The list below gives evidence of A) September simply being an inexplicably good month of reading; and B) my nerdish desire to make my Goodreads reading challenge in exactly 3/4 of the year, once I realized it was a viable possibility.
(And I did, in fact, pick the shortish novella A Tangled Web on September 30th to achieve that. Yes, that’s almost cheating. No, I don’t care.)
Fiction
Fortunately, the Milk Neil Gaiman
Sometimes I think that Neil Gaiman is my favorite genre. This kids book isn’t really in any way relevant to that thought—because it’s necessarily very different from his non-kids books—but this remarkably clever story makes me think it anyways.
I gave this as a gift to a friend who loves children’s books long before even reading it, because I knew it would be good. And now that I’ve listened to it on audio book (read by Gaiman, even better!), I’m trying to come up with an excuse to put my hands on a hard copy again, because apparently the illustrations are lovely.
Rules of Civility Amor Towles
I think it was lovely. It was lovely, right? Perhaps it was mostly lovely. I got bored a few times, and that doesn’t lend itself to the description, but when I was enjoying it, which was much of the time, it was. Lovely, that is. And I finished much of the second third or so quickly, as I was just into it quite a bit more by then.
Big Little Lies Liane Moriarty
Big issues, light book. It feels like reading chick-li, and I suppose it is, but Moriarty is good here are packing the best kind of fluff right around the tougher things. I don’t know much much sense that actually makes, but anyways, I enjoyed this one all the way through.
Left Neglected Lisa Genova
This one has been sitting on my bookshelf, waiting for me to do this silly self-challenge to read the poor books waiting for me on my bookshelves. I picked it up from the used bookstore, even though I’d been wanting to read another book by Genova more — but this one was there! It wasn’t anything special, but I liked engaging in the story, and all of everything in here about left neglect was fascinating.
The Geography of You and Me Jennifer E. Smith
Silly, fun YA… but also a bit of a downer for some of it? This was another one where I did enjoy the reading, and I was more or less motivated to finish the story, but it didn’t wow me in the slightest. Maybe it was the improbability of a teenage romance lasting too much past the last page, but I’ve read plenty of books where I didn’t mind that.
A Tangled Web Mercedes Lackey
Short 90-page adventure through Lackey’s vision of what Greek Mythology looks like in her 500 Kingdoms world. Picked for my need to finish a book that day– and it was perfect for that. Not as good as the first two or three books in the 500 Kingdoms series, but significantly better than the final three.
Non-fiction
Bird by Bird Anne Lamott
I devoured the first few chapters of this right when I bought it several months ago, but once it became more focused on fiction it became a bit-by-bit book for me, since I don’t really write fiction. It took ages to finish, but was completely worth it: even the things that didn’t apply much to me were good. But if you’re also not a fiction writer, and don’t much care to read about it, the beginning and end are particularly great.
How To Be a Woman Caitlin Moran
I have absolutely no idea how to review this. The first who chapters feel quite a bit crass, but only so much in that we don’t really like talking about going through puberty all that much! It might not be for everyone, especially in my usual circles, but it was so worth it for me, particularly the later bits more specifically on feminism. Perhaps the most true thing I can tell you is that I carried this around at all times and finished it in under two days.
Jenna Kristine 