Normally this time of year, or really two months ago, (2015) I would do a mid-year book report on my stats, what I’ve liked, what trends I’m noticing and the likes. This year however my mid-year book report is really sad, I haven’t read very much and don’t really have more to say than what my reviews are saying. I’m at 14 and I could make a million excuses but the main one is I haven’t wanted to- I moved and am spending way too much time doing a million other things.
So instead I noticed the other day a book came up in my Goodreads feed that I had such a fond memory of but when I looked at my rating I had given it 2 stars. I remembered it so fondly but when I re-read my review and why I marked it so low I didn’t remember any of that! I feel like I’ve touched on this before, I very very frequently remember a book much more fondly than my initial reaction and review of a book. So I thought I’d look back at my 2 star books from the past 5 years and see if there are any others that stick out like that- low review but I remember them more fondly.
2011- this is a year I remember as the year I read all the Harry Potter books and started the Sookie Stackhouse series.
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. Why did I give this two stars? I didn’t even write a review on Goodreads how sad! I remember this book super fondly and then read the sequel a few years later. I remember enjoying the family aspect and the wanting to branch out from your family stuff as well as a somewhat non-cheesey romance. I don’t think it deserves like 5 stars but at least a solid 3 stars at least. I think I got it as a Nook Freebie or for like $1.99. Interesting
2012- Ah yes the year I painfully introduced myself to Haruki Murakami (he’s now a favorite author of mine) and also the year I read too many damn books- 55 to be exact.
Graveminder by Melissa Marr. The book that started this! I don’t remember hating this book at all! Looking back at it I think of it as a super fun book about a paranormal graveminder, with zombies I’m okay with, gangsters, weird dimensions, and a young woman having to make a choice about her life and love. My review “The ending was horrible. It felt rushed and thrown together. some things were never resolved and parts were written like it was going to be a series instead of a stand alone book. I expected a lot more from this book and it did not deliver. the idea had promise, it just wasn't realized.” I don’t remember the ending now...or at least I don’t remember why it was horrible, but this is seriously a book I check out every once in awhile to see if a sequel has been published because I’d like to revisit the world.
2013- Another year in which I read too many damn books, 56 this time. Also the year I read all the Margaret Atwood and Fantasy type books, I read the Narnia series for the first time. There are no dissonant 2 star reviews this year. The books I gave low star counts too totally deserved it. I also got better at writing reviews this year I so I still stand by what I said.
2014- The year I scaled back to a reasonable 30 books. No real overarching theme this year, it was kinda all over the place.
Hollow City by Ransom Riggs. I really liked this book! Duh. The problem with the Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series is that as a whole I really liked the series, but individually I had a lot of problems with the books. Goodreads status update from 44% into the book “eeek this is intense”. Glad I added that insight. In my review I note that it could have been a 2.5 but Goodreads only works in whole numbers so I went with the lower 2 rating. I don’t know. I remember this book better than a 2 or a 2.5...again a solid 3.
2015- Nothing! I was accurate but also it may not have been long enough yet to really judge these books again…
So not too many that I judged too harshly but a handful that surprised me. I think there are probably a lot more in the 3 star range that should have been 4 or 5 but that's over a hundred books to go through and apparently my review writing wasn't as good 5 years ago and my memory sometimes sucks. Either way it’s always so fun to go back and look at what I read and what I was doing with my life when I read things. Now I need to finish my book for my bookclub… it’s not going to get a very high rating from me and I currently believe that’s appropriate...ask me again in 3 years!
