At the start of 2019, I set one main goal for the year – to get back into reading (paper) books.
And so I signed up for the Goodreads 2019 Reading Challenge, setting myself a challenge to read 20 books in 2019.
In my former life, 20 books would have been a drop in the ocean. However, life has changed. Free time is hard to come by, and books are expensive (yet still my chosen way to read – don’t get me started on ebooks!).
I’m happy to announce I just achieved it! And I have to tell you it feels good to be reading regularly again, as reading has and always will be one of my loves 🥰
My 2019 Reading List
My reading list for 2019 has been a mixed bag. Some non-fiction alongside quite a few series and suspense and adventure novels. Some books just sucked, and I could not finish them for the life of me. Others I could just not put down (nor did I want to).
Here are some of my highlights and serious lowlights.
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The Liar: It takes one to catch one – Steve Cavanagh
Synopsis – 5 stars
Leonard Howell’s worst nightmare has come true: his daughter Caroline has been kidnapped. Not content with relying on the cops, Howell calls the only man he trusts to get her back. Eddie Flynn knows what it’s like to lose a daughter and vows to bring Caroline home safe. Once a con artist, now a hotshot criminal attorney, Flynn is no stranger to the shady New York underworld. However, as he steps back into his old life, Flynn realizes that the game’s rules have changed — and that he is being played. But who is pulling the strings? And is anyone in this twisted case telling the truth…?
My review
I enjoyed this book, following the art of the con in a good old-fashioned legal drama with twists and turns. An enjoyable, easy read and one I could not put down at that! I then proceeded to devour the whole series (not in order … which didn’t impact my enjoyment at all).
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing – Marie Kondo
Synopsis
Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles?
Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a new level, promising that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you’ll never have to do it again. Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. None of Kondo’s clients has lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list).
With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house “spark joy” (and which don’t), this international bestseller featuring Tokyo’s newest lifestyle phenomenon will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home – and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.
My Review – 5 stars
This book is a beautiful little book that was a quick and easy read. With easy-to-implement suggestions, it probably sounds corny, but the KonMari method has changed our lives and households (and my husband has even taken it on at his soccer club!).
Note: I recommend the book over the TV show to fully understand where Marie is coming from and some of her advice.
Calm the F**k Down (A No F*cks Given Guide) – Sarah Knight
Synopsis
Do you waste time overthinking things you can’t do anything about? Do you freak out when things don’t go to plan? Does anxiety get in the way of you living your best life?
When life hands you a big fat f**king lemon, Calm the F**k Down gives you practical ways to manage the situation, not to mention your anxiety about the situation. One hundred per cent practical and zero per cent Pollyanna-ish, this is a book that acknowledges all the bad shit that can and probably will happen to you – from breakups and breakdowns to floods, family feuds and France running out of butter – and shows you what you can realistically do about it so you can get on with your life, stop worrying and wallowing, and start bouncing back.
Think of Calm the F**k Down as the friend who, instead of reassuring you that ‘everything’s going to be okay,’ shows you how to make it so.
My review – 1 star
It pains me to write this, but I could not finish this book after three attempts.
I wanted to love it. I did. But it was a struggle.
All I can say is that I have different thoughts in dealing with anxiety. Whilst this may work for some people, and I embrace the no f**ks given mentality, it wasn’t for me. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent a large % of my life working with my anxiety, maybe it’s because I’m not full of drama but rather get by quietly, with my anxiety mostly held inside, or maybe it’s because I’ve developed what works for me. There’s no right or wrong approach in the end. And whilst I love humour, self-deprecating and all, and acknowledging successes, less talking about previous books and more focussing on the book at hand would have been good. I hadn’t read the previous books so I entered this one as a social media follower and new reader.
Why Not me? – Mindy Kaling
Synopsis
In “How to Look Spectacular: A Starlet’s Confessions”, Kaling gives her tongue-in-cheek secrets for surefire on-camera beauty (“Your natural hair colour may be appropriate for your skin tone, but this isn’t the land of appropriate-this is Hollywood, baby. Out here, a dark-skinned woman’s traditional hair colour is honey blonde.”) “Player” tells the story of Kaling being seduced and dumped by a female friend in L.A. (“I had been replaced by a younger model. And now they had matching bangs.”) In “Unlikely Leading Lady”, she muses on America’s fixation with the weight of actresses, (“Most women we see onscreen are either so thin that they’re walking clavicles or so huge that their only scenes involve them breaking furniture.”) And in “Soup Snakes”, Kaling spills some secrets on her relationship with her ex-boyfriend and close friend, B.J. Novak (“I will freely admit: my relationship with B.J. Novak is weird as hell.”)
My review – 4 stars
This book sat on my bookshelf for a few years, and I finally got around to reading it over a period of two days. It was a quick easy read, and was more like having a conversation with Mind Kaling .. what I imagine would be fast-paced, witty pow wow – and always entertaining.
I’m rating this 4 stars as I like Mindy, I like her honesty, I like her stories, and I like how hard she has worked to get where she does (albeit I do not know how she maintains the momentum on so little sleep!).
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
Synopsis
No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding unnecessary human contact, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.
But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen, the three rescue one another from the lives of isolation that they had been living. Ultimately, it is Raymond’s big heart that will help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. If she does, she’ll learn that she, too, is capable of finding friendship—and even love—after all.
Smart, warm, uplifting, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . . the only way to survive is to open your heart.
My review – 1 star
This is a controversial review.
Honestly, I could not get into this book as much as I tried – and I tried as this book is on every ‘recommended reading list’. I hated it. I found it depressing, and draining, and I had no affection for the characters. This book was a struggle, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.
A Darker Shade of Magic – V.E. Schwab
Synopsis
Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.
Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, travelling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.
Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.
After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.
Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all the world, they’ll first need to stay alive.
My review – 5 stars
This series was my first venture into reading anything by V.E. Schwab, and I wasn’t disappointed. The series was unlike anything I had read before – magicians, pirates, thieves, kings, queens and princes from different lands and alternate worlds.
I devoured the three books in a matter of two months. I would have done so quickly if I hadn’t had to work! Highly recommend the series if you love escaping into other worlds and following intriguing characters as they embark on a journey of adventure and change.
What was your favourite read in 2019 (paper or ebook … it’s okay. I’ll forgive you!?
Drop me a comment below. I’d love to hear about it!
You can see my full list from the 2019 Goodreads Reading Challenge here.
And will you join me for the 2020 Goodreads Reading Challenge?
