New year… new book goals!
2024 is the first year in a while that I didn’t meet my annual reading goal.
Which is fine. It happens! I still read quite a bit last year, even if I didn’t plow through 50-plus books.
But with that said, I did set a goal of 50 books for this year.
So far, I’m off to a good start.
(As a reminder: I always track my reading both on Goodreads.)
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LULA DEAN’S LITTLE LIBRARY OF BANNED BOOKS by Kirsten Miller
Recommend
This was my book club’s January pick, and this book was not subtle at all with it’s approach to today’s heavily-contested social issues. I didn’t really love how black-and-white this book presented some of those issues, and I didn’t really love how the ending neatly wrapped up perfectly, but overall, I did still mostly enjoy this book. With that said — you probably won’t like it unless your political views lean mostly to the left.
ONE IN A MILLENNIAL: ON FRIENDSHIP, FEELINGS, FANGIRLS AND FITTING IN by Kate Kennedy
Don’t recommend
I wanted to love this book. The 1989-born, American Doll-owning, *NSYNC-loving, Four Loko-drinking, MySpace-coding, statement necklace-wearing millennial in me so badly wanted to love this book. I mean – the cover design! But I just couldn’t get into it. This book was touted as an “exploration of pop culture and nostalgia” and it just read more like a really repetitive, rambling memoir written by someone who has not lived a life interesting enough to warrant a memoir. I found all the puns forced and heavy-handed, and there were way too many disclaimers and long-winded personal anecdotes.
GUNFLINT FALLING: BLOWDOWN IN THE BOUNDARY WATERS by Cary J. Griffith
Recommend
This is definitely a niche book- if you’re not into natural disasters and the Incident Management System, you probably won’t find it as fascinating as I did. But, if you do happen to love reading about incident response (or have an interest in northern Minnesota’s Boundary Waters) you might really like this book. I thought it was a great mixture of researched history and first-person narratives collected through one-on-one interviews.
A VERY PUNCHABLE FACE by Colin Jost
Recommend
Ryan and I love Saturday Night Live, and Weekend Update host Colin Jost’s memoir has been on my list for a while. It didn’t disappoint! It definitely reads in his voice. It’s witty and full of self-deprecating humor, and it flows effortlessly — despite the fact that it’s written pretty casually and not entirely in chronological order. It was fun to read about some of what goes on behind the scenes of SNL as well. If you love SNL, you’ll probably love this book just as much as I did.
BLUE SISTERS by Coco Mellors
Recommend
I thought this was a gorgeous, beautifully-written tale about the complexities of sisterhood and the realities of addiction. All of the characters — particularly the Blue sisters — were fully developed and felt real, and I absolutely loved the ending. I thought this book did an incredible job weaving in the past memories of the Blue sisters with the current narration.
MARGO’S GOT MONEY TROUBLES by Rufi Thorpe
Recommend
I was looking for something really light-hearted and jovial to read this week, so the concept — a freshly unemployed 20-year-old single mom starts an OnlyFans account to pay the bills while her estranged father, a retired pro-wrestler, moves in and sobers up — intrigued me. It was funny and parts of it were deeply unserious but, at the same time, surprised me by touching on some pretty tough topics, like the complete lack of social systems for single mothers, the stigma of turning to sex work for survival and what kind of decisions make someone a “good person.”
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