19 Stinkers of 2019

Most years, I compile a list of "stinkers," books that I had strong negative feelings about or that did not measure up to my expectations based on either the author's previous work or the publishing hype surrounding the book. These aren't necessarily the books I liked least, and they aren't necessarily even ones that are poorly written, to make my list they just had to disappoint me in a pretty big way.

The Likeness, Tana French

Okay, I wasn't hugely disappointed with this one, but it certainly didn't stick with me. I found it much too long, and it was a little too psychologically rough. Looking back on it, I just feel dissatisfied.

The Penderwicks at Last, Jeanne Birdsall

I did not care for the last in the Penderwicks series. This one introduced new characters and spent too much time on them, spending very little time with the weddings, and then it just ended. I wanted a grander send-off.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky, Mark Sullivan

This is billed as a novel, but everyone thinks of it as nonfiction. Sullivan says it's all true (so why "novel"?) and I just don't buy it. It's a little too perfect. Also, though captivating, I did not find this book well written.

Cozy Minimalist Home, Myquillyn Smith

I found this one pushy and hysterical in its mission to make your home like hers. So unlike her first book.

Girl, Wash Your Face, Rachel Hollis

Really, I still have no idea who this woman is, but she has a pretty high opinion of herself. She's much too young to be writing a "wise woman talks to younger women" book. I found this inauthentic and a little trite.

Lady in Red, Sheila Tate

A fawning memoir by Nancy Reagan's press secretary. I found it self-serving.

Liars, Leakers, and Liberals, Judge Jeanine Pirro

I entered the echo chamber with this one, but it was too right-wing even for me. Too biased to be credible.

My Turn, Nancy Reagan

Whew. This one was one of the more awful "celebrity" memoirs I've read. Sniveling and vindictive. She went for pity one minute then tried to convince you she was tough and in charge the next.

Nanaville, Anna Quindlen

I love Quindlen's nonfiction. This was not a bad book, but I wanted more. I think she is too early in her role as "Nana" to have been writing this.

Prairie Fires, Caroline Fraser

This may be the book I disliked most this year. It was so slanted and judgmental and full of conjecture and the author's bias. It scares me that it won the Pulitzer Prize.

Save Me the Plums, Ruth Reichl

My experience with Ruth Reichl's books, and I've read almost all of them, is that I either love them or strongly dislike them. This one, regardless of all the hype, was very "meh" for me. It's the extended version of My Kitchen Year and the nonfiction version of Delicious. Much too much recycling going on here.

The First Lady, James Patterson & Brendan DuBois

This is just a The President Is Missing rehash.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson

I was hoping this would be the beginning of another series for me, but I will not be continuing. Half of it was boring as rice cakes and the other half was just nasty. Much too violent and ugly for me.

The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah

My first Hannah book, and likely my last. It was much too dark and violent for my tastes. I should have stopped reading it.

The River, Peter Heller

So much initial hype for this one, but I was disappointed. Yet, you'll see my review is very positive! I guess I wanted to love this book, but in hindsight, I can admit that I didn't love it. I was waiting for something that didn't come, and it was rather uninteresting in the end.

Things My Son Needs to Know about the World, Fredrik Backman

I have not liked any of Backman's shorter books. I should just learn my lesson and stick to his big, beautiful, thoughtful novels. This read like a stand-up comedy act with limp, unfunny jokes.

The Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver

Kingsolver shows her hatred for President Trump (referred to in the book as "the bullhorn"--classy) and conservatives (esp. Christians) in this one, and I likely will never read another Kingsolver book again. It was just so ugly and hateful--the very things she accuses the president of being. Even her faithful didn't like this one.

Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens

Although I think I liked the writing, I didn't feel this one lived up to the hype. There's a twist I saw coming a mile away, and overall, I found it too unbelievable to be satisfying.

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, Sherman Alexie

Easily the most frustrating read of the year for me. The writing is topnotch, but the constant claiming of victim status is so exhausting.

Top Children's Books of 2019

In 2019 I read more than 185 children's books, everything from picture books to middle-grade fiction and nonfiction to YA. I also read portions of more than a dozen more. Much of this (137 of these) were for Cybils judging. Here, I've created a list of 19 of my favorites across the spectrum of genre and age level. I've arranged them in roughly age level order.

Picture Books

B Is for Baby

I am very fond of Atinuke's lovely picture books set in Africa. The pictures are infinitely charming. They show a slice of life in another country while showing children the big things (fun, play, learning, and Mommy's love) don't differ from culture to culture.

The Pigeon HAS to Go to School!

Will there ever be a year without a Mo Willems book on the list? I hope not. His newest is wonderful as always.

Can I Be Your Dog?

I loved this book about a dog in search of someone to love him. He writes letters to folks up and down the street enumerating his many virtues, and he ultimately finds what he's looking for. Funny, heartfelt, and clever.

Bruce's Big Storm

I love Ryan T. Higgin's Bruce books. This is his newest, and it was a wonderful as the others. Cranky ole bear, Bruce, is forced to take in all of his neighbors during a big storm, and in the aftermath, he finds having a lot of friends--even if you'd prefer to be alone--is a good thing.

Nonfiction Picture Books

Just Like Beverly

A wonderful biography of Beverly Cleary. This will take you back to your childhood reading.

Sea Bear

A polar bear makes her solitary way across the ice of the Arctic. I didn't know much about polar bears' migration across the frozen sea to find food and give birth on land, but I loved this book.

Miep and the Most Famous Diary

The true story of the woman who kept Anne Frank's diary safe after Anne was discovered and taken away to the concentration camps. It made me revisit The Diary of a Young Girl. A good story.

Sonny's Bridge

Jazz legend, Sonny Rollins, quits the jazz scene at the height of his career and is found playing his saxophone on the Williamsburg Bridge (because it's too loud to play in his apartment building). This leads to his album The Bridge.

Monument Maker

The story of Daniel Chester French, the creator of the Lincoln Memorial. A beautiful book, and you know I'm a sucker for history books. I loved this one.

Earth by the Numbers

I'm a sucker for statistics, and this book, part of a series, is full of them, covering everything from the Earth's surface to volcanos and earthquakes, from mountains and oceans to hurricanes and extremities.

Fungus Is among Us!

I don't know why I loved this book so much, but I sure did. I'm not a particular fan of fungus, but this book explains what it is and where it's found in a unique way, right down to the yeast in your pizza.

Middle-grade Nonfiction

Barefoot Books Solar System

Although I got a little tired of books about the solar system this fall, this one stood out. Its large-scale graphic format with fold-outs and sidebars was quite handome. I was impressed by the design of this one as much as the content.

Your Amazing Digestion form Mouth to Intestine

A book about the digestive system done in rhyme--even the question and answer portion of the book was rhyming quatrains. I found it imaginative and smart.

Free Lunch

A heartbreaking memoir of the author's sixth-grade year, dealing with poverty, violence, prejudice, and family chaos. Very well told.

Moles

I loved this book about moles. Period.

Infinite Hope

A lovely book about a black man's experience in World War II, where the military ranks were segregated. For decades the man who created art to deal with the horrors of war would not talk about his time spent in battle and did not look at his wartime artwork. When he finally brought it out, this book was the result. This one touched me deeply.

Leading the Way

A book about the women who have served the nation and changed American politics. Written by a senator and her daughter-in-law, the book examines 50 women who served as governors, senators, congresswomen, ambassadors, cabinet members, presidential candidates, and supreme court justices. A good assortment from both sides of the aisles. Very little is said about the political affiliations of each, making it even better.

This Promise of Change

Probably my favorite children's book of the year. This is Jo Ann Allen Boyce's memoir in verse of her high school experience integrating Clinton High School in Tennessee. Moving, honest, and practical, this is a fantastic book.

YA

It's Trevor Noah: Born a Crime

If you've read the adult version of Trevor Noah's book (Born a Crime), this won't really bring anything new to the table, but it's every bit as good as the original version.  

Top 4 Poetry Books of 2019

It's that time of year again--time for the "Best of 2019" lists. Each year I try to streamline it a bit more, but I'll probably never be one of those book bloggers who can distill her reading down to one post at the end of the year. Since I'm set to finish over 200 books this year, and since it's hard for a short poetry collection to ever hold its own with a weighty novel, memoir, or nonfiction book, I've decided to split them out into their own post. If you discount re-reads (and I do) I didn't read five books of poetry that blew me away, so this year's list has only four items on it. I read well over 1,000 poems again this year, because poetry is in my soul, I guess. I also did a lot of re-reading of my favorite collections (nine in all), about half of which stood up to the passage of time, though individual poems will always have special spots in my heart.

Monument, Natasha Trethewey

United States Poet Laureate in 2012 and 2013, Trethewey's 2018 Monument is a wonderful book full of poems about identity. The daughter of a black mother and white father, she sometimes struggles to find her place in society.

Only As the Day Is Long, Dorianne Laux

Long one of my favorite female poets, Laux's 2019 collection of new and older poems is stellar. My favorite poetry collection of the year.

Sincerity, Carol Ann Duffy

Although I remember the impression of the book more than the book itself, I remember being blown away by the poems in this collection.

The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, Marie Howe

A wonderful collection of subtle poems, Marie Howe does not disappoint with this older collection from 2008.

BONUS

Ordinary Light, Tracy K. Smith (memoir)

I also read a wonderful memoir by Poet Laureate from 2017-2019, Tracy K. Smith. This is a straightforward "classic" memoir of a young woman posed to be a great poet. Beautifully written.

What I'm reading this week (12/16/19)

I'll be on Christmas vacation this week, next week, and part of the week following. I plan to read to my heart's content and put together a number of jigsaw puzzles. We'll likely have my (step)son, daughter-in-law, and grandson over on Christmas Eve for pizza and presents, and then we'll go to my mother's on Christmas Day. So here's wishing you and your family a blessed Christmas and a fantastic New Year's holiday.

Last week I finished:

This is my second reading of The Color of Water, one of the first of the memoirs about race and identity that I can remember. It is kind of the gold standard for such books. This is the story of James McBride's childhood as the eighth of twelve children born to a white Jewish mother and a black father and stepfather in the 1940s and 1950s. The children grow up with very little information about their mother's past. When asked by her children why she and they don't look alike, she evades the question. She makes it a point to not address race with her children, instead instilling a love of God and church and the importance of education. Stop asking silly questions and educate your mind, is her response. And all of her children did very well for themselves. All twelve of them went to college. But as the 1960s became a hotbed of civil rights protests, and as the black power movement swept them along, race came to the forefront of the siblings' minds, whether it was on their mother's or not. The chapters alternate between McBride's mother's sad life story and his own. McBride is a very good writer, and I enjoyed this book as much on my second pass as my first, years and years ago. My rating: 4 stars. 

Earlier this fall I thoroughly enjoyed Judy Blume's In the Unlikely Event (read my review here), so I added her other recent novel for adults to my TBR. Summer Sisters is the story of two girls who spend their summers together on Martha's Vineyard. The book begins in the late 1970s and works its way up to present day (late 1990s). It details (boy does it detail) their romances and sexual encounters and their lives together and apart for the next 20 years. I did not like this book nearly as well as In the Unlikely Event, finding all the sex unseemly and the characters all rather unlikeable. Regardless, the book was a huge hit when it came out, so I know many women liked it a lot. It just seemed to lack the subtlety and character depth of In the Unlikely Event. And there was so much sex. Perhaps a perfect beach read, but I didn't care much for it overall. My rating: 3 stars.

The last of the "Killing..." series of books by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard is Killing the SS. This is the detailed account for the hunting down of the most notorious members of the Nazi SS after World War II and their subsequent trials. All members presented in the book, it seems, went to their deaths unrepentant of their atrocities. Many felt they were not responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews in the Holocaust because they did not personally execute them--they only gave orders to have it done. While it was a good book, it was by no means my favorite of the series. I did learn some interesting things, such as that the newly-formed country of Israel went in search of the SS members that eluded capture after the war, and that many took refuge in Argentina, where the government was sympathetic to their cause. I was disturbed by the revenge sentiment of many toward these SS men (and women). I cannot judge the Jews in the new Israeli state for wanting justice. I cannot know what my reaction in a similar situation would be, but I would hope to be able to separate my society's need for justice from my desire for revenge. It was an interesting thing to ponder while listening to this book, especially having read it right on the heels of The Diary of a Young Girl. The audiobook was narrated by Bill O'Reilly, who is not my favorite narrator, but it was what it was. My rating: 3 stars.

Last week I abandoned:

I didn't dislike either of these, they just weren't right for my current mood. Ahab's Wife was perhaps too slow and too long at the moment. I'm not sure what my problem with The Ten Thousand Doors of January was, because I enjoyed the writing.

I wasn't particularly interested in Stay Sexy & Don't Get Murdered. I don't know their podcast, and the part of the book I listened to was a little too gritty, and the language a little too rough, for me.

I still need to finish:

Two more Cybils books have come in the mail, so I need to work my way through them over break.

My next book:

Who knows where I'll land next!

I'm also reading:

I'm enjoying each of these.

And I plan to begin:

I'm a punctuation/grammar geek, so I'm looking forward to this one.

My audiobooks for the next week or so:

I'll be listening to these short audiobooks while I work on jigsaw puzzles. Talk about cozy.