The Great 2009 Reading Roundup!

Well, I am mostly just proud of myself for sticking to a goal born last New Year's Eve. I can't say that I stuck to any other goals I had then. Stuff like losing half my body weight (i.e. getting so thin that people start rumors about my potential health problems - I put that one in for you, Nora!), achieving financial stability, traveling, becoming fluent in foreign tongues, becoming proficient at various musical instruments (shout out to my neglected concertina!), reaching organizational nirvana through the use of a label maker, and mastering various domestic goddess skills (knitting, pastry making, sewing, to name a few). And I can't forget to mention my hopeful plans to learn to skateboard and tap dance.

I didn't do any of those things (well I did purchase a lot of the accessories to accomplishing those things if that counts for anything) but I did force myself to record everything that I read even when it pained me to do so.

I realized that I don't read nearly as much as I think that I do. I realized that I could buy no new books in 2010 and still not run out of fresh reading material. And I realized that deep down I am a teenage girl when it comes to my reading tastes. Which is odd because when I was an actual teenage girl I read much more literary fiction and classics than I do now. I don't think that I read any YA as an actual YA. Maybe I was trying to be a grownup back then and now I'm grasping at my fleeting youth as I get closer to the big 3-0.

So I am kicking off a series of posts with my thoughts on the best of what I did end up reading this year. I'm sure that next year not only will I be a skateboarding, tap dancing, concertina playing, French speaking anorexic (among other achievements) but that I will have better reading adventures to report. Hopefully in 2010 I will read more classics and more books in general. Less TV, less celebutainment, and less wallowing in general will make this possible I'm sure.

I'm starting off with my favorite YA titles and nonfiction titles of the year. Still to come are favorite books for grownups, mysteries, fluffy bathtub reading, and favorite book boyfriends of 2009.

Edited 1/2/10
So, I started doing all making all these lists a few weeks ago when I was in a better mood and now I just want them to go away! So my reading audience of one will just have to live in suspense never knowing what would have made it onto my favorite mystery and book boyfriend lists. Also that is why there is a marked difference in the amount of effort I put into the lists that are posted. I am not so strong on follow through.

Lastly, audience of one, I made the lists before reading (and loving) Wintergirls and The Queen's Thief series. These would definitely have made the Best of lists.

Best Young Adult Fiction of 2009

I don't know what more I could say about this book that I didn't say when I first read it at the start of the year. I am so amazed by it and by all the feelings and memories it stirred up for me. I also love that this was a random library find for me that I knew nothing about when I started reading. I wish I could have more of those fortuitous library moments. I whole heartedly agree with (and wish I was as eloquent) as these two reviews:

"The plot is gripping and the characters powerfully drawn, but it is its raw and unvarnished look at the dynamics of the high school experience that make this a novel that will be hard for readers to forget." Kirkus Reviews

"An uncannily funny book even as it plumbs the darkness, Speak will hold readers from first word to last." Horn Book

"How I Live Now is the first-person story of Daisy, a smart, stroppy, self-absorbed 15-year-old who arrives from New York's Upper West Side to stay with her English cousins. The four cousins are romantic, bohemian and enjoy an eccentric, faintly feral pastoral idyll of an existence in a rambling English country house, mystically in touch with nature and, indeed, with Daisy."
from The Observer review

How could you not love a book like that? I could not put this one down and revisiting for my end of the year round up has me wanting to reread it again.

This is one of those books that creates a world I would like to live in. Mostly because I want a beach house stocked with boys who think I am pretty and perpetual summertime with no obligations. I'm so glad there is a sequel coming!

Beautiful & sad with an original plot. I cried reading this one.

This book made my stomach hurt. Incredibly sad and very well written.

These two are some of my favorite books of any genre I read this year. I've reread both a couple of times and I am in such knots for Derek. Things will not be ok if he does not end up with Chloe in the next book. My feelings on this might have even surpassed my intense bitterness about the ending of I Capture the Castle. Clearly, fictional characters are supposed to end up with whoever I deem best!

I love the romance in this story and the bonus that there is a sequel coming out. Pretty cover art as well and I greatly appreciate that the sequel has matching art. Nothing better for my OCD book tendencies than lining up matching editions on my shelves.

Creepy, creepy story but beautifully written. I was so mad when I finished reading it. There had better be some answers in the sequel or my rage will have to continue festering. And after watching Bella scream like her internal organs were being harvested from her still conscious body during New Moon I want more than ever to see her kill some zombies in the movie version of this. It would be perfect!

Great atmosphere with an intensely suspenseful plot. It inspired me to buy (but sadly not to actually read yet) some noir.

These are both so clever and hilarious. I loved them both but I honestly loved all of the E. Lockhart books I read this year. She is consistently entertaining.

Swoon. John After made me read this book twice. And if I'm being truly honest I've read certain sections more than twice- it's really that good! John is just so tortured and good and dreamy all rolled into one. I love this book! Still really hate the cover, though.

Historical fiction that is illuminating of the time period but never in an awkward way. It is a very well done book. I couldn't stop thinking about the poor, taxi dancing heroine for days afterward. And the fact that I really need to reread A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

I want to go to Italy and kill unicorns! And if that is too much to ask for I'll settle for just going to Italy and having a Marisa Tomei in Only You type adventure with a really cute hair cut.

Book Three needs to come out now! I love these books so much! And I love that the crazy hype was actually legitimate and deserved. But mostly I love Peeta!

Best Nonfiction of 2009

Columbine, Dave Cullen
Creepy, stressful, amazingly detailed, so very sad, and completely unforgettable.

Inspiring and guilt inducing all at the same time. Guilt inducing if you are a teacher that is.
Makes me so amazingly grateful to be teaching rich little babies. I couldn't deal with the sad and frustrating situations described in this book but I'm glad that someone can.

My first author reading and autographed book! This book makes me want to be a better recorder of my own life experiences and is also quite the tear jerker.

Fascinating. It also fueled my desire to be a book collector (not in an illicit way of course)

Clearly it also fueled my desire to be rich and frivolous.

The rest of the best of 2009 lists, lazily compressed into one post

Best Fluffy Escapist Bathtub Reading

Soulless, Gail Carriger

• This wins for having a time period realistic yet spunky spinster heroine and a dreamy werewolf romantic interest. And an awesome cover. Oh and an engaging story.

Size 12 Is Not Fat series, Meg Cabot

• In the part of my mind where I am a successful author Meg Cabot is my archnemesis. How does she write so, so many books? I loved Heather and I love that she doesn't lose weight to land a man. And there is something about the NYC dorm setting that takes me back to watching Felicity obsessively with my own college roommates.

Major Crush and The Boys Next Door, Jennifer Echols

• I adore Jennifer Echols! I would happily live inside either of these books. So cute and fun!

Secret Society Girl series, Diana Peterfreund

• Poe tops my book boyfriend list so that already lets you know the affection I have for these books. There's also the vicarious Ivy League experience you get when reading these without having to endure student debt and crushing pressure to achieve. Also the satisfying and suspenseful plots with well drawn characters help.

Simon Romantic Comedies, the entire group

• These books have contributed a great deal to keeping me sane this year throughout various small child induced states of rage and weariness. Bubblegum cartoon cover art mixed with a large font size, predictable in a good way happy endings, and reliably readable in an hour or less. The ideal bathtub reading.

Best Literature for Grownups

Go With Me, Castle Freeman Jr.

• short, chivalrous, creepy, AMAZING ENDING!

A Guide to the Birds of East Africa, Nicholas Drayson

• "A charming love triangle in Nairobi, Kenya, forms the center of a novel that manages to be both sweet and gripping." -Publisher's Weekly
  

The Flying Troutmans, Miriam Troews

• sad, weird, hilarious
  

Lolita, Vladimir Nabakov

• "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul."
  

The Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawak

• "Ogawa weaves a poignant tale of beauty, heart, and sorrow in her exquisite new novel." (Publisher's Weekly)