An American Marriage by Tayari Jones: I appreciated the complicated themes this book explored, while never finding myself invested in the relationship at its center or finding opportunities to fully empathetize with any of the characters' decisions.
50 Women Every Christian Should Know: Learning from Heroines of the Faith by Michelle DeRusha: I found this collection of biographies an interesting tour through Christian history of the past millennium, even if I thought DeRusha's conclusions of what we should take away from each woman's life were unnecessary.
Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork: This is my third time reading this book, and I still love so much about it, though this time through, I had a much deeper understanding of the autism spectrum and some of the problems with the way Marcelo talks about himself and others talk about him in this book.
Wayside School is Falling Down by Louis Sachar: This book was weirder and darker than I remembered, but on the whole it was still good entertainment for me and my 7-year-old.
How to Read Now: Essays by Elaine Castillo: It took me a while to get through this because Castillo provides a lot to unpack in every essay, but there are a lot of important ideas here about both our engagement with media and the way we talk about media (especially books, especially "diverse" books).
This Winter by Alice Oseman: This was sweet, even if it didn't have much substance, being a short story that's essentially a chance to check in on the Solitaire/Heartstopper characters for a night. I liked that it was a combination format, with both written chapters and illustrations (including text messages).
I Survived The Sinking of the Titanic, 1912 by Lauren Tarshis (graphic novel adapted by Georgia Ball): This was a successful introduction to reading graphic novels with my 7-year-old. The seriousness of the disaster was conveyed without excessive gore, and we were able to have a conversation about things like people with less money being treated poorly.
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn: I liked this more than I expected. The way it's composed (with a decreasing number of letters available) works as a gimmick, but the story is also entertaining and lends itself to discussions of deeper themes of censorship and dictatorship.
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan: This is an impressive work of historical fiction, not only imagining every step of how the real-life founding emperor of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, rose to power out of poverty, but also making this character a woman disguised as a man. I wish it hadn't been so hard to keep all the characters and their power structure straight through this 14.5-hour audiobook.
Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett: This book was fine but a bit disappointing; it's good as a way of getting kids interested in 17th century art, but as a "mystery" it relies more on magical realism than on deduction. I'd still be open to reading the sequel.
Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Somebody's Daughter, The Space Mission Adventure, Information Dashboard Design, and Strange the Dreamer
Five years ago I was reading: Leviathan Wakes and Bleak House
Ten years ago I was reading: I Will Teach You to Be Rich
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