But, without further ado, I give you my small reviews of my books in 2016:
Batman: The Killing Joke — Hailed as one of the essential stories in Batman and Joker lore, this graphic novel had great artwork and a great origin story to boot.
Modern Romance — I started listening to audiobooks with this one (adding audiobooks into the mix this year certainly helped me reach my goal quicker). It was read by the author, Aziz Ansari, and if you're a fan of his humor you will enjoy this book. It was comical yet poignant at the same time, and listening to the author read their own book is a nice treat.
It's A Long Story — This new biography of Willie Nelson was good. I'm not even the biggest fan of his music, but I thought his would be an interesting story. And it was. If you are a fan, this is a must-read.
10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works — This book was all about meditation. But it was written in a no-nonsense way that made the topic very accessible. There was no fluffy voodoo crap, no stories of people sitting around going "Ohmmmmm", just straight-forward talk about this man's situation and how he came to use meditation in his life to control his anxiety and stress, and it was really well done.
Yes Please — Amy Poehler's humorous book... another entry in the obligatory "comedian writes a funny book about life lessons" category. It seems every comedian or celebrity feels they need to write a book like this, and they are all essentially the same. Aziz's Modern Romance book was slightly different, because he actually looked into research and studies about one central topic: relationships in the modern world. This book was fine, but afterwards I decided I was kind of over these types of books; I don't care how hilarious you claim Amy Schumer, or Chelsea Handler, or whoever's new book is, I'm done with this specific genre.
The Fellowship of the Ring — I attempted to read the LOTR books a long time ago and failed. This time, I made it through the first one, but I've been at a dead stop on page 20 of the second one. We re-watched the movies, which are great, and I am glad I am getting around to reading these, but it's been slow.
All the Light We Cannot See — As much as I wanted to like this book, I never could get into it. I'm glad I stuck with it, as the ending was at least somewhat satisfying, but it was hard. The writing style was too drippy-poetic for my tastes, sentences were choppy. Cut up. Like paper scattered on sunlit sand. (See what I did there?) I found the book at times confusing because I wasn't sure which character I was reading about, but mostly I found each character's story too dissonant. The loose theme of always coming back to everything being about light was thin at best and, again, mostly a bunch of poetic flim-flam I wasn't really in the mood for.
From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava — My cousin passed this book onto me, because she knows we both like dog books. It was an interesting story about a soldier who 'adopts' a dog while in the military over in Baghdad, and the hoops he has to go through to bring her home. Not bad, especially for a dog lover.
When Breath Becomes Air — I'm going to declare this my favorite book of 2016. It's a memoir from a neurosurgeon who suddenly ends up with terminal cancer. He is extremely introspective and reflective on what life is about, what makes life worth it, and other deeper musings. It was a quick read, but a really, really good one. Grab a tissue box. Even for someone who deals with these topics more often than the average person, it had me in tears more than once.
Little Bee — A slightly different book, but rewarding. It's hard to say what it's about, but I thought it was good.
Animal Farm — I'm glad I finally read this classic. Once again, as most distopian or satirical classic novels are, this book proved true in multiple ways. It was also especially interesting to take note of different things in the book and different things that happened during the election campaigns.
I Am Malala — Malala's story is an interesting one, and one worth telling, but I didn't find this book phenomenal like some people did.
Inside of a Dog — Fairly intriguing ideas and concepts, but I began to lose interest about 2/3 through. This book is extremely detailed and reads kind of like a psychology study published in a medical journal, so it's not for everyone. It was a tad too long-winded.
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things — A new book from a new author this year, this one was really good. The story is not exactly pretty, as it is about a child who lives with drug-addicted parents, but it was worth the read.
The Joker — This graphic novel was a darker take on the Joker. The artwork was simply stunning; one of the early pages with the Joker walking out of Arkham Asylum was beautifully done. The story was pretty good too, but the artwork was so great!
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks — This book got to be long-winded. The author weaved in her own story of investigating HeLa cells and the family of Henrietta, which I understand to a point, otherwise the book would have been too dry and medical. But the details upon details about the author's daily life were not needed. The audiobook version also became very grating with the voices the reader was using. All in all, just meh.
The Book Thief — Great book! It was creatively told from a very different voice and kept the story very interesting and enjoyable.
And after that, I've been reading the Harry Potters. So there you have it!
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