get to you, but it's not going to be until after I figure out what I was already working on when you got here). 

But most importantly, I was reading just a ton of books... far more books than I can manage to read as an adult! Nowadays, my innate urge for constant distraction and escapism is fueled by mindless scrolling and maladaptive daydreaming; back then, I was reliant on the euphoria of YA novels and Fantasy settings that bore no resemblance to my reality whatsoever. And man, did I mow through a lot of them. 

Today's "Top Ten Tuesday" topic is TECHINCALLY "Books Over Ten Years Old," but I wanted to get a little more specific. Let's face it: I was an English major, and I'm a sucker for a beat up thrift store Romance novel, so I've read quite a lot of books that fit that billing. I wanted to get a little more... specific. 

Did I remember any of these titles off of the top of my head? Of course not. Thank God I was keeping a blog a decade ago. (I celebrated my twelfth anniversary back last month!) How else would I remember all of my crazy ramblings of books, some of which I haven't thought about in years?

Here's ten of the most important things I was reading back in 2012:

1. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Was this my first interaction with Austen? No. Not even this book specifically. But we were reading it for my AP English class in my senior year, and I still think back fondly on the experience. Mainly because it's one thing to read P&P on your own, and another to do it with good friends...and because for one shining day in class, Mr. Chandler asked me to read aloud for Elizabeth's part, and wouldn't you know it? It was the First Proposal scene. I've never been a theater kid, but in that moment, I felt like I was performing for millions. Honestly, I don't know if I've ever been happier speaking in public. 

2. The Selection, Kiera Cass

Hands down the harshest critique I've ever written, for a novel that I still, to this day, believe is unquestionably some of the worst YA I've ever read. That all being said... I've read three other books in the series after this one. Not that I'd ever recommend them to anybody else, of course. 

3. A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan

Funny enough, this book has made its way onto this blog not once, but twice: I read it for the first time as an incoming freshman in college, and reread it for the second time as a graduating senior, and took away completely different messages both times. It's a testament to how well-written this postmodernist novel (-slash-short-story-collection) is, that you can come back to it again and again with new eyes. Together with all of the other books in her canon I've read, it's no surprise that she's one of my literary favorites. 

4. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jamie Ford

This book still gets me at my core: every time I visit Uwajimaya in the International District of Seattle, or walk through the animal barns at the Puyallup fairgrounds, I'm struck with memories of reading this novel, and the Japanese internment in Washington State during WWII. Rereading this review reveals a lot of the naivete I had as a kid... in a lot of ways, I didn't know a ton about the world until I started living on my own, in college. I had a lot of growing up to do. 

5. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain

Fun fact: I read this book for the first time when I was eight. That means that by the time I read it in 2012, I was actually celebrating a decade spent with this book, too! Now, I'm 28, and it feels crazy to say that I've read this book once a year for more than 2/3s of my time spent alive and breathing. And you'll never guess what's one of the books on my TBR before the end of Summer, too. 

6. The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern

To be fair, I didn't so much as review this book in my original iteration, as spend a whole lot of paragraphs dunking on the Twilight fan phenomena. (The year was 2012, and I was a bit of a self-important snob, after all. How dare all of these other girls enjoy reading books, which was a thing that only I was allowed to do??) Though I do credit Erin Morgenstern with reinvigorating a dying genre in this review, which I feel like is high praise, for something that barely merited three paragraphs of discussion... and I barely remember. 

7. A whole bunch of books about Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll 

Our high school abided by a research-paper-per-year policy in our English classes, which made for a whole lot of opportunities to do a whole lot of reading on pretty much whatever topic I desired. Senior year it was Alice in Wonderland... more specifically, how Charles Dodgson's real life, work, and personal relationships informed his writing as Lewis Carroll. So, not just the children's book for me, but also several biographies and detailed reflections on his photography habit. What can I say? I'm thorough.

8. The Princess Bride, William Goldman

This longstanding family favorite for viewing, quickly became a personal favorite for reading, when I finished it for the first time in the same week that one of my best friends asked me to Prom. It was also in the heyday of my Daffodil Princess obligations, so you can understand that I had quite a lot to say about Princesses while reading. 

9. A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin

According to the review I wrote at the time, I liked this installment, but its brutality offended my delicate sensibilities. Still not wrong! However, eighteen-year-old Savannah was a huge prude, too, and had a little bit more of a problem with the sexual content than the violence... which made her a huge hypocrite, because while you can hide your FanFiction.Net tabs from the outside world, you can't hide it from yourself! Little did she know that ten years later, she'd have quite a lot of smutty Romance reads under her belt. And that she liked the Game of Thrones TV show, for all of its nudity, too!

10. Anna Godberson's Bright Young Things series 

Good Lord, remember the absolute chokehold the 1920s had on 2012? Lauren Conrad was a major fan of the throwback style, teen magazines insisted on its use as a "classy" costume for any dress-up soiree, and the Baz Luhrmann Great Gatsby movie would arrive the following May. It feels like a ton of my early collegiate life was all wrapped up in Tiffany box blue and F. Scott Fitzgerald references. It's no surprise they had a grip on the YA market, too. 

What's in YOUR Top Ten? And what were YOU doing in 2012? 

Let me know, in the comments below! 

Bloggoversary 2022: What I Did to Celebrate Twelve Years of Playing in the Pages

If, at the age of sixteen, I had birthed a person instead of a blog, that child would be gearing up for their entry into middle school. 

Obviously I'm glad that instead of inflicting a whole other human being into the existential torment of surviving as a preteen in the age of TikTok, I simply generated a spot on the Internet where I could rave about Dungeons and Dragons, Romance Novels, Cookbooks, and The Bachelor franchises with impunity. It's wild that I've been writing (and raving) here in my cozy little corner of the Internet for a good Twelve years now. 

That being said, it's not as impressive as when it was Ten, you know? Kind of like how your tenth birthday was a huge deal to your parents, and all this fuss was made about you entering your double digit years, while your twelfth birthday was mainly oriented around figuring out whether it really was possible to die of embarrassment while the servers performed their most unenthusiastic rendition of "Happy Birthday" inside a Red Robin. 

Still, I'm here. I'm blogging. I'm drinking a beverage - water, because my daily habits are still recovering from dehydration in the recent heat wave - and I'm trying to cohesively generate a means of expressing how much the last decade-plus of writing about books, publishing trends, personal obsessions, and more has meant to me. 

My brother celebrated with me, too.

How about this: as with many things, I feel so lucky to have found something that was uniquely mine to build. This was my plot of land to till; look what has grown.

(Answer options: An impressive scope of subject matter and a progressively declining amount of actual book reviews. A whole lot of enthusiasm for website style guides and the best understanding of Canva present in my friend group. An unwelcome reliance on Goodreads Challenge goals with which to measure and judge the results of my own tender personal hobbies, and a near-addictive reliance on the Daily eBook Deals section of Amazon's Kindle selections. 

Cat pose.

A five-part series about all of the books I read during one Summer's worth of family camping trips, and a five-part series about that time my brother bought me a box of 25 discounted backlist Paranormal Romance novels. A two-part series about what books to read if you were pissed off with the results of the 2016 Election, and a two-part series about how to hack your reading habits depending on your D&D Character Alignment. 

And what I'm coming to understand now is a serious dearth of photos of my cat, who has only ever deserved the spotlight.) 

Anyways. I'm grateful to be here, and obviously I'm still writing. I'm grateful to be writing elsewhere, too, in ways that you're not quite ready to read just yet. I'm happy to be reading, and adding books to my shelf at a higher rate than I could ever possibly consume. I'm having a good time doing it and being here, and I hope you are, too. 

He's nearly as tall as the damn shelves.

Barnes and Noble run

I first started implementing the practice of buying books for myself on my Bloggoversary on my Fifth, when I was deep in the trenches of a Book Buying Ban and was looking for a spoon with which I might tunnel out of a prison of my own making. However, over the years, I've gotten a bit more lax about the amount of effort I put into making it to five: as it turns out, there are very few things in life I believe are worth paying $30 for, least of all hardcovers that I haven't even read yet. 

Still, it's tradition, which is why I deliberately maneuvered my planning around my busy younger brother's schedule specifically so that he'd be able to celebrate with me. So, on July 5th - a good near-twenty days before my actual Bloggoversary - we trundled off to our local B&N branch for a couple house' browsing. 

What I Bought: 

The White Album, Joan Didion

Thanks to recent thrift shop finds, I have been steadily building a mini catalog of Didion's work, and haven't actually read any of it yet. Still, figured that while I've got this collection growing, might as well throw one of her most famous entries onto the pile. 

Where the Drowned Girls Go, Seanan McGuire

I love the Wayward Children series so much that it has become one of my auto-recommendations to anyone looking for accessible Fantasy reads. I stockpile titles for rainy days, so I haven't read Across the Green Grass Fields yet, but it soothes my heart to know I have it near me. 

A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine

Am I known for reading long, dense Science Fiction? No. At least, not since completing William Gibson's Neuromancer - a novel none of my friends had ever heard of before - back in high school (and hating every single second). Still, I've been hearing a ton of good reviews about this one, and have been looking for an entry back into the greater genre.

The Coward, Stephen Aryan

A hook-worthy name and a unique, compelling blurb brought this one to my attention in the corner of the SF / F shelves. I primarily bought this one because my brother said he'd read it when I was done, which is a not-uncommon factor in decisions about the books I buy. 

Another tradition:
85 Degree Bakery
afterwards.

What My Brother Bought: 

The Shadow of What Was Lost, James Islington

The Siren Depths (Raksura #3), Martha Wells

Arcanium Unbounded, Brandon Sanderson

It's very telling about each of us as people - and of our book collection habits - that my brother has finished almost all of his titles in the month since then, and I haven't so much as opened the front cover of a single of mine. 

My Actual Bloggoversary

I spent the real date of my Bloggoversary returning from a hellacious camping trip, and the day afterwards grappling with the results of my allergy panel testing (verdict: most of the things that grow outside in Washington State), so the celebration came on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday, which is how I like them. 

I woke up and ran to the local smoothie place for breakfast, and took my time watering the garden so I could enjoy it properly. I streamed my latest movie adaptation obsession - Hulu's Fire Island, based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice - and had its hilarious dialogue and truly inspirational soundtrack playing in the background as I tackled a bunch of household chores that needed doing. 

After a hearty lunch, I decided to venture off to my local library, the sustenance necessary as I was undertaking a challenge I haven't had cause to attempt in over a decade: navigating the Junior Fiction section, in order to find the titles that would eliminate "Reread Childhood Favorite" from my Seattle Public Library Summer Book Bingo card. 

The choices I was planning on selecting were thankfully there: Spiderwick Chronicles Volumes One and Two (The Field Guide and The Seeing Stone, respectively) by Holly Black, with illustrations by Toy Diterlizzi.

I also picked up:

Dog Songs, Mary Oliver 

The Ex Hex, Erin Sterling (for the "Halloween" box on my Ripped Bodice Summer Book Bingo card)

I ran back home, took some lackluster photos for Instagram, and immediately tore through the first Spiderwick book over Oreos and Milk (as the vibe I was going for skewed towards youthful enthusiasm. Obviously it hit the mark). I set up an easy dinner to appease my family, and begged my Mom to drive around a local scenic area with me in order to beat the heat with a little bit of expensive air conditioning.

And of course, at the end of the day, we came home and I definitely did not write a blogpost for an entire week about it. 

To be fair, I have been busy reading. 

Thanks for twelve years. We're going to have to actually find something really great to do to celebrate the 13th one, don't you think?

So, You Accidentally Read Three Novels That Were Basically Fanfiction

Occasionally, while engaging with media like Romance Novels, I'll have to grapple with an unexpected dichotomy. 

On one hand, I absolute support fanfiction writers... in fact, I think it's a very courageous thing, to make your writing freely accessible on the Internet, especially when you're essentially throwing it into the viper pit of fandom culture. On the other hand, I don't always want to notice that I'm reading fanfiction when I'm really trying to read a Romance Novel. Especially when it gets distracting. 

While there are virtually no limits to the material you might be willing to click the "heart" button for on AO3, I do expect the kind that makes it to print - or at least, wanders along through traditional publication channels - to have a little more finesse. If you're writing fanfiction alone, with none but your trusty laptop, beverage of choice, and maybe even one earnest beta reader to keep you company, then I'm more than happy to accept a certain level of soapy tropey-ness, or sloppy rewrites. 

If your narrative has had to wind its way through multiple drafts, an agent, a team of editors, an art department, and more, and is still extruded on the other end consisting of naught but threadbare costuming thrown over well-known characters and as many in-jokes as you can fill a licensed merchandise popcorn bucket with, then I'm just expecting a little something... more. 

The reason I'm bringing all of this potentially online-tension-flaming personal perspective up, is because I recently found myself reading not one, or two, but THREE novels with fanfiction ties in the space of about two weeks. I don't know if it's the Internet Age cultural clout traditional publishers are willing to admit popular fanfic authors carry in online spaces, or if it's just a whole type of person who got bored during the pandemic and decided to pull a Search & Change on all of the instances that the words "Legolas" and "Gimli" occurred in their most recent draft, but it's nearly become an identifiable subgenre in itself, especially in Romance Novel spheres. 

After all, the first time I was even introduced to the first selection in this batch of new reads, it was straight-up billed in a TikTok as "That Reylo Fanfiction Everyone's Been Talking About." But not to get ahead of myself...

The sum total feeling I was left with after reading these books, is that - surprise, surprise - people are really talented. Sure, not all of these reads were right for me, but I still managed to finish every single one of them! They were cohesive and well-arranged novels, with enough new material padded out around the edges to give familiar characters a change of shape. The writing was sweet, and damn funny, and occupied different genre spheres than their original source material in a way that made them feel fresh and interesting, even when touting familiar stereotypes.

Do I think that just anyone with a robust Tumblr following and a cumulative 500K+ word count to their username should be given a publishing contract? No. (God, no.) But I am excited that both fandom culture and online authors are garnering new opportunities to shine, regardless of whether their audience in found through leaning on those multimedia ties, or reaching out to entirely new audiences. 

But how were the books themselves?

THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS, Ali Hazelwood

Synopsis: When a third-year graduate student's well-intentioned lie to her best friend get the best of her, she finds herself impulsively lip-locked with - gasp - her university's hottest-slash-most-feared young professor. Soon enough, the two unlikely canoodlers find it mutually beneficial to launch an experiment of their own: can they successfully appease her bestie's matchmaking plans, and help him secure funding for his experiments, by pretending the two of them are a total item? Cue the awkward lap-sitting, sunscreen-spreading, Starbucks dates, and more. 

Fanfiction ties: If Kylo Ren and Rey were the most infamous couple in your college's Biology department

Star Rating: Three

Confession time: I've never actually watched a Star Wars movie all the way through. Or even a little bit of the way through. (Yes, I recognize this is a cultural sin, so let me just add some fuel to the fire as a pyrotechnic distraction, and tell you I've never seen a Lord of the Rings film either. Leave your angry comments below.)

So it might make a lot of sense, as to why I felt confident I could go into this with a relatively fresh lens, unpolluted by feelings about anything other than that one John Oliver - Adam Driver video that did the rounds in late 2020. 

The problem is, the major billing of this book - at least in online communities - is of its ties to the Star Wars fandom. The result is that these characters, their dynamics, still felt inextricably linked to their source material, in a way that was really distracting, even for someone who only knew the bare minimum. 

The characters themselves still occupied archetypes you frequently find in fanfiction, especially pertaining to their famous counterparts: Kylo Ren's Adam DRIVER-inspired Dr. CARlsen, for instance, is physically huge, emotionally blunt, and has a tendency for his tightly-reined temper to get explosively violent, while Rey's Daisy Ridley-influenced Olive is naïve, dedicated to her goals, and funny enough, foreign (though Canadian, not British). The commonalities couldn't be more apparent if they put them on the damn cover... which they clearly did! 

I'm sure that if I had better understanding of the Reylo-shipping fandom, you'd probably be able to slot other members of the cast into their appropriate places: for instance, I'm willing to bet that the conniving peer-slash-competitive-frenemy of the doctor's is probably a stand-in for someone from the franchise, too, just because his character type felt way too specific. 

The humor expressed within what is a very functional, cute Romance Novel is also unmistakably Of The Internet: not only "the mitochondria is the power house of the cell," or "how the turn tables," but multiple references to fanfiction itself, like commentary on "fake dating" and "only one bed" tropes. Maybe because of the nature of publishing, or the fact that those kinds of jokes have been around for a while, made aspects of the authorial voice feel dated... but maybe that's the nature of traditional publishing, which takes a little more time than pushing "post." 

Overall, it was funny and cute, but unable to be severed fully from its origin points, in a way that felt jarring to the narrative and occasionally frustrating to read. Still, the things that made it unique, were also its highlight: it was super cool to read a Romance Novel set in the field of academia, for instance, going as far to have some of the escalating action take place at a conference. Nerd romance! 

SO THIS IS EVER AFTER, F. T. Lukens

Synopsis: So many Chosen Ones with so many prophecies to fulfill, but how many of those stories are brave enough to venture beyond the glowy fade-to-credits, and instead, tough out the actual challenge: getting suckered into the crown as a teenage monarch, in charge of uniting a freshly-freed kingdom? Worse yet, what about a clause worked into the magic, which states that every king requires a co-ruler... and if you're not newly wed by the time you turn eighteen in just a few months, you're cursed to disappear from existence completely! The only thing to do, of course, is pick which member of your cute adventuring coterie is most willing to get hitched... surely not your dark-haired best friend, who's stuck valiantly by your side throughout the whole journey... 

Fanfiction ties: Arthur and Merlin (circa the BBC in 2010) appease my newfound slice-of-life Fantasy fixation 

Star Rating: Three-point-five

Okay, I'll admit, when it comes to ties to popular fandom, this one's connection points are, by far, the most tenuous: while the Goodreads blurb only fesses up to being influenced by Arthurian legend, it's primarily a handful of GR reviews and gushing Tumblr posts that point to this project's links to the popular BBC Merlin series so many of my friends were obsessed with in high school. Still, there's no beating the appeal of a teen royal's wistful yearning for his dark-haired mage bestie. Certainly not when a definitely-fanfiction-reminiscent "Date or Die" clause has been installed so brazenly in the narrative. 

Furthermore, unlike the two other novels in this list, this is a Young Adult romance, and an LGBT-friendly (if not -focused) one at that, both of which are very fanfiction-friendly audiences. There are familiar stereotypes and expected plot twists galore, packaged in teen-geared ways that don't make you question the slightly-silly world-building too much, or why these two teenage dunderheads can't manage to wise up to the other's intentions fast enough. That's right, the hallmark of fanfiction the world over: the "Miscommunication" trope! 

But beyond those roots, I found this novel to be absolutely darling, if a little bit predictable and awkwardly paced in places. The cover itself pretty much tells you how the book is going to end, and it's a sweet, funny ride all the way down to the final chapter, without a ton of substance to slow your fun. And the LGBT representation is great too - which, again, you could probably guess from the cover, being that it carries the colors of the bisexual pride flag - including the preferences of multiple characters, and inclusion of a nonbinary character, as well. 

Which annoyed me a little bit, because "Non Binary Character" and "LGBT Love Story" are two separate squares on the Seattle Public Library Summer Book Bingo card for this year, but I digress. I'll survive... and I don't even need to shoe-horn in an inexplicable soulmate clause to do it. 

IT HAPPENED ONE SUMMER (Bellinger Sisters #1), Tessa Bailey

Synopsis: When one high society party princess' illegal impulse decision makes major news, her bankrolling stepdad cuts the funds. He sends her - and her stalwartly supportive sister - packing for the podunk seaside town from whence their tragically-deceased biological father came, in the hopes that she'll wise up, and learn the real value of a dollar. There's not much to see here in Westport... aside from the abs on that gruff widower sea captain, who just can't help taking a shine to her sequin-spangled optimism. Will this summer fling fade under the bright lights of a planned LA return? Or will she give up her perfectly styled persona, and embrace the hard, honest truth of being a sailor's second love? 

Fanfiction ties: She's not just "A Little Bit" Alexis... she's, like, VERY

Star Rating: Four

This book is so unquestionably inspired by Schitt's Creek - and more specifically, the perfectly vapid-but-well-intentioned Alexis Rose, played to earnest perfection by Annie Murphy - that Tessa Bailey makes a point of thanking them in the Acknowledgements section at the back of the book! 

But even if you didn't happen upon that intel in reader reviews, you'd probably have managed to piece it together of your own accord: a perfectly styled LA siren with a high-society, higher-price-tag lifestyle gets packed off to a small, rural town, to live in a property she's never heard of before, but gained in a surprise inheritance? She's got an even cuter personality than her wardrobe, and is drawn to a party like a moth to a flame, and is more than capable than starting one or two accidental fires. That's a little bit Alexis! 

Parts of this character focus made the story a little distracting - take, for instance, my compulsion to mentally read all of her dialogue in Alexis Rose's signature vocal stylings - but it was far from the only fanfiction material present in the story. 

Unfortunately, I found the final quarter of the book somewhat rushed and hectic, due to the amount of contrived conflict repeatedly, needlessly forcing our lovebirds apart. However, I didn't really mind it all that much: due to the rampant amounts of sex being had throughout the back half of the novel as a whole, at a certain point I was just thankful for any narrative actively transpiring at all. 

Still, I had a thoroughly enjoyable time reading, despite the fact that I definitely skimmed a couple of sections (I HATE secondhand-embarrassment styles of comedy - which I recognize is also a hallmark of Schitt's Creek as a whole - and it can be more than a little painful in excess). However, it was hilarious, sweet, and as easy to digest as an episode of your favorite half-hour sitcom. 

What's your take on the published-fanfiction trend? What titles come to mind for you? And what do you think deserves a little Rom-Com fan-fic-ing next? Let me know, in the comments below!

Too Many Books: An Attempt at Unhauling My Shelves

Alright, team. It's June (even though you'd never know it, thanks to the major gloom period in which Washington State currently finds itself sufficiently sunk). But despite the dismal weather, the conclusion of the Finals Weeks of my younger siblings mark that Summer is officially here! And of course, with it comes Summer Reading Challenges from all corners (but that's for another blogpost!). 

This June, I wanted to do something a little different, to make sure I'm not just checking out a million library books again this summer. I'm trying my absolute best to read down my shelves, and Reading Challenges are a great opportunity to make sure that the book I'm pulling are ones I already own. At the same time, I recognize it's almost impossible to plan for how to tackle these various challenges, when my shelves are overflowing with so many available reads! 

The worst thing about it all is that there are definitely books on here that have been camped out for... a while. 

There are, of course, a couple of reasons for all of this. For starters, the reality is, my book-buying habits have changed in the last six years or so since I graduated college. Back in those days, and high school as well, I kept a pretty tight roster of books that I had been given or bought myself, typically restricted to a designated shelf on the tall bookshelf I kept for myself in my room. 

Nowadays, I run wild. I'm a compulsive library-book-grabber. I place holds on ten or so books at a time, and then am invariably overwhelmed when all of them come crashing into my local branch at once. But I'm also someone who buys ebook deals on whims, my Kindle loaded up with random romance novels I bought because those sorts of books to go on sale for $1 to $2 a piece on a daily basis. I trawl multiple "ebook discount deals" Instagram accounts on the weekly, and race through entire rows of books until I find one I can justify spending money on, thanks to the tiny serotonin drop in the empty, rattling bucket of my thirsty brain that comes once I see a new title appear on the screen of my ereader.

And more than anything, I'm now at a place in my life where I have feasibly purchased too many books I am not entirely interested in reading. That's from a lot of different factors: picking up discounts at Goodwill because "maybe I'll want to read this someday," meticulously putting together a plan before visits to Powell's in Portland and then inevitably having the whole mess fall apart once I see what titles aren't there, having my annual Bloggoversary celebration purchasing 5 books every July turn into overly-precious sentimentality of books I want to postpone reading "until I can really enjoy them"... the problems are unique, for sure.

I buy books because I want to become the kind of person who reads the Classics I loved back in my English program; books because I want to be the kind of person who reads lengthy, critically-hyped Fantasy tomes; books because I want to gain back some kind of street cred I boasted of in high school about being one of the "smart kids" by reading stacks of Nonfiction at a time. The problem is, while I like Classics, heavy Fantasy, and Nonfiction, I don't always reach for those books first. And then they gather together on my shelves, and they gather dust. 

Of course, I have no idea how many are there. On account of the last estimation - when I did a similar sort of reorganization project last January - the total count broke down something like this:

TBR Shelves - 264 physical copies

Kindle - 171 ebooks 

Total: 435 books unread

And like I said before, I do a LOT of library time on a regular basis - typically for cookbooks, but also through the Libby ebooks system, because it's so damn convenient - and on audiobooks facilitated through the same platform on my iPhone. 

And again... that count was last January. There's been a year and a half of book buying since then, a year and a half of Book Outlet, Goodwill, and more. I can't imagine how high that number is now, but honestly, I'm also deeply unwilling to do that much counting. 

Not when I can just count the books I've managed to clean off of my shelves, instead. Because it's absolutely time for a bit of an unhaul process.

the Process 

So, here's how I ended up swinging this: I took a look at each individual shelf on my TBR bookcase, and went line item by item about which titles I thought were worth keeping. The ones I already knew I was interested in just went back onto the main shelves, but those that I was unsure about went into their own stack. The ones I was sure I didn't want, had their own designated area of my room, too. By the end of it all, I was hoping I would have three distinct outcome areas: clean and organized shelves, the "goodbye" stacks, and a couple of piles to take my time sorting through over the next couple of days. 

All told, that's exactly how it ended up shaking out... but it really did highlight how many books I had, too. Because it took me four days total to get through them all without burning myself out on decision fatigue.

Between the four main genre sections I organize on my own shelves- Classics, Contemporary, Sci Fi / Fantasy, and Nonfiction - I had a lot of thoughts about the whole process. 

Classics

For starters, I own a lot of Classics for someone who hasn't really picked up a ton since her English Literature major in college. I still have a love and appreciation for the genre, of course, it's just more difficult to prompt myself into tackling "stretch" material on my stony lonesome, rather than making memes about it in a group message with other like-minded undergrads. 

I also blame the English Department for how I went through a period of just picking up as many vintage Mass Market Paperbacks as possible, which was a definite mistake. In a social circle where everyone was constantly bragging about the amount of Dickens they've read, or whether they'd finished Jane Austen's entire catalogue (one girl, I remember, would always laugh at these convos and remark on how she'd done that back in high school), it felt like reading Classics was almost a numbers game. But the problems with that system were myriad: half of these are books I'm never going to read (Don Quixote, The Old Curiosity Shop), and as for the ones I actually will, I'm certainly not reading in MMP format. Into the "give away" piles with ye... 

Damn, remember when I was super into Virginia Woolf? Thanks, "Intro to Modernism" class, one of about five or so English classes I reminisce on with some degree of fondness. There were twelve people who made up the roster, including the teacher, so I could never skip without being missed, and it took over twenty minutes of walking two days a week to get there. My good feelings towards the strange cast of characters assembled in a random building on the offshoots of West Campus - the girl who also tended bar at one of the places on The Ave and would say hello when I ordered drinks, the solo engineering major who answered the question of favorite author with "Tom Clancy" to resounding silence - have absolutely rubbed off on the fact that we read Mrs Dalloway, and now I can't read Woolf without thinking of them. The problem is, I haven't really read Woolf since I graduated. I'm still hanging onto these titles, though. 

It's nice to know that no matter how much Shakespeare I've read across my life this far, there's still always something left to read. I knew I was a fan of the Bard back in high school, and I've been taking my sweet time languidly drifting through his extended canon ever since, so I don't run out of new things to read too fast along the way. Plus there's a ton of extra materials on my shelves about him, from critical commentary to biographical context, and that's worth saving, in my mind, too. Of course, there are also a few up here I have read already, but enough time has passed that I've totally forgotten about it. Keep to all, as well... 

Phew, I sure have a lot of D. H. Lawrence for someone who's never read D. H. Lawrence, though. As someone who's always had a healthy fascination with Banned Books, it's no surprise that I'm intrigued, though my copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover is yet another MMP from the '70s. Clearly, the effects of the aforementioned Modernism class continue on throughout the shelf. Not willing to get rid of these until I've given him a little bit of a chance...  

It's nice to know it's not ALL the English Department's fault, though. I absolutely can get rid of some of these on the sheer basis of "The Movie Is Actually Better"... and even in cases within those, there's no reason to keep hanging on: I've never liked Phantom of the Opera - musical, movie, soundtrack, in any case - and the Joan Fontaine / Laurence Olivier version of Rebecca is the only reason I picked up the book in the first place. Toss to both. 

Contemporary

Okay, some of these are definitely from my Mom. And my Aunt. I have a bad habit of just collecting books lent by other people on the principle that if someone else I know has already read them, then regardless, I will have someone to talk about them with once I've finished. However, if I'm never going to actually end up reaching for them at all, then what purpose does any of this serve? That being said, I'm going to take my time searching through them for topics that are more my style. Sorting, sorting...

So many of these are just because of that dumb scratch-off poster. A couple of Christmases or Birthdays ago - can't remember which - I had asked one of my siblings for a scratch-off poster of the Classics (again, my brain is rotten), but bemoaned the fact that all of the titles amplified by their inclusion in it were written by men, or published more than a century ago. She gamely pivoted to buy me a "Modern Classics" posted instead, which highlights titles from the first decade and a half of the Twenty-First Century... and unfortunately, while the list is more diverse and dynamic in terms of identity, they also frequently repeat author names, and include too many titles I know I'm not going to read. I'm sick of pretending I'm going to read Jonathan Franzen or Wolf Hall... if I really want to read them in the future, the library, I'm sure, will have them. Now the only thing left to consider is whether I should do away with the poster, as well. 

So many of these are just because I heard someone, somewhere, mention they liked it. Curse you, Goodreads and Bookstagram! I'm so terrible about seeking out new Contemporary releases in hardcover because someone else wrote a pretty review about its pretty cover and I thought it would look oh so pretty if I read it, too. Alas! It's never my cup of tea, and that makes it more than worth dumping out after one too many failed attempts. I've spent way too long being mocked by the copy of Fates and Furies I know I dislike too much to finish. Away! 

Oh man, I love Jennifer Egan. Talk about a favorite author from college: I read her for the first time in my Freshman year (required) Intro to English (non-major-specific) class. It was one of two books I read specifically for that first-ever Quarter on UW's campus, and it set me up for reading quite a lot more of her other work over the years. I didn't know I had all of these! Sure, I'll get rid of the one I didn't really like - I feel like I'm the only person in the world who thought Manhattan Beach was her LEAST interesting novel - but the rest of these are sticking with me. 

This is a lot of Celeste Ng and Kristin Hannah for someone who's never read either of those authors. And unlike Egan, I'm pretty much okay with getting rid of most of them. My younger sister loved Little Fires Everywhere, and I had a friend give me Everything I Never Told You, but based on genre, topic, and setting alone, I know I'm not interested, and someone else would be super jazzed to pick up these kinds of titles at Goodwill, instead. Ironically enough, I never bought any of these Kristin Hannah's either, and similarly, I know I won't read them. Well, maybe Four Winds. The rest can be contributed towards my mom's bedside table, instead. 

To be honest, out of most of these genres, I'm having a hard time determining which of these I should hang on to... which is wild, because I truly do not read a lot of Contemporary. I think maybe it's an effect of just not knowing enough about the material to make a decision, but then again, it's about letting go of the weight of other people's opinions, too. Goodbye, fancy hardcovers and sticker-emblazoned paperbacks. I barely knew ye... nor did I want to. 

Science Fiction / Fantasy

Okay, for a genre that takes up two full sets of shelves, it was somewhat outrageously easy to organize these once I got that hidden stack of Romance novels out of the way (There were only six, but they're bulky!). 

And furthermore, just putting my hardcovers together in one concrete, organized combination frees up SO MUCH SPACE. I think that has a lot to do with consistent sizing, too, so special shoutout to the Fantasy and Sci Fi people for resisting the urge to make all of their books weird-shaped. (Ahem, here's looking at you, Contemporary.)

If I just take out books that I've given to my brother to read, that he's passed back on to me, that eliminates a whole lot of books, too. But does this mean I'm bad at giving presents? I think a bit of minor consultation with him is required to see if any of these bad boys deserve a second chance. I'll probably end up keeping more than I give away. 

In fact, I'm retaining almost all of these, being that they're a genre I reach for the most often, and I'm not willing to give up my dreams of being a big, bulky Fantasy reader just yet. The one thing I will say, is that there is definitely not as much Sci Fi as Fantasy on these shelves... and that honestly feels like a bit of a bummer! Still, I've got to read down at least a few of these before I start picking up any Science Fiction... can't go around undoing all of my hard work that easily! 

Nonfiction

So many of these are books I originally bought for Mom! Again, does this mean something? I mean, everyone's tastes are different, so just because I purchased presents for other people, it doesn't mean I should automatically plan on reading the same. That being said, though, a lot of what I buy her are various Cooking Memoirs, which is one of my favorite subgenres as well... but maybe I can do away with a few of these random ones. 

In fact, I think I'm going to have to do some sifting through of all these Food and Gardening Memoirs. Clearly, I have a type, even beyond the stuff I've bought for mom. It helps that I know myself quite well, but what I often think I do is resort to these kinds of titles for things like impulse purchases, because I just kind of figure I'll end up reading them eventually. Sometimes its true, but more often than not, it just leads to a surplus of books sitting on my shelves for a long time. Are there any that I can just speed read a little of, to tell whether they'll really work for me? 

I honestly can't believe I've been hanging on to some of these books since my ill-fated flirtation with earning a Poli Sci Minor in college. Seriously, there are titles that I recognize from syllabi of classes long passed, when I thought to myself "We only read three chapters out of this thing this whole semester... clearly I can get my money's worth by finishing them on my own time!" Now, not only do I just not pick these kinds of things up anymore, but all of this information is, at a bare minimum, six years old... and there's a whole lot that's happened in those six years that has passed. These pretty much all need to go. 

Lots of Books about Books, and Books about Writing. Again, clearly, I have a type... and I know for a fact that I pick up a lot of these for the same reasons that I pick up the Cooking Memoirs. It's really nice to know I have favorite genres I can return to time and again, but I'd rather actually spend my time reading books, more than buying them... and furthermore, I'd rather be WRITING, than reading about writing! These deserve a little more scrutiny, as well! 

Goodbye to you...

In total, I'm getting rid of well over 60 books from my personal shelves. The greatest majority of these are from my To Be Reads, just like I said, but I've also managed to pull eight books from my Already Read shelves, as well as the eighteen books from my Big Box of Romance Challenge that I decided I didn't need to hang on to. Plus a few extra ones I found by digging around my coffee table, or picking up loose papers on my desk. 

I'm not terribly hung up on the number; again, that wasn't really the point of the experiment. The more valuable thing, to me, is the feeling that's left: that everything still on my shelves is here because I really, genuinely want it to be here.

And all of this makes me feel a LOT better about starting to plan out all of my Summer Reading Challenge game plans, too. These oh-so recently rearranged shelves make it super easy to start plotting which ones I'm looking forward to reading most. Hopefully with this kind of help, I'll be able to break out of this Springtime Slump, and get to reading regularly again!  

Have you ever done an unhaul on your shelves? What is the total number in your TBR stack right now? Let me know, in the comments below!