2014 in Books

Back in 2013 I read 16 new books. One of my New Year's resolutions for 2014 was to read more than that. I managed to read 24 books this past year. TWENTY FOUR. That's so many books! It's the most I've ever read in a year - ever.  I actually attempted 27 but there were three I just couldn't get through. 

Winter's Tale - Ugh. Just watch the movie.

In Zanesville - NOTHING happened. 

Someday, Someday Maybe - Characters were uninteresting. 

So here's the full list of all of the books I read and what I thought about each one. I also added a favorite quote or two. I love being able to go back through them all on my Kindle and looking at parts I highlighted for whatever reason. Kindles are the shit. My favorite book of the year? I have two - number 18 and number 21. Hands down those were my favorite even though 95% of these books were awesome in different ways.

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1. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell - Cath and Wren are twin sisters who have always enjoyed writing fan fiction together but now that they are in college things change in a big way. It's a great story of finding their individuality while holding onto their sisterly bond.

"To really be a nerd, she'd decided, you had to prefer fictional worlds to the real one."

2. Allegiant by Veronica Roth - I haven't been impressed with the third books in all of these female-hero-dystopian society (ahem Mockingjay and Requiem) stories and this one is no different.  It's entertaining enough but it wasn't anything extraordinary. I do applaud the twist at the end. I didn't see that coming. I really didn't.

"Or maybe forgiveness is just the continual pushing aside of bitter memories , until time dulls the hurt and the anger, and the wrong is forgotten."

 


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3. A Really Awesome Mess by Trish Cook - Justin and Emmy meet at reform school, Heartland Academy, where all the kids have some pretty big issues to deal with. It's hilarious and heart-warming journey of friendship and recovery.

"When we don't directly ask for clarification, we tend to fill in the gaps with negative thoughts."


4. MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search For A New Best Friend by Rachel Bertsche - Rachel realizes after getting married and moving to Chicago that she doesn't have any local BFFs so she sets out on 52 friend-dates (one a week for a year). I love all the stories and awkward meet ups mixed in with facts and research she's compiled from other books. Making friends as an adult is HARD!

• "Research says female friendships are most at risk between ages 25 and 40, the career-building, child-rearing years."
• "There are four necessary behaviors to make a friendship stick. Self-disclosure, supportiveness, interaction, and positivity."
• "Finding a best friend is low probability for anyone. But you only need one or two to ward off loneliness."
• "I want someone with whom I can talk about the deep stuff-hopes and dreams and expectations and disappointments - and also the minutiae. Sometimes it takes talking about everything to get to the place where we can talk about nothing."

 

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5. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell - Lincoln gets paid to read everyone's email as per company policy. Beth and Jennifer email daily about their personal lives. It isn't too long before Lincoln starts falling for Beth, someone he works with but he's never even met.

"It doesn't seem like I should have been able to get to this life from my old one, like there aren't even roads between those two places."


6. Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah - A coming of age story that follows two best friends over a thirty year period.

• "As she punched in the familiar numbers, she wondered what she would say to her once-best friend after all these silent months, how she would start. I've had a bad week...my life is falling apart...or simply: I need you."
• "So now books were her only friends."
• "If there was one central lesson of her life, it was this: people leave. Parents. Lovers. Friends."

 

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7. Life Interrupted by Kristen Kehoe - Rachel spends the night with a boy she doesn't even know which leads to a baby. Now a senior in high school she realizes she's not over her first love.

• "Lives change every day. I'm living proof that one decision can alter the course of a person's life until they're so lost they have to sit down and find a different map."
• "But some parents don't, and won't ever, choose their children."

8. Notes From The Blender by Trish Cook - The story of death metal loving Declan and queen of cool Neilly who go from classmates to step-siblings practically over night.

 

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9. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - Amy goes missing on her fifth wedding anniversary. Naturally, her husband Nick is a suspect. This is so not the kind of book I usually read but I loved it. There's a twist in the middle and an even bigger one at the end. It's all kinds of dark and crazy!

• "Tampon commercial, detergent commercial, maxipad commercial, Windex commercial. You'd think all women do is clean and bleed."
• "There is an unfair responsibility that comes with being an only child-you grow up knowing you aren't allowed to disappoint, you're not even allowed to die. There isn't a replacement toddling around; you're it. It makes you desperate to be flawless, and it also makes you drunk with the power."
• "Friends see most of each other's flaws. Spouses see every awful last bit."

10. Panic by Lauren Oliver - Panic is a game played by graduating seniors where the challenges are crazy and the award even crazier. It's a story of friendship and pushing past your fears.

• "No one should be allowed to be happy when you were so miserable - especially not your best friends. It should be law."
• "She knew that this day, this feeling, couldn't last forever. Everything passed; that was partly why it was so beautiful. Things would get difficult again. But that was okay too. 

 

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11. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green - Colin has been dumped nineteen times by girls all named Katherine. K-19 broke his heart so he and his best friend Hassan go on a road trip. This is by far my least favorite John Green book. Colin and Hassan were annoying. It was just kind of bland.

• "To Colin, tampons were a little bit like grizzly bears: he was aware of their existence, but he'd never seen one in the wild, and didn't really care to."
• He liked the idea of coffee quite a lot - a warm drink that gave you energy and had been for centuries associated with sophisticates and intellectuals. But coffee itself tasted to him like caffeinated stomach bile."
• "But you can never love people as much as you can miss them."

12. I Like You Just the Way I Am: Stories About Me and Some Other People by Jenny Mollen - I've been a fan of Jenny's for awhile following her on Twitter and Instagram. She's married to Jason Biggs but she is so much more than that. She's incredibly funny, equally inappropriate, and completely crazy. Her book was even more so.

 

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13. The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider - Ezra is one of the cool kids until a tragic accident breaks him both physically and mentally. A lot of this book is typical high school drama and frustration but I feel things really wrapped up in the end in the most heart-breaking way.

"We move through each other's lives like ghosts, leaving behind haunting memories of people who never existed."


14. A Land Remembered by Patrick Smith - A story about three generations of MacIvey's that live in Florida. The book starts in 1858 and ends in 1968. The story is great but what I loved most about it was all the Florida history and geography.

• "Mister, there ain't no water in Florida without gators, less you got a tub of it in your house."
• "All I'm trying to tell you is to be strong. Don't ever let nothing get you down. Don't be afraid or ashamed to love, or to grieve when the thing you love is gone."

 

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15. Landline by Rainbow Rowell - Georgie's marriage is in trouble and she knows it. Her husband and kids go to Omaha for Christmas while she stays behind to work. She soon finds her old phone and realizes she is communicating with her husband in the past.

• "The true meaning of Christmas isn't presents anyway, it's Jesus. But not for us, because we're not religious. The true meaning of Christmas for us is just family."
• "Georgie was pretty sure that having kids was the worst thing you could do to a marriage. Sure, you could survive it. You could survive a giant boulder falling on your head - that doesn't mean it was good for you. Kids took a fathomless amount of time and energy...And they took it first."

16. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle - There are so many classics that I've never read or maybe have but never paid attention to. I had always heard how great this book was so I thought I'd finally give it a shot. There were parts I found very interesting (time and space!) and entertaining (foreign planets and beasts!). I hated Charles Wallace aka the creepiest 5 year old of all time. Overall I think the book is overrated although there were certainly some great parts.

"Don't hope it was a dream. I don't understand it any more than you do, but one thing I've learned is that you don't have to understand things for them to be."

 

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17. If I Stay by Gayle Forman - This book had one of the most heart breaking beginnings ever. I enjoyed the concept but it had a predictable outcome.

• "Mom was very pro-choice. She had a bumper sticker on the car that read if you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child? But in her case the choice was to keep me."
• "Sometimes you make choices in life and sometimes choices make you."

18. On the Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves - This was hands down my favorite book I read this year. A 30 year old teacher agrees to tutor a 16 year old boy for the summer at his family's rental in the Maldives. The two travel together to meet the rest of his family when their small plane goes down in the ocean. It's got a Castaway/LOST feel but it's completely it's own story. It was just so perfect!

 

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19. Uncharted by Tracey Garvis-Graves - This is the follow up Novella to On the Island. It's basically just a short story about some people and mysteries of the island that Anna and T.J. encountered when they lived there. It was nice to go back to the island. WE HAVE TO GO BACK!

20. A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby - Four strangers all go to the same rooftop on New Year's Eve in London to kill themselves. They decide to make a pact to hold off until Valentine's Day. Overall I liked it but there were some bits of internal dialogue that dragged on too much. I will admit I enjoyed the movie a lot more which is rare for me.

• "Waiting to die seems like it might be a part of being alive."
• "How do people, like, not curse? How is it possible? There are all these gaps in speech where you have to put a "fuck."
• "Family's like, I don't know. Gravity. Stronger at times than others."

 

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21. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes - My second favorite book I read this year! Lou loses her job at a tea shop and finds new employment at the Traynor's house caring for Will, who is paralyzed. They have nothing in common and have a very difficult start but then they go on this incredible journey together. This is a hard one to put into words but it's truly a wonderful story. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed some more.

22. The Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes - It's 1946 and 650 women board an aircraft carrier full of 1,000 naval officers in Sydney, Australia headed to England to be reunited with the men they married during the war. This story follows four of those girls. It was a good book even though it started very very slow. I loved the history of it and the friendship.

 

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23. Tell the Wolves I'm Home by  Carol Rifka Brunt - June is a 14 year old girl who has a deep bond with her uncle who ends up dying of AIDS in the beginning of the book. The book follows June's journey over the next few months after his death.

• "I don't like to overhear things, because, in my experience, things your parents are keeping quiet about are things you don't want to know."

24. Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham - I wasn't dying to read this book like most girls. I've said it before but I'll say it again, I think Lena is awesome in a million different ways but I'm just not obsessed with her like everyone else is. I love her honesty but sometimes it feels like she's trying too hard to shock us all. I actually enjoyed a lot of the book but there were parts that made me cringe. It started pretty good but by the middle it started to fall flat. I thought there would be more about her show GIRLS. I thought there would be more about her relationship with Jack. I don't know. I just thought it would be something different. I did like it better than I thought I would so there's that.

• "When someone shows you how little you mean to them and you keep coming back for more, before you know it you start to mean less to yourself."
• "Life is long, people change, I would never be foolish enough to think otherwise. But no matter what, nothing can ever be as it was. Everything has changed in a way that sounds trite and borderline offensive when recounted over coffee. I can never be who I was. I can simply watch her with sympathy, understanding, and some measure of awe. "
• "I know when I look back ,it will be women that I regret having argued with, women I sought to impress, to understand, was tortured by. Women I wish to see again, to see them smile and laugh and say, It was all as it should have been."