Why did I give that book 2 stars? (aka Mid-Year Book Report)

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!

Year of the Nook

I got my first nook in January 2010.  I initially bought it for use as pictured, for the cruise and for the first vacation I was taking in 3 years.  Between grad school and a job that took up a ridiculous amount of time I barely had time to read for fun.  My first generation nook was a close to $300 investment I was willing to make in order to get back to one of my favorite pastimes reading.

It Sucked and Then I Cried  was the first nook book I read.  I followed it up with Never Let Me Go, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Shit My Dad Says on the cruise.  The rest of the year I read more bubble-gum books The Facebook book, all the Chelsea Handler books and Kristen Chenowith's bio.  I was instantly in love with my nook.  I loved that I could switch reading a book instantly and not have to carry 5 books with me constantly in case I got bored with whichever one I was currently reading.

In 2011 I read 21 books.  I didn't ready the entire first half of the year.  I was finishing my masters, getting married and buying a house, there wasn't a lot of time for anything extra.  But in July I hit the ground running. In August I read all 7 Harry Potter Books.  I hadn't read them before because I started watching the movies first and didn't want to read the books before I finished all the movies- yes I knows it's usually the other way around, but I like my way better- it also prevented me from having to wait.  Throughout the fall I read the first two Sookie Stackhouse books but didn't get into them so I didn't read the next 5 till December when I had a lot of time of my hand.  Earlier in the summer I read Theatre Geek about theatre camp in the Catskills, it made me super nostalgic for high school.  In mid fall I reread The Hunger Games trilogy for the 3rd or 4th time I've lost count.  Before Breaking Dawn part one I thought it'd be fun to reread the Twilight books...man was I wrong.  I only made it half way through New Moon before giving up because I just couldn't inflict it on myself anymore.  It had been a good couple of years since I'd read them and now I wonder why.  I read a free nook book called Garden Spells that was cute, but nothing too special.  Then in November on a trip to El Paso I read Robopocalypse and decided that the robots were going to come kill me in my sleep if I ever bought an iPhone or drove a car that could drive itself.  OMG it was the scariest book I'd read since I read House of Leaves that one summer at camp. I followed up the scary with the beautifully visual The Night Circus.  This was a sweet book, I loved living inside the circus and could perfectly see everything described.  Before Christmas my fabulous husband Bruce got me a new nook, the nook Simple Touch.  I love it! The first book I read on it was Ready Player One, it was a totally fun read full of 80s pop culture and insight into the gaming world that I know nothing about.  I ended the year reading Sookie Stackhouse Novels and started the new year continuing to read them.

2012- I read the rest of the currently published Sookie Stackhouse books those first two weeks of the new year.  They're addictive, seriously.  I enjoyed the total bubble-gumness of them.  You didn't have to think while you read them you could just enjoy the absurdity of it and the continued stupidity of women when they love vampires.  It's great.  After I finished the 11th book I still wanted more.  I read of a book of short stories about the same characters and the companion book that had a short novella in it.  I was desperate for more Stackhouse universe! It was sad.  I seriously almost freaked out on Bruce when we could find a digital copy of the most recent one.  Yes I have an ebook problem.  Then I read The Thirteenth Tale I frequently describe this book as a good read for people who like good books.  There are a lot of literary references and its a fun mystery.  By the time I finished Thirteenth I was eagerly anticipating the release of a new Orson Scott Card book that was supposed to be an addition to the Ender's Shadow series.  Shadows in Flight was supposed to be released on January 17th, both book and ebook editions.  THE EBOOK WASN'T RELEASED.  It seriously ruined my day.  I was angry.  Everyone knew I was angry and I needed wine.  The ebook will eventually be released, but not in it's entirety till 2013.  To say I'm pissed would be a HUGE understatement.  When I have an extra $15 I'll pay for the first edition hardback, which is fine I have all the other shadow books in first edition hardback anyways, but I wanted to be able to instantly read it everywhere I went and I couldn't.  And it ruined the world.  OK- over exaggerations over. I wanted to read something familiar.  My go to book sight GoodReads has an ebook section you can download books from and it was there I found the James Potter series- yes I know it's fan fiction and can never truly live up to JKs originals, but it was getting really good reviews.  So I read the first James Potter book (you can read it online for free too) and it was really good.  Not great or amazing but really good.  It felt very natural and fit back into the HP world with ease.  I totally cried thinking about all the original characters but I really enjoyed it. I didn't want to read the next one right away I wanted some time to sit so I read Mindy Kaling's adorable book.  It was light and fun and more good bubble gum.

So I'm currently addicted to Goodreads.  It's a great place to keep track of the books you've read, the books you're currently reading and then the books you can't to read.  And beyond that you can categorize the books you have too- I only have two categories right now, favorites and bubble gum. Based on these lists it recommends books to you, it also lets you interact with friends, join book groups and fan authors.  You can comment on what your friends are reading, look at their book lists and more. It's great.

One feature I'm really fond of is the currently reading section.  It lets you track your progress.  Mine is very telling.  I have been reading Sophie's World since I was 15.  I bought in paperback at Half Price Books and kept in my first 4 cars.  Whenever I had a little extra time I'd pick it up and read a little.  Its a cool book about the history of philosophy and I always really enjoy it while I'm reading it, but never enough to keep me wanting to read it as my main book.  I found a digital copy of it so I have it on my phone in case the inspiration to read more of it ever strikes...it hasn't yet.  I started 1Q84 this year and since I only have it in ebook I didn't know how massive it was.  I read the first two chapters and was like wow this is pretty interesting and I went to update Goodreads about my progress and that's when I found out that it had over 900 pages.  I'll come back to that one.  I started the second James Potter book and so far it's good except at the beginning a very beloved character dies and it made me sad.  Loose Girl is a really interesting book so far about all the reason why this woman thinks she became promiscuous at a certain time in her life.  It's really interesting.

I like the reading challenge part.  You get to set a goal for yourself and then work towards it.  Last year my goal was 25 which I missed by 4 books.  This year my goal is 55 but I'm already ahead of where I need to be.  Eventually I'm sure I'll go through my phases where I'll be watching more TV than reading or get distracted and wont be able to find the book I really want to read.  But by the end of January I'm hoping to have at least two more books to that list and I'll have made a pretty good start.

I love to read. I unfortunately sometimes ignore Bruce cause I'm reading so much, but I just get so lost in my books.  I love to completely submerge myself in books.  In middle school I used to drag all my blankets and pillows into the bathroom and pile them all inside my bathtub so I could just lock myself away for the weekend with my books and cd player.  I could stay in there all day reading feeling all nestled in and allow myself to be completely taken over by the world inside my books.

The First Year with my nook

Yah if you don't know what a nook is that might sound not right...nook (mine is the first generation on the right).  January 31st 2010 I got my nook.  I was so excited I'd been wanting one since the previous November and finally got it for myself.  The reasoning behind me getting an electronic reader was that I am a weird book reader.  I usually have a book in my purse, a book in my car, a book in my desk, a book in the living room and a book by my bedside, Bruce can totally attest to this.  I am usually reading 6 or more books at once- I like to have a fiction option, non-fiction, bio, short stories or sci-fi to chose from at all times.  That's a lot of books to carry around so an e-reader just seemed like the logical choice.  I went with the Barnes and Noble one because B&N is my FAVE bookstore, and I really only buy books online when they're textbooks so the Kindle didn't really interest me.  But to each their own...

I raced home from La Cantera, opened my nook, turned it on and waited for the magic to happen!  Pride and Prejudice, Little Women and Dracula were already loaded onto the nook under the "Barnes and Noble Classics Series" heading.  Then there were a lot of free books you could chose from.

The books I read this year on my nook from Barnes and Noble were (in order):
Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea
Accidental Billionaires (book The Social Network was based off of)
A Little Bit Wicked (Kristen Chenoweth bio)
It Sucked and Then I Cried (dooce  book)
Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang
Eclipse (yes I own the hard backs, what's your point? needed to reread it before the movie)
Breaking Dawn (no good excuse really, I think I was bored in an airport)
The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro- READ THIS)
Shit My Dad Says
The Toaster Broke So We're Getting Married (might have been a free book or maybe I just liked the title)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Hunger Games (READ these too! So good- thanks Taylor)
Catching Fire (I loved them so much I read then in August and again in October)
Mockingjay (They're that good!)
My Horizontal Life
I Love, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti

Wow looking back on the year it looks like I was really into bubble-gum books.  In my defense I didn't really want to read heavy stuff while on the cruise in Greece...The Chelsea Handler books were hilarious so I had to read all of them.  I did take some flack for downloading books I already owned, but my nook fits so much better in my purse than a 450 page hardback book and if I get tired of one book I can so easily switch to another!

Another great thing about the nook is you can download countless classics from Project Gutenberg its this huge archive of books in different digital formats.  I downloaded the entire James Joyce library for free!!! I haven't explored the Gutenberg press as much as I could but there are tons of great books in there for free that I hope to get next year.  My nook also has the internet and games and the ability to be an mp3 player but I really just use it for books and the occasional Sudoku game.

Now my nook didn't take the place of paperback books for me at all I still read real books.  In the Spring I was making my way through all of Alain de Botton's books, on Valentine's I always reread his "On Love".  Almost ever summer I reread an Orson Scott Card series, this year I reread both Ender series with the new edition Ender in Exile.  So my nook wont replace all the books on my shelves its just a nice portable library I can take wherever I go and one that can constantly grow.