Reading Goals for 2020

In 2020 I will try to keep my goals very simple, which will hopefully mean that they are achievable.

1. Read 100 books.
2. Read 12 classics.
3. Read 12 non-fiction books.
4. Read and review 10 ARCs.

In 2019, I followed a specific classics challenge where I needed to choose books based on pre-set criteria (a classic play, a classic by a female author, a very short classic, etc). Even though I successfully completed the challenge, I did sometimes have trouble with finding books in a specific category. So this year, I will keep my options wide open as long as I read about one classic a month, I will be happy.

The only goal I am a bit worried about is completing 12 non-fiction books. Those usually take me longer to read, but I have been really interested in non-fiction lately so will give it a shot.

Here is to another great reading year!

My 2019 in Review

It is the last day of 2019, and a perfect time to take a look at some of my reading stats. Overall, I am pretty happy with how I did. I read 107 books total. The graph below shows the breakdown by genre.

I am especially happy about the fact that I read 12 classics and 8 non-fiction books. Those are the two genres I always want to read more of.

Finishing the following four titles in particular gave me a tremendous sense of accomplishment as a reader: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Here are some other fun stats.

I think this is a pretty balanced picture in terms of formats and own/library. Audiobooks continued to have a strong presence in my daily commute. In fact, if not for audiobooks, I would not have read as many books. In terms of quality, I definitely read a lot of middle of the way books that did not make a huge impression on me. As I go into the new year and make plans for 2020, one of the things I would like to focus on is reading more titles that have withstood the test of time. New hyped up releases with pretty covers have been a source of much disappointment for me.

Happy New Year, everyone! May it be filled with magical stories that make our lives brighter!

"Spitfire" by M.L.Huie

If you like a spunky female lead who knows how to stand for herself, WWII and spy novels, look no further. Spitfire features Livy Nash, a former British intelligence operative who had worked behind the enemy lines and assisted the French resistance.

At the very end of the war, she and her colleague and lover Peter Scobee were betrayed by the man they knew as Luc.  Livy and Peter were captured and only Livy was able to escape in the end. Now, with the war over, Livy struggles to adjust in the post-war London. She drinks herself to sleep most nights and is barely able to make ends meet. But then out of the blue, a man named Ian Fleming approaches her in a bar with an offer to jump back into the game and have a shot of avenging Peter's death. This is a fast-paced mystery set in London and Paris, and is sure to be enjoyed by all historical mystery lovers.

An e-ARC was provided by NetGalley.com

The Classics Challenge: "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner

I knew going in that Faulkner was not an easy author to read. However, when the first chapter is written from the point of view of a mentally disabled individual, with the narrative jumping around in time and space with no warning, AND the said chapter is 75 pages long, I was frankly blown away. But the stubborn reader in me smiled and dug in before the challenge. There was no way I'd give up now.

Chapter 2 did not get much easier. If Benjy's mind just jumped around in space and time, at least his focus was on simpler things: sounds, sights, smells and feelings. Quentin's narrative is more eloquent, but just as disjointed and all over the place. I do appreciate and admire Faulkner's ability to stay "in character" and express his narrators' inner thoughts and feelings.

Chapter 3 is a vast improvement. Written from the point of view of Jason, a perpetually angry and dissatisfied with his family younger brother, the narrative flows smoothly despite the fact that Jason's mind is fixated on money and the moral characters of his sister and niece. The final chapter is written in the third person and does not have one primary narrator. It is thus the most straightforward in the book.

Overall, reading Faulkner is both like looking at a Picasso's painting; and hacking through a thorny thicket hoping that there is a beautiful view up ahead. The good thing is there is a lot of material written about this novel on the internet. I highly recommend going in blind, but then about half way through chapter one looking up the list of characters just so you can keep them straight in your head. Since Benjy's thoughts jump around all over a thirty-year period, it is good to at least be aware who belongs where.

Reading this book must have been a crazy experience when it first came out in 1929. If you survived the first 100 pages, you would probably get to the end, just to realize that you needed to start again from the very beginning in order to put all those ramblings in perspective now. I can definitely see the genius of experimenting this way with the form and structure of the novel, but this book is definitely not for everyone.

Upon finishing the novel I felt an almost overwhelming sense of wonder. How did he do it? Out of the utter chaos of the first two chapters emerged a painful and profound picture of inexplicable human existence. He repeats pretty much the same story four times from a different point of view, as if to say: as conscious beings we all have a story to tell. In addition, each of those stories is slightly different based on the narrator's perception, opinions, beliefs etc. As in life, so in reading Faulkner, no matter how painful moment to moment is, one cannot help but be in awe of the overall concept.

As for rating, how do you rate a genius? I think I will just quote what Robert Penn Warren had to say:

"For range of effect, philosophical weight, originality of style, variety of characterization, humor, and tragic intensity [Faulkner's works] are without equal...." This is one of those books that will stick with me for a while. Finishing it definitely gave me a profound sense of achievement.

"The Queen of Nothing" by Holly Black

The Queen of Nothing is the third and final book in The Folk of Air trilogy that began with The Cruel Prince. Overall, this was a satisfying conclusion to the story, but my initial thoughts on Holy Black's writing stay the same. The plot is not well fleshed out, it lacks depth and complexity. The world is not well developed, and we do not get a lot of interaction between Cardan and Jude even though theirs is the main romantic story in the book.

In general, the entire enemies to lovers tension is created because Jude misunderstands and fears him. We get the story only from her perspective, and she does not spend much time with Cardan even in book 2 where she is his seneschal. This third book is also disappointingly short (305 pages). I definitely think Black could have done more with the world, given how popular this series has been.

In my reviews of the first two books I mentioned that I did not like Jude. In book 3, she is more likable. I definitely felt that she was less desperate and more sure of herself. I guess becoming Queen helped in that regard too, as she is also acting less power hungry.

My overall rating for this installment is 3 stars. If this is Holly Black's best work, I am not sure I want to read her backlist. This trilogy is extremely over-hyped and underwhelming.

"The Wicked King" by Holly Black

The Wicked King is a sequel to The Cruel Prince, which I reviewed earlier. The story picks up right where the first book ended. This book also is written entirely from Jude's perspective. As such, it is still hard to tell what Cardan's intentions are. On the one hand, there are scenes where he behaves like he really cares about Jude and wants to trust her. But then there is the ending, which I know left a lot of readers wondering.

I still do not like Jude very much. I realize she is supposed to be a morally gray character, she just seems very immature and too power hungry for my taste. With morally gray characters, I usually enjoy sophistication, humor, self-assurance and cunning manipulations. Jude is just too young and inexperienced for that. So she comes off flippant and desperate. I also don't like the way she seems to be willing to sacrifice anything for power. We'll see what book 3 has in store, but at this point, it is hard for me to root for her.

I was glad to see that Cardan is much more present in this book. I was also happy he finally took charge in the end. I have no problem with strong female characters, but when the female lead begins to be inept, I appreciate that someone else can step in and save the day. A closer look at the underworld and the King's powers were also nice additions in this installment. Overall, I enjoyed the second book more then the first. Solid 3 out of 5 stars. Book 3 is coming out tomorrow and I can't wait to read the conclusion.

"The Cruel Prince" by Holly Black

The Cruel Prince is the first book in a highly over-hyped YA fantasy trilogy (the third and final book is scheduled to come out this month). I finally decided to check it out as I prefer to read all the books in a trilogy close together so the information is fresh in my mind.

I must say that I wanted to like this book much more than I actually ended up enjoying it. It did not blow me away in any sense of the word. I think my main problem with The Cruel Prince is that the world is not well developed. We basically get a handful of characters (many of them very young) which does not match up well with the epic proportions of the political machinations they engage in. This flaw is not anything new. Lots of YA books have similar premises. However, I think I was holding the bar a bit higher for The Cruel Prince simply because of all the wonderful reviews that I've seen.

Our main character Jude is a human girl who as a child was carried away into the Faerie world along with her twin sister Taryn and half-sister Vivi. She lives in the house of her mother's first husband who is a powerful general in the High King's army. When we are first introduced to Jude, she is portrayed as a feisty but powerless girl who struggles to survive among the Faerie gentry children she is forced to go to school with. Jude, however, is extremely ambitious and craves control and power. She gets tangled up in court intrigues and ends playing a critical role in the Faerie coup d'etat.

Many of the reviews I read focused heavily on the romance in the book. However, there is close to zero romance in this novel. Prince Cardan certainly occupies Jude's thoughts (mostly as the hateful bully she would love to run through with her sword), but he is barely present in the story until the very last few chapters. In fact, the only reason I gave this book a neutral rating (2.5 stars) is because I ended up really enjoying the plotting and the intrigue in the last quarter of the book. We also finally get a glimpse of chemistry between Jude and Cardan at that point.

So overall, I will continue with the series. But I would really like to see the world built up a bit more. It is just too simplistic and barely populated for my taste. I would prefer to see more magic, more mythology, more complexity to the social structure, and a wider lens on the world as a whole.