Reading Wrap-up 2014 (post one of n)

So it isn’t 2015 yet and I will likely read at least four more books before then, but I will also be holidaying and being miserable therein, so I’ll start the reviewing now, making adjustments as necessary. I usually have a few good books at the very end of the year, not necessarily because they were the best, but simply because I can remember them better. Equally, I might not get around to posting this until 2015, and then ignore earlier sentences please.

I am going to take my year end review questions from The Perpetual Page Turner. Some of the questions anyway.

Book Questions

01. Best Book You Read In 2014?

I had 29 five star books in 2014, and 19 four and a half star books. That’s hard to make a choice. Can I just put all of them in chart in no particular order? Who am I asking can I to? There’s no one here but me.

That’s a lot. Yeah, sorry about that.

02. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?

One of Meek’s other books, The People’s Act of Love, is a book I keep coming back to again and again. This one though, something like 500 pages and 300 of it is summary. I was sad I didn’t love it.

03. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read in 2014?

I got this book to review through netgalley (my review is here) because I love me some Guests of the Nation. But then I paled when I realised it was 700 pages long. That’s a lot of Irish short stories. I thought it would be a slog to get through. It wasn’t. It was magnificent!

04. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did) In 2014?

I mentioned this book to my sister-in-law and I think she read it. She sent me an email about her initial thoughts. Whether she finished it or not, I don’t know. I’m actually pretty good at buying books my mother or mother-in-law might like; I guess that’s my super power, not being a good writer or invisibility or anything. I did buy my mother-in-law a book for Christmas, but she hasn’t read it yet. Does it count as a recommendation when you buy someone a book? I bought my sisters books too, but some for Christmas so I’m not going to spoil the surprise here.

I read strangely though. I don’t have many IRL people around me with the same tastes, so I usually don’t recommend too much.

05. Best series you started in 2014? Best Sequel of 2014? Best Series Ender of 2014?

I don’t read too many adult series, since most series for adults tend to be fantasy, which I rarely enjoy, or boiler-plate mystery police procedurals and I haven’t enjoyed a mystery series since Denise Mina’s Garnethill trilogy (which I read 2, 1, 3 by accident, oops). I attempted the Deborah Harkness trilogy, read A Discovery of Witches in the summer. Hated it, so just read the plot synopses of the next two books on Wikipedia to save myself time. I guess I also read a bunch of The Walking Dead this summer too. Also disliked it. Maybe I am just not good at adult series.

But kid series! Tesfa and I read all of the Ramona books this summer. Then this fall, we read all of A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I’d put off reading because I thought they would be Harry Potter derivatives, and I don’t like Harry Potter that much. But they weren’t and I really enjoyed them and I really enjoyed Ramona again, so best series kids’ books FTW!

06. Favorite new author you discovered in 2014?

Lisa Bird-Wilson. I would like her to be my friend.

07. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?

I got this book in some Humble Bundle thing a while ago that had another book I actually wanted to read in it. But then I was going through my e-reader and reading alphabetically, and this was next. As I said when I finished it, if you can get past the fact that no one, ever, in their right mind, behaves the way these people behave, it’s not bad. Like my advice when people go to Japan for the first time: Just turn your brain off and accept it. The book is total camp, and I know it isn’t meant to be, and that my enjoyment of it is very schadenfreude-like, but such tomfoolery I don’t think you could do on purpose if you tried. Almost makes me want to read more space-opera.

08. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?

Man, this book stressed me out. It was like when I read Room and it got me all stressed out. I actually had to put An Untamed State away a few times because it was starting to give me panic attacks.

09. Book You Read In 2014 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year?

There’s a whole bunch of juvenile fiction I read to Tesfa this year that I’ll read again. Here’s a likely sampling:

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2014?

11. Most memorable character of 2014?

The Baudelaires in “>A Series of Unfortunate Events.

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2014?

13. Most Thought-Provoking/ Life-Changing Book of 2014?

I’m thinking of buying this book and reading it every January, just to remind myself to calm.

14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2014 to finally read?

I had some sort of block against this book, one because for some reason I thought it was called Oliver Kitteridge, which was apparently enough to put me right off, and the fact that it was American, and I often have real trouble with American books, set in America, but Americans, and the fact that all those What book should you read next recommendations always told me to read it. But it was at the library and finally I sucked it up and it’s actually a really great book. Sorry universe for ignoring you for so long re: Olive Kitteridge.

15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2014?

I know people do this, they write down sentences from books that inspire them. I try to but I don’t have a pen by my bed, so I often fold down a page and then completely forget about it and return the book to the library or onto the shelf. My most amusing attempt at saving-quotes-for-later occurred while reading The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making while high on prescription pain killers. There was a page that I was positive had the most life-changing quotation ever written on it. I folded the top corner, bottom corner, put a bookmark in, so I wouldn’t forget.

Once off the pain-killers, ooh my. Nothing on that page that I could tell was any more meaningful than anything else. I do recommend reading fantasy books while high though. It made it much more enjoyable.

16.Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2013?

Longest (1008 pages):

Shortest (excluding picture books read to Tesfa) (24 pages):

17. Book That Shocked You The Most?

I suppose I’m jaded. I don’t know exactly what is supposed to shock me. For example, I read The Treatment and all the blurbs on the front were like Most terrifying book I’ve ever read and I was meh. Same with Night Film. So I’ll go with:

Since when I read it, I thought Seriously? You can just end a book like that? and then I thought Seriously! I could end my faerie story like that!. So I did.

18. OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!)?

I have no idea what this means. Apparently it means One True Pairing? Does it have to be a book? Because I am so in love with Katniss/Peeta in the Hunger Games movies I watched for the first time this year. In the books, I was fairly ambivalent, but in the movies, hellz yes. I want to be movie Katniss and Peeta, not one or the other, but both or their relationship or something. Maybe I’ll fuck off the rest of the day and just rewatch the movies on Netflix.

19. Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship Of The Year?

Delphine and her family.

20. Favorite Book You Read in 2014 From An Author You’ve Read Previously

Can’t break it down between these two.

21. Best Book You Read In 2014 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure:

This was for book club. No reason I would have read it otherwise. Totally not my style nor my interest.

22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2014?

So this one specifies book; I can’t just say Peeta from the movie again?

I don’t read books that have a lot of likable or even bangable characters. And a lot have child protagonists. So let’s just say no one for now.

23. Best 2014 debut you read?

If anything, answering all these questions has taught me I am not good at narrowing things down to one.

24. Best Worldbuilding/Most Vivid Setting You Read This Year?

I don’t know how accurate it was, but I had an exact picture in my mind of the north-end of Halifax and Africville in my head while reading this.

25. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read?

26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2014?

Tesfa was not impressed with my meltdown. It’s just a book she kept saying. Why are you crying?

27. Hidden Gem Of The Year?

Does this mean a hidden gem published in 2014? Or a hidden gem I read in 2014? I don’t know. Let’s put:

As it satisfies both conditions. I was surprised by how moving this book was.

28. Book That Crushed Your Soul?

29. Most Unique Book You Read In 2014?

I read a few sort-of-experimental novels this year.

Malarky was the only one I really enjoyed reading though.

30. Book That Made You The Most Mad (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?

Did not like it and that’s why it made me mad (see my review here). I know I should try to because every story is worth something, but I don’t care very much about rich, white men whining about being rich, white men. Just don’t.

So that’s it for this. I’ll do some more stats and whatnot in a future post. But this might be the last post for a week and a bit due to the holidays, so happy holidays readers, all two of you 🙂