The best books I read in 2019

I read 109 books in 2019. This is just short of twice as many as I read last year, and that made it very hard to narrow down to a small number of the very best of them. Only seven of the books I read this year were things I reread.


Top 7 fiction books/series I read for the first time in 2019

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert - Fascinating YA story with incredible worldbuilding around fairy tale ideas in a way I haven't seen done before.

Divine Cities Trilogy (City of Stairs, City of Blades, and City of Miracles) by Robert Jackson Bennett - Totally fascinating, engaging trilogy about a world that's been shaped by a mixture of Gods and imperialism.

In the Woods by Tana French - This book made me feel incredibly anxious in a way that felt all out of proportion with what was actually happening to the characters. I wasn't sure how much I enjoyed that experience, but it did show how good the writing was, and I then read all six of her other books within six weeks.

The Last Day of Emily Lindsey by Nic Joseph - Very good mystery/suspense/thriller. If you can read it unspoiled, I think it's extremely effective. Message/email me if you want the content warnings.

Foolish Hearts by Emma Mills - Totally delightful YA novel. Mills's novels are so much fun, I liked that this one had queer characters, and her stuff about fandom is so great.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - I'd heard how good this is before, and I finally read it this year for a book club. Lovely, magical story.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker - This book was so well written and is really hard to describe. I was especially impressed with her ability to evoke the feeling of junior high without making it feel cringy to read.


Top 5 fiction books I read and then thought about a lot in 2019

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert - Yes, I have this on both lists. I thought about it constantly for about two months after I read it. I later read two other books that sort of reminded me of it and made me think about it again because this was the best of the three.

The Power by Naomi Alderman - This is such a good, clever, enjoyable, and surprisingly funny book. I read it for a book club, which meant I thought about it a lot so I could talk about it, and I've thought about the themes of it off and on since then. Content notes for power and its abuses, up to and including murder and sexual assault.

The Witch Elm by Tana French - This book is very well written and a sharp portrait of privilege. I also found some of it, particularly at the end where we find out the answers to the mystery, really stomach turning. I've thought about it off and on since I read it.

Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple - In a lot of ways, Where'd You Go Bernadette is the better book, but this is the one I couldn't stop thinking about. The story was so interesting and strange, and I love stories that take place over the course of one day.

The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir - I'm not sure how believable I found the plot of this (not so much the what had happened to the characters, but how Essie navigates her way out of it), but it was extremely satisfying, and I thought about it a lot. Content notes for sexual abuse, fundamentalist Christianity, reality TV, and all the manipulation and abuse that comes along with them.


Top 3 non-fiction books I read in 2019

I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution by Emily Nussbaum - This was an entirely riveting book, particularly considering it includes a bunch of reviews of hers I'd read before. I found it a slow read in a good way where I kept stopping to reflect on what she was saying. I could spend, like, a year writing commentary about every essay; it's that thought-provoking.

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez - This is a well-sourced (there are literally 70 pages of source citation end notes), well written, and absolutely infuriating look at the way we don't do research on women and don't use it when we do. My biggest criticism of it is that she's an economist, so she really thinks in jobs-economy terms where I think one of the solutions is to uncouple surviving, and beyond, to thriving, from employment. We are in agreement that another one of the solutions is for men to step up and do their fair share of the currently unpaid care work/domestic labor that is (STILL) done primarily by women.

Educated by Tara Westover - I couldn't put it down, but take note that it's very harrowing. It was also an interesting contrast to J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, which I read for a book club and found frustrating because I thought Vance never got to the point where he realized just how messed up his family was. Westover is writing from a point where she knows.

2019 Year in Review - Goals

This was a weird year for me. Between whatever physical trauma there was from breathing in the smoke from the fire, the emotional trauma of the fire, and my worrying about what it was going to mean for me, I caught two back-to-back colds and was sick from the middle of January until the middle of February. I had gum graft surgery on one side of my mouth in the middle of July, and spent four solid days zoning out on the couch and another three weeks or so until I started feeling more normal. At the end of September, I went on two back-to-back vacations, then went right back to work, which was clearly not okay with my body because I caught a third cold at the beginning of October. October is our busiest month of the year at work. Then at the end of October, I had gum graft surgery on the other side of my mouth. I feel like that one took a lot longer to recover from, probably because I was already a little run down and then the first anniversary of the fire was just a week after I had the surgery. Between all of that, I estimate I had about three months total out of this year that I was in some sort of illness and recovery mode, and maybe a few more weeks that I felt like I was still recovering mentally. I also had an interesting year in that I realized while 38 was arguably the uppermost limit of mid-30s, 39 was definitely almost 40, so I spent a lot of time thinking about what I want my life to be like in my 40s and making changes toward that end.

Write. I'm not sure how much I really achieved what I wanted with this this year. I did have some times when I really felt my way into the experience of writing. I also spent a lot of this year feeling somewhat fuzzy and unfocused. I am leaning into the idea that some times are like that, and that's just what I needed to do this year. It was a fallow year; next year will be different.

Strengthen connections. I did so much of this! It still makes me really happy to put all these things down in my tracking spreadsheets. I sent a lot of emails, texted, started sending mail to my niece, hung out with people from my yoga class, went on vacations and to local cultural events with my mom, went to the movies with friends, enjoyed both my book clubs, and got to see some of my best friends who live far away. One of the real highlights is that I have a better relationship with my brother now, which I think is mostly because he's changed, but my getting a cell phone so we can text each other now probably helped. I also met a potential new friend right at the end of the year (the joke I've been telling myself is that the post-work holiday party mood is: I'm in ur Facebook befriending ur partner), so I'll see if she wants to hang out earlyish this year.

Connect to God/the divine. It turns out I wrote down a lot more things on my tracking spreadsheet than I thought I did. I have the sense that I'm still really struggling with how to do this in an ongoing way. I think part of what I need to start doing is noticing the divine element of times when I'm not specifically trying to make that connection. For example, the day after we did Thanksgiving Friday at my house, I was singing along to Kesha's Rainbow while washing dishes from having hosted my family, and I thought, "This is a devotional practice."

Get more sleep. I think I did much better on this one. I still wrote down that I was tired more weeks than is ideal on my check-ins, but I have the sense that I wasn't as exhausted this year due to not getting enough sleep reasons.

Cut out the mindless internetting. Hoo boy. I did okay with this. I definitely spent less time doing mindless internetting and more time reading books this year. However, I also spent a lot of time doing mindless internetting during all of the rest and recovery from illness and dental surgeries time. I think this is something I need to keep being mindful of.

Take a vacation. I did a lot of vacationing this year! In fact, this week is my only staycation all year. My mom and I went to San Francisco in February to go to the ballet and in May to see Hamilton and go to the SFMOMA. In August we went to Ashland to see five plays in three days. In September, I went to Wisconsin to visit lakeeffectgirl and we went to see the JoBros with one of our other best friends. Right after that, I went with my mom and a handful of other women from my yoga class to Asilomar for a weekend yoga retreat with our yoga teacher. This does not need to be on my list for next year because I already have two out of town cultural events with my mom and a two Louis Tomlinson concert dates trip planned with lakeeffectgirl.

Prepare to move. I didn't have to move! I did clean out some things from my cabinets and have a few things fixed by the apartment people.

Volunteer/get involved in a cause. This did not happen at all. I think partially it turns out it's not really a high priority for me and partially being sick so much put me off doing anything that took more work.

Address problems earlier. I did okay on this. I have a lot of things on the fixed problems row of my tracking spreadsheet for the beginning of the year. I'm not sure if I slacked on this or if there just weren't a huge number of problems left in the later part of the year.

Share my interests/enthusiasm/excitement. I sent a lot of emails to friends, and talked about some of the things I was interested in at family dinner, plus there were my two book clubs. I also talked more about my interests on Facebook this year.

Be more weird. It's really hard to be weird when you're out of the habit! I did some singing and dancing in my car at stoplights, had post-lunch one-song kitchen dance parties for a few months in the summer, and was much more willing to be weird in terms of what I posted on Facebook. I'm still not sure how to be more weird.