Here we go, all the rest of the books I read in 2016.
The Next Thing On My List by Jill Smolinski: I found this book in one of those little free libraries if I remember right. The book struck me because it features a main character who has shown up in my recent novels: young women who are bumbling through adulthood because they have no idea what to do with their lives. (Sound familiar, self?) This book tells the story of a young woman who sets out to complete someone else’s to-do list. A couple of items are already crossed off, but the other items consist of things ranging from brave (go braless) to confusing (make Buddy Fitch pay… who is he?). While the story was a fun light read, some of the character development was way off. The main character acts about ten years younger than her age, and some of the romantic elements come from out of left field with little previous development. (3 out of 5 lists)
The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help by Amanda Palmer: I listened to this book, and if you read this book, I recommend you do the same; the author herself reads the book, and there’s plenty of her own music between sections. This book reads more like a personal memoir than the guide I was expecting. That’s not a bad thing; Palmer tells her own story of letting people help her in her career. The book isn’t perfect, but it does show us makers that we don’t have to do it all ourselves. (4 out of 5 fan interactions)
A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir: This is the second book in a series, and I loved the first book. I enjoyed this one as well, though it took awhile to get into (partly because I read the first book last year). I have only one request: More Helene, please! So… when does book three come out? (4 out of 5 run-ins with the Commandant)
Thomas Gray in Copenhagen: In Which the Philosopher Cat Meets the Ghost of Hans Christian Andersen by Philip J. Davis: I borrowed this book from one of my college math professors. The illustrations are adorable, but the story doesn’t quite hold up. There are oddities that come out of nowhere and bits that feel like a lecture rather than a story (and an oddly-placed one at that). As cute as the concept was, I wasn’t a big fan. (3 out of 5 philosopher cats)
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks: I’ve been meaning to read this for years, and it has sat on my shelf for several months. This book consists of a series of interviews with people involved in the zombie war. As a result, the book is divided into sections. Some characters reappear throughout the story, but it was hard to tell the characters apart even while figuring out which character was which. This and the fact that there isn’t really one big overarching story arc, just a bunch of little arcs that had a habit of ending unexpectedly, are my major complaints about the book. That said, I did enjoy the individual stories, even if they didn’t fit together as well as I would have liked. (3 out of 5 interviews)
Make Way For Dragons! by Thorarinn Gunnarsson: I picked this book up for its ridiculous cover, which turned out to be misleading. The female character described as blonde is a secondary character, there are no skateboards, cats are only mentioned in passing, and much of the book takes place in the mountainous parts of California. That said, I enjoyed reading the book. Sure, there are infodumps and there’s not much to make you care about the characters in the beginning, but once the main dragon character meets the main human character, it’s game on. (4 out of 5 dragons)
The King of Taksim Square by Emrah Serbes: I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway and I’ll be honest. I did not like this book. The plot meanders all over the place throughout the book, often jumping from one thing to another and barely holding my interest enough to make me continue. The main character barely has any redeeming traits, and even his love for his sister is, well, kind of creepy. The storyline about trying to make his sister Internet famous barely holds its own worth in the book, but the same can be said for much of the content. My first reaction upon finishing was “What on earth did I just read?” (2 out of 5 moonwalks)
The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow: I listened to this book. I took a probability theory course in college as part of my math major and found it frustrating thanks to not being able to tell if an answer was right; I worked many problems to discover a probability of, say, 0.26 when the answer was 0.28. This book felt like a very condensed version of my college probability class condensed in 250 pages, so if you’re looking for an entire book about randomness, this isn’t it. The reading does get dense at times, but not so dense that you want to give up; there are plenty of historical tidbits as well to keep you entertained along the way. (4 out of 5 coin tosses)
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand: Of all the books I expected to suck me in, I did not expect a horse biography to make me read all 400 pages in one day. The nonfiction work is paced and structured a lot like a novel despite being nonfiction, with well-developed characters that I actually cared about, a pace that made me unable to put the book down, and a buildup that continues throughout the entire book. Damn. (5 out of 5 races)
Hack: How I Stopped Worrying About What to Do with My Life and Started Driving a Yellow Cab by Melissa Plaut: Apparently this book is based on a blog, something I didn’t know until reaching the About the Author area at the end. Anyway, this book details the adventures of a young white woman driving a cab in New York City; those two years happened to come before GPS was in every vehicle ever, making the story even more interesting. The book mainly consists of short tales, in part because it did start out as a blog. There are heartwarming moments and moments when I wanted to smack the passengers. While this book has received some mixed reviews, I enjoyed it, even if it wasn’t as deep as it could have been. (4 out of 5 yellow cars)
Why Does Popcorn Pop? by Don Voorhees: This book is just a bunch of trivia bits about food, and I’m okay with this. While some of the trivia bits were more interesting than others, and I really wish there was more on the actual food chemistry, this book did scratch my itch in the food trivia field. And let’s be honest, it helped me clear out my physical to-read pile too. (4 out of 5 kernels)
Time Station London by David Evans: I like the premise of time travelers trying to make sure things like Germans winning World War 2 doesn’t happen, although it’s been done before. Unfortunately, this book doesn’t bring much to the table. While the plot was interesting enough and having a Native American main character (whose main plot wasn’t about being Native American) was pretty neat, the characters weren’t very well fleshed out, and so much was going on at once that following along got really confusing at some points. I probably won’t seek out the rest of this series. (3 out of 5 time wardens)
Summer Knight by Jim Butcher: This is the fourth book in the Dresden Files series, and I enjoyed the first three. I was also told that the fourth book was when the series got really good, but this book didn’t do it for me. The plot and characterization was good, but there was a lot going on and I found myself really confused about what was happening in the second half of the book. (3 out of 5 faeries)
Emotional Rescue: Essays on Love, Loss, and Life–With a Soundtrack by Ben Greenman: I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway, and I’m having a hard time finding much good in this book. The concept could have worked out really well, but the book fell flat in just about every way. The essays feel like first drafts, like the author knew what he wants to say but was having a hard time tying everything together, so he just threw everything together and hoped for the best. Unfortunately this didn’t work out so well, and most of these essays are about his life with some tangentially related musical thing so he could say the essays were about music. (2 out of 5 music essays)
Death Masks by Jim Butcher: Okay, this is when the Dresden Files series starts getting good. Even though the beginning is a little hokey, the overall plot is strong and multifaceted, while still maintaining the action of the past series. It was also nice to see some of the characters from past books again. (4 out of 5 shrouds)
Blood Rites by Jim Butcher: This one feels a little deeper than the past books as we find out more about Dresden’s past as well as Murphy’s past, all while taking on a mystery brought on by Thomas. There’s just one thing I’m confused on. A porn set? Really? (4 out of 5 revelations)
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson: I listened to this book, which tells how innovation happens. I already knew a lot of the stories and how screwing up and cross-discipline discovery, and this book didn’t add all that much to my knowledge or a new way of looking at these things. (3 out of 5 innovations)
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: This book is so damn beautiful. The past and present are woven together seamlessly and made me want to know more about the entire family. Everyone’s hopes and desires are complex and make sense and the prose is so beautiful and touching that it had reduced me to tears over the last 20ish pages. (5 out of 5 unfulfilled dreams)
What’s next for 2017? I’m planning on finally starting the Discworld books in 2017, among many other things.