Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

52/52 as of 12/17/18

FINALLY FINISHED!

I'm jumping in with the rest of you! Last year I skipped it, but in 2016 I really enjoyed it.
AND I have successfully bookmarked this post :-)


A � shows completed.


� 1. A book with the letters A, T & Y in the title - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
� 2. A book from the first 10 books added to your To Be Read list - Soldier of the Mist
âˆ� 3. A book from the 2017 Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Choice Awards - Provenance
� 4. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #1 Earth (in title, cover, content, setting, author...) - The Good Earth
� 5. A book about or inspired by real events - An Extraordinary Union
� 6. A book originally written in a language other than English - The Bat
� 7. A gothic novel - The English Wife
� 8. An "own voices" book - Sing, Unburied, Sing
� 9. A book with a body part in the title (heart, bones, teeth, skin, blood, etc) - Fingersmith
� 10. An author's debut book (their first book to be published) - The Wolves of Winter
� 11. A literary fiction - The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
� 12. A book set in Africa or South America - Home
� 13. A book with a plot centered around a secret (forbidden love, spies, secret societies, etc) - Dangerous Girls
� 14. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #2 Fire - Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House
� 15. A book with an unique format/writing structure - The Invention of Hugo Cabret
� 16. A narrative nonfiction - Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America
� 17. A book you expect to make you laugh - Fade Away
� 18. A book with a location in the title - A Rage in Harlem
� 19. A book nominated for the Edgar Award or by a Grand master author (books & authors) - The Long Fall
� 20. A book rated 5 stars by at least one of your friends - Arbitrary Stupid Goal
� 21. A book written in first person perspective - The One
� 22. A book you have high expectations or hope for - Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters
� 23. A medical or legal thriller - The Firm
� 24. A book with a map - Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, Book 1
� 25. A book with an antagonist/villain point of view - Hidden Bodies
� 26. A book with a text only cover - The Mother of All Questions
� 27. A book about surviving a hardship (war, famine, major disasters, serious illness, etc) - The Alice Network
� 28. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #3 Water - Freshwater
� 29. A book with a "Clue" weapon on the cover or title (dagger) - A Reaper at the Gates
� 30. A short book - The Rag and Bone Shop
� 31. A book set in a country you'd like to visit but have never been to - Broken Harbor
� 32. An alternate history book - Dread Nation
� 33. A book connected (title, cover, content) to a word "born" in the same year as you (link) (1967: "antisocial personality disorder") - Darkly Dreaming Dexter
� 34. A suggestion from the AtY 2018 polls, that didn't win but was polarizing or a close-call (link) - graphic novel: Descender, Vol. 1: Tin Stars, Descender, Vol. 2: Machine Moon
� 35. A book featuring a murder - The Long Fall
� 36. A book published in the last 3 years (2016, 2017, 2018) by an author you haven't read before - Good Morning, Midnight
� 37. A Women's Prize for Fiction winner or nominee (link1, link2) - The Power
� 38. A science book or a science fiction book - The Robots of Dawn
� 39. A book with a form of punctuation in the title - The Singer's Gun
� 40. A book from Amazon's 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime list - Angela's Ashes
� 41. A book by an author with the same first and last initials - On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
� 42. A book that takes place on, in, or underwater - Treasure Island
� 43. A book with a title that is a whole sentence - The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break
� 44. A ghost story - The Broken Girls
� 45. A book that intimidates/ scares you - Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End
� 46. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #4 Air - The Sky Is Yours
� 47. A book where the main character (or author) is of a different ethnic origin, religion, or sexual identity than your own - A Brief History of Seven Killings
� 48. A book related to one of the 7 deadly sins (lust) - Not Quite a Lady
âˆ� 49. A book from one of the Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Best Books of the Month lists (link) - Behold the Dreamers
� 50. A book with a warm atmosphere (centered on family, friendship, love or summer) - Cocoa Beach
� 51. An award-winning short story or short story collection - Love is the Plan and the Plan is Death by James Tiptree Jr.
� 52. A book published in 2018 - Brass

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Recommendation: to access your plan easily, add a link to it in your profile. So you'll just need to click on your profile picture to find it:
Add this (without the "*") to your profile (edit profile> about me):
<*a* href=" Plan<*/a*>

I finished We Have Always Lived in the Castle last week and really enjoyed it. Have fun with your 2018 challenge :)

Zaz wrote: "Recommendation: to access your plan easily, add a link to it in your profile. So you'll just need to click on your profile picture to find it:
Add this (without the "*") to your profile (edit profi..."

Thanks for that tip!

Hooray for jumping in! I just finished The Alice Network and really enjoyed it. And I never get my plan ironed out at the beginning; it's a work in progress!

First month update!

I'm going to try to update my progress every few weeks. As of 1/28/18, weeks 1 through 4, I've read 8 book for the Challenge, and every one of them was unplanned. I'm 8/52.

Provenance by Ann Leckie was a book I'd put on hold at my library at the end of 2017 (because I love the author) and then sort of forgot about. My hold came in and I read the book and I was great! I was happy to note that it was also a winner of a 2017 GR choice award, a category I'd been of iffy on.

Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas was a book I'd checked out of the library in late 2017, didn't get around to reading until early 2018. It involves multiple secrets around who murdered a girl, why, and what secrets drove them to murder. So I checked off "plot centered on a secret."

The One by Kiera Cassfinished a series I'd started last year (The Selection series). It was just okay - very much a YA book. It was also written in 1st person. Check!

I read The Rag and Bone Shop by Robert Cormier because my daughter was reading it for English class, and I wanted to try to keep up with her. I did not care for it, but at least it was a short book. Check!

I read Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson for the Popsugar change (children's classic) and I was surprised to find out that it takes place mostly on board ship at sea, so I also checked off "a book that takes place on water." I wasn't crazy about it.

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James was an audiobook I'd started listening to in December. I had no intention of using it for a reading challenge, but it was such a long book and demanded so much from me and left me emotionally wrung out in the end, I felt I'd put enough of myself into it during 2018 that I could justify it. I checked off "main character is a different ethnicity."

Love in the Plan, the Plan is Death by James Tiptree Jr. is a short story I read for Popsugar's "male pseudonym" category. (It doesn't have its own listing on GR.) When I saw that it won multiple awards, I also checked off "award-winning short story." (I'll probably still read the other short stories I had pencilled in for this. They are short, after all!)

The Bat by Jo Nesbø is Nordic noir that was translated into English. I enjoyed this book, because I really like Harry Hole (this is the first book in the Harry Hole series, but not the first Harry Hole book I've read ... because they have been translated into English out of order, so I started in the middle a few years ago).

Nadine, I’ve got several Harry Hole books on my bookshelf and my kindle. Based on your experience with the series, is it necessary to read them in series order?

I read Nemesis first and I don't think I lost much by reading out of order, so I don't think it's necessary with this series. I liked Nemesis enough that I knew I wanted to read ALL the other books, and I might as well do that in order!

Second month update

As of 3/2/18, weeks 5 through part of 9, I am 24/52. Most of these books were read "just because" and only once I started reading them did I realize they fit a category here. That's not usually how I do things!

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn - I learned about this book last year, when many read it for "book of letters" for the Popsugar challenge. Everyone raved about it, so I had high expectations. This book was a very fast read, and a lot funnier than I expected.

Brass - a debut novel by Xhenet Aliu, just published a few weeks ago. I had high expectations, because that cover drew me in and I'm one of those fools who judges books by their covers, and I was very disappointed by this book. It's bleak. I'm using this one for published in 2018.

Arbitrary Stupid Goal by Tamara Shopsin - this was rated 5 stars by a Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ friend. I was disappointed in the writing style, and did NOT give it 5 stars! Maybe you need to live in NYC to really appreciate this one.

The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit - This was SO GOOD. I checked off text-only cover. 5 stars.

The Wolves of Winter by Tyrell Johnson - this was a fun adventure/dystopian story, but not as meaty as I expected, and the title never made sense. Still, I enjoyed reading it, so I gave it 4 stars. This was a debut book.

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn - this was my surviving hardship book, it would also work for "based on a real events" because it is set during WWI, several of the major supporting characters were real people, and the details in this book are accurate. (So don't google them or you'll be spoiled for some of the plot!), and it would work for "recent book from a new-to-you author" (and the book I used for that category would also work for this category!) This was pretty good but not amazing.

Fade Away by Harlan Coben - third book in the Myron Bolitar series. For anyone who likes audiobooks and somewhat dark, sarcastic humor, I recommend this mystery series, audiobooks read by Jonathan Marosz. I don't usually laugh much at books, but these books always make me laugh. (and they are good mysteries!)

Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton - for recent book by a new-to-me author, this would also work for "debut" or "surviving hardship" - this book was beautifully written, but the ending was deeply disappointing.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - a modern classic from Maya Angelou that I've never read, I read this for Black History Month, and I'm using it for letters A,T,Y in the title. I generally don't love "coming of age" stories, and this was no exception. But I'm glad I read it!

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden - the last, posthumous book from Denis Johnson - he was a genius and I am so sad that he is gone. I absolutely loved this collection of short stories, the audiobook was fantastic, but this isn't for everyone. I think you either love Johnson or you don't. This is literary fiction.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward - I had been really looking forward to reading this, my first book by Ward, because she's gotten so much praise. It was really well-written, effortlessly submersive (is that a word?), but it's also magical realism, which I wasn't expecting, and which I don't like. So, I loved the writing but not this book! I'll definitely read more from this author. I read this for Black History Month, and it was also an own voices book.

Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy - narrative nonfiction - non-fiction that reads like a novel! Leovy has an agenda, and she's not shy about pushing it (and I'm not 100% sure I agree), but the story was so riveting that I was able to look past that. If you like police procedurals, I recommend this.

Descender, Vol. 1: Tin Stars & Descender, Vol. 2: Machine Moon by Jeff Lemire & Dustin Nguyen - gorgeous graphic novels - vol 2 didn't blow me away like the first volume, because I knew what to expect, but I still really enjoyed it. I've decided to use this series to check off rejected category: graphic novel.

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff - this was the first "celebrity tell-all" book I've ever read, and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I thought it might be gossipy and boring. It IS gossipy, but also surprisingly entertaining. Bonus: the title has FIRE in it! I wasn't sure what I was going to read for the "elements" books, and I guess I'm going to read books w/ the element word in the title.

The Long Fall by Walter Mosley - not one of my favorite Mosley mysteries. I probably won't continue this series. This book, like just about all Mosley's mysteries, involves a few murders.

Home by Nnedi Okorafor - book #2 in the "Binti" series - I'm very "meh" on this whole series, but it's got some good stuff going for it so I'll definitely be reading the third book. This volume was set in Africa.

Black History Month reads!

February was Black History Month in the USA, and I made a special point to read lots of books from black authors (mostly American). I would have read these books anyway, but reading them all together like this added an extra sort of power to my reading experience, I really enjoyed that, and I'm going to make a point to read a lot of women authors for March, Women's History Month.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Home by Nnedi Okorafor
The Long Fall by Walter Mosley

and I am still currently reading:
Undersong: Chosen Poems Old and New by Audre Lorde
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole

Great reading, Nadine! I like reading your short reviews of the books. I was debating about Brass also. I'll probably read it if the book just shows up in front of my face when I'm browsing at the library!

Nice Black History reads. I plan to read White Teeth later this year for a "text-only cover."

White Teeth was actually a DNF for me. I had heard SO MANY good things about it, but this book just was not for me! It has a certain type of parodying type of humor that just doesn't work for me. I ended up skimming through most of it rather than really reading it, so I counted it as DNF.

Month 3 update:

As of 3/30/18, I am 30/52.

An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole - a great historical romance (if you like that sort of thing, and I do) set during the Civil War, the heroine is a freewoman who goes deep undercover as a slave for a Virginia Senator to gather info on Confederate troop movements and feed information back to President Lincoln. The romance is fictional, and the names are changed, but the main characters are all based on real people (to my amazement) during the US Civil War so I ended up using this for based on real events.

The Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov - book #3 in the "Robots" series - I was really disappointed in how sexist these books are, the first few I dismissed it since they were published in the 50s, but this book was published in 1983 and he should have done better. I'm reconsidering my plan to read / re-read all of Asimov's Robot/Empire/Foundation books. (But I will be reading the next Robot books, because it was a best seller the year I graduated high school!) I had really admired Asimov as a person, but I think my vision was not clear. Anyway, this book was solidly science fiction, so I checked that box.

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi - this was a very weird book, and I loved it! I didn't plan for this to be a Challenge read, it just looked interesting, but since the title contains the word "water" I used this for one of the four elements: water. (This year over 50% of my challenge reads have been unplanned, which is very unusual for me!).

Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes � this was really good, but not quite as good as her first book, You. I used this for villain POV (If Joe can count as a villain, and I posit that a serial killer CAN count as the villain, even if you like him.)

The Power by Naomi Alderman - This was bizarre and uncomfortable but also entertaining; I used this for Baileys Women's Prize.

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers which obviously features a murder - every year I try to read a handful of books from the 1001 list, and this was one of them, and I hated it. I'm never reading another book by Sayers, if I can help it.


Also, for March, I kept track of books that are for Women's History Month.

Books about women, books by women, it's all good:

Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story - this was really great, and perfect for WHM! (After I posted my review, the author "liked" it, which always kind of freaks me out, because I had good things to say, but I also had some criticisms, and I hope she wasn't upset to read that.)

The Power - I thought this was really dark but also a really fun twist on the usual gender power dynamics. There were a few plot points that I thought stretched the bounds of credulity, (view spoiler)[in particular, I thought it was unbelievable that ALL women would suddenly band together against the men (hide spoiler)], and the plot didn't go where I thought it was going to go. Alderman kind of hits the reader over the head w/ her sledgehammer a bunch of times. But I'm glad I read it and I look forward to seeing what else she writes.

The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars - another book that is perfect for WHM, since it is a part of women's history in the sciences. I didn't love this book, though - I recommend it only for people who want to read EVERYTHING about the history of Harvard.

Last Will - not really about women or women's history, but it's written by a woman! Bryn Greenwood has become one of my favorite authors.

The Wedding Date - I'd meant to read this for BHM but my library hold didn't come in until now, so I figure a romance is generally considered "women's writing" and it counts for WHM too. This was a lot of fun. I recommend it to all romance fans.

So You Want to Talk About Race - more about race than gender, but the author is a black woman and she talks about all her identities through the book.

Superwoman, Volume 1: Who Killed Superwoman? - this was a very woman-centric superhero comic! The "good guys" were women, the "bad guy" was a woman, the minions were women, the "maker of cool techie stuff" was a woman, the magician, the computer hacker, the cop, etc etc .. all women. I have to wonder if this is why it gets so many one star reviews.

The Kingdom of Gods by N.K. Jemisin

I've thought of reading An Extraordinary Union. Glad to hear you liked it. I do like historical romance.

I read Gaudy Night by Sayers and enjoyed it.

Kathy wrote: "I've thought of reading An Extraordinary Union. Glad to hear you liked it. I do like historical romance.

I read Gaudy Night by Sayers and enjoyed it."


I highly recommend Alyssa Cole to all romance fans! Plus, it was a nice change for me; most of the historicals I read are regencies set in England, and it was nice to read a good one set in the US. I haven't read any of her contemporaries, but I definitely will!

For now, I've sworn off Sayers. As soon as I get through the 1300+ books on my TBR list, I'll reconsider ... So many books, so little time!!

I've read Sayers' Whose Body? and I liked it a lot, but I've been warned that her books are a bit of a mixed bag. It's made me hesitant to read other books by her, even though I enjoyed Whose Body.

April update

As of 4/28/18, I am 36/52.

The Sky Is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith - this was very weird and different and I loved it. Five surprised stars! It's a semi-dystopian, set in a possible future NYC (called "Empire Island"), the city is mostly abandoned because two mysterious dragons keep circling in the sky above, burning parts of the city. (Don't read it for the dragons, though - it's more about the people.) I've decided to choose my "four elements" books by the titles, and since the sky is full of air, this one counts for "four elements: air."

Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, Book 1 graphic novel written by Ta-Nehisi Coates - I needed something to read while I was eating lunch one day, so I downloaded this via hoopla because I had loved the movie and wanted to see what Coates did with the character. Well ... what he does is create a hot mess. I was completely confused, and I doubt I'll read more in the series. I'm using this for book with a map, so even though I didn't like it, at least it fulfilled a challenge category.

Broken Harbor by Tana French - this is the fourth book in French's Dublin Murder Squad series. I love Tana French's writing, and I was completely riveted by this, but when compared to the other three books, this is not as great (IMO!). I probably would've rated it higher if I didn't have such high expectations. I used this for set in a country you would like to visit.

On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta - a disappointment! I've read SO MANY rave reviews for this over the years. I was so let down. Admittedly I am not the target audience, though. This is YA that should be read only by a YA reader. (Coincidentally, this book mentions a serial killer in the woods a few hours outside Melbourne, and the book I read right after - Force of Nature- also mentions a serial killer in the woods a few hours out of Melbourne. Does this area have a reputation for serial killers???). This fulfilled author with same first & last initials.

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James - this was okay, not as good as I expected. I used this for ghost story. (And I'm kind of wishing I had read it RIGHT AFTER "Broken Harbor" and right before "The Shining Girls," which is on deck right now, so I could have a chain-of-title-words!)

The Singer's Gun by Emily St. John Mandel - this was SO GOOD!! Five stars! The only reason I wanted to read it was because I had loved Station Eleven so much; other than that, I really didn't know what it was about, nor what to expect. If I tried to describe it, it probably wouldn't sound like much. This story unfolded slowly, transforming from a rather mundane bud into a surprisingly complex and poignant flower. This book would work for both punctuation in the title and Clue weapon in the title. Right now I'm using it for "punctuation" but I might shift things around depending on what I read in the next few months.

For May, I read some books for Asian and Pacific Islander American Heritage month:

I chose books by Asian American authors in several genres. I discovered some new-to-me authors that I love and, enjoyed another romance from an author I already liked, and ... really did not like my other choices. I DNF'ed two of them.

poetry - I LOVED both of these!!:
Engine Empire: Poems by Cathy Park Hong
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen (I'm still currently reading this, and I'm enjoying it so much that I added it to my Amazon shopping cart to buy my own copy)

romance - a hit and a miss
Trade Me by Courtney Milan - fun and mindless entertainment
The Year of the Crocodile by Courtney Milan - a freebie short included with the "Trade Me" e-book. Ugh. I should not have bothered with this.

sci-fi
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee - NOPE! not for me. If you like your sci-fi confusing and militaristic, this is for YOU! It's new and fresh and inventive, but I DNF'ed.

literary
The Leavers by Lisa Ko - this was my audiobook. I hated this, it was relentlessly negative, I hated everyone in the story, and I DNF'ed halfway through, when another audiobook hold came in.

On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee - I finished it a little late to count for May, but ... counting it anyway! I loved this book. This is so subtle, and slightly odd, and eerie, and fascinating.

graphic novel
Boxers & Saints by Gene Luen Yang - this was SO disappointing! I loved "American Born Chinese" so I had high expectations, but this was just Christian propaganda about how persecuted the poor Christian missionaries were during the Boxer Rebellion.

May Update

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters - I've been meaning to read this book for a few years now, this year I put it on my list of books I HAVE to read this year; it's also on the 1001 list. I don't generally read or enjoy slow, wordy, Victorian-esque books like this, but this one grabbed me quite by surprise. 5 stars. I used this for body part in the title.

Not Quite a Lady - historical romance by the wonderful Loretta Chase - this was a delight! I checked off one of the seven deadly sins (lust).

Cocoa Beach by Beatriz Williams - this was entertaining but uneven. I checked off warm atmosphere (it doesn't get any warmer than the beach in Florida in June, right?!) Of course this turned out to be a bit of a hard-boiled mystery/suspense story, so it wasn't a warm family saga that I think was intended by the Challenge. Oh well!

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick - another book that has been endlessly hyped, and I was so disappointed. I feel like the kid in this story when he thought he'd been handed back his book but opened the package to find a handful of ashes. This is it? This is all? Why did everyone rave about this? I read this for unusual format, but even that feels disappointing, since the format wasn't all that "unusual." It's just a really long picture book.

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland - I LOVED this book!! Civil War zombies! badass zombie-killing black girls!! Yes, more like this, please!! I stayed up way too late to finish this. Now I have all the No-More-Book feels. I used this for alternate history.

Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End by Manel Loureiro - another zombie book but ugh SO disappointing. Why does this get so many great reviews? The writing was clunky and the story was ho-hum AND problematic. 1 star. I expected this to be scary, so I used it for book that intimidates or scares you ... even thought it did not end up scaring me.

The English Wife by Lauren Willig - a sort of genre-blender from Willig, it's historical fiction and a murder mystery and a romance and a dual-timeline (tho the timelines are only four years apart) and a gothic. I really enjoyed it and gave it five stars, but it gets mixed reviews. I did not intend for this to be a Challenge book, but once I finished it, I agreed with the back-cover blurbs: this is a gothic novel.

So 100% agree with you on Hugo Cabret. Interesting premise, but basically just a long picture book, and not an especially fascinating read.

I have been looking for a body part book ever since I found out that my library doesn't have one of the ones I chose! I'm going to check out Fingersmith!

Jackie wrote: "So 100% agree with you on Hugo Cabret. Interesting premise, but basically just a long picture book, and not an especially fascinating read."

I had heard such great things about that book!!! I thought it was going to be really mind-blowing, with pop-up pages and reversed pages and an intriguing tale. (I don't know where I got the idea that some pages would be pop-up pages, but I was definitely expecting that.) Nope. I read a lot of graphic novels and picture books, so I guess I wasn't the target audience to be dazzled. I didn't even think the art was extraordinary - it was good, certainly, but almost all picture books have good art of one sort or another.

Tammy wrote: "I have been looking for a body part book ever since I found out that my library doesn't have one of the ones I chose! I'm going to check out Fingersmith!"

Excellent! Enjoy!! It's not my usual kind of read, but it was wonderful - there's a reason it's already considered a modern classic.

ETA: it's a good choice for Pride Month, too!

June update

as of 7/7/18, I am 50/52!! only two books left!!

The Firm by John Grisham - oy! this book! I needed to read a medical or legal thriller, and while I read lots of thrillers, I'd never read a medical or legal thriller. I assumed I would enjoy it. I researched, browsed lists, and picked one of the most popular books I saw. Hah! This book sucks! It's so clunky and boring. ("Boring" is just the Cardinal Sin of thrillers!) This was my first Grisham and will also be my last.

The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break by Steven Sherrill - I had high expectations and they were DASHED. Sherrill is one of those authors who is incapable of writing women as individuals, they are all just objects for the men in the story to interact with.(actually a lot of the men in this story are just objects for the Minotaur to react to, also, so maybe he's just not a great writer.) I used this for title is a full sentence.

A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes - five stars! How did I live so many years without reading a Chester Himes?! I used this for location in the title.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay - I listened to the audiobook, read by the author, and he does a decent job. This was not perfect, but it was more fun than I thought it would be, and I'm interested enough to add the second book in the series to my TBR list. I'm using this for book based on a word "born" in your birth year (anti-social personality disorder).

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck - This felt like an obvious choice for the four elements: earth. I like to sprinkle my year with a few classics, they tend to have more "gravitas" than the other books I read, so in that sense I'm glad I read this. But, I didn't really like it.

A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir (book #3 in her "Ember in the Ashes" series) - just finished last night! The last 150 pages were excellent! The rest of the book, not so much. Laia is holding a dagger on the cover, so I'm using this for Clue weapon on the cover.
(And I actually finished this book in July but ... it's July 7th now ... so ... here it is!)

Books I read for Pride Month (June)

poetry:
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen - 5 stars!! I was so impressed by this young man!! For a long time I had stopped reading poetry, and I was out of touch with the current writers, so it's been very exciting for me to discover today's new poets. I was originally planning to use this book for "title is a full sentence," but I finished Minotaur first and used that instead. Chen Chen is a Chinese immigrant and a gay man, and he touches on that in many of his poems (including one poem where he addresses an acquaintance who complains that "all" of his poems are about being gay or Chinese.)

mystery/thriller
What You Want To See by Kristen Lepionka - this is Lepionka's second book (both in the "Roxane Weary" detective series) and it is just as good as her first. 5 stars!! I'm sold and I'm going to read every book Lepionka publishes for the rest of my life. Roxane Weary is bisexual, with on-again/off-again relationships with both Tom and Catherine.

literary fiction
Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta - this is pretty much the "growing up lesbian in Nigeria in the 70s" book. I didn't really love it.

F/SF
Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente - Snow appears to be a lesbian in this fairy tale retelling. This had a lot of potential, but it's a novella, and I wanted the story and characters to be more developed than they were.

YA
Pink by Lili Wilkinson - this book was not on my radar at all, but I wanted to read a YA lesbian story for Pride Month, I found this, and I LOVED it!!! Wilkinson is Australian and for some reason most of her books are not readily available here in the US (at least, they are not available in my library).