A bit late, but here it is! I ended up the year with 101 books, without even trying.
A once-a-month review of the books I read.
The rating is the same as Goodreads--5 stars means "it was amazing," 4 is "really liked it," 3 is "liked it," 2 is "it was okay," and 1 is "didn't like it."
The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne (2 stars)
A classic that I sorta skipped out on reading during high school...I got a book that is a sequel, so I wanted to actually read this one first. The story is good, but the writing style was not my taste--much to much telling going on.
The Carnivorous Carnival (Book 9) and The Slippery Slope (Book 10) by Lemony Snicket
Series of Unfortunate Events (3 stars each)
I had to slow down on these ones because they were just getting rather tedious.
Hester: A Novel by Paula Reed (4 stars)
This is the sequel to Scarlet Letter, and it was so much better in many ways. Much more engaging, if a little drawn out, I felt like Hester was a more fleshed out woman in this story. The book was agented by someone I'm very interested in working with, and it turns out the author lives here in Colorado (and teaches at Columbine High School in Denver). Lots of local connections! Worth a read, even if you didn't enjoy SL.
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (3 stars)
Right off the bat, no one under 25 should even think of picking this one up. At least if you are my CPers. If you aren't, just know it's not recommended for younger readers. This is a story of a 1940's woman who is magically whisked back in time to the last 1700's. There's a bunch of politics between the Scots and the English, with Claire being a Brit and her new husband is a Scot. And let's not forget that Claire is already married in her own time. It's a bit convoluted, but the story is engaging enough that I'm likely to pick up the next one in the series at some point.
Smoke From This Alter by Louis L'Amour (4 stars)
I stumbled upon this one when I strolled through the poetry section at the library. Yes, you heard me, poetry! Not what you would expect from a well-known western writer, but it was fantastic. More structured and stiff than I usually care for, L'Amour shows great command of many of the trickier tools like meter. I did fall in love with several, and enjoyed almost all of them. And the fact that this was published before all his novels just made it even more fun. I would recommend this to any poetry fan.
