Perhaps a little late, but these posts were a staple on the blog before the hiatus, so I really want to get back into the habit of them. New year, new me, new blog schedule or something like that. Right?
So, in December, I honestly didn’t read a ton of published books—I read 3—but I read a lot of webcomics, so I’ll drop some links to stuff I’m currently following at the end of this post, too.
WWW Wednesday is a weekly post hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words. To participate, just post the answers to the following three questions:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
Last December, I started a new job. Which was amazing! The problem was that said job was so far away from my apartment that I spent about 2.5 hours commuting to and from work every day. Desperate for something to fill that time, and hoping to stumble on an option that still felt at least somewhat productive, I decided to venture into the wild world of audibooks.
4 out of 5 stars. I picked this up on a whim, scrolling through short story collections available on Libby that I might be interested in reading. Earlier in 2018, I listened to Gay’s Not That Bad essay collection on audiobook (that review went up last Friday as part of my catch-up!), and I liked how she put that together. I’ve heard a lot about her, mostly because of her run on the comic World of Wakanda, and have been meaning to read more of her work, so this was my first jump into her fiction.
4 out of 5 stars. The most recent in my V.E. Schwab reading obsession, Vicious is a dark comic book-esque story of ordinary people who, through extreme trauma, become ExtraOrdinary. Victor Vale is out for revenge. Eli Ever thinks he’s doing God’s work. And caught up between their single-minded pursuits to stab the hell out of each other are a cast of interesting and complex side characters.
Read on November 9, 2018. 5 out of 5 stars. I listened to this on audiobook and it gave me chills. It’s almost impossibly difficult to talk about the types of things the individuals in this collection talk about. Listening to their essays and recounts of their experiences was enthralling, horrifying, and gut-wrenching. I have to echo what other reviewers have said: I can’t properly review this book because I can’t assign a rating to someone’s life experiences like this.
It’s beyond commendable that these people contributed their experiences. There’s a powerful message here for men and women alike, and both should add Not That Bad to their reading list. There’s constant reinforcement: it was that bad. It wasn’t your fault. You did nothing wrong. For the people who’ve never had to worry about rape culture, there’s a dose of reality. This happens every day. This happens to men and women. It is a problem that no one is trying to solve.
All of the essays in this collection are valid. It’s impossible for me to talk about any one as “better” than the others, because that’s not the point. Instead, think about how many essays there are in the collection – over 30. Think about how many lives were effected by rape and rape culture. Think about how this is a collection that people would say is a warning to women, rather than a lesson for men.
Know that this is real.
I mentioned this during my 2019 goals post, but this year I’m deciding to use the Book Riot Read Harder challenge as a sort of springboard for ideas on diverse reading and books outside of my comfort zone. I did a lot of reading in 2018, way more than I have in a single year in years, but a lot of it was comfortable stuff, things I knew I’d like or genres I was familiar with. With 2019, I want to branch out and incorporate more fiction and nonfiction that includes different topics, or comes from different places, and this challenge is one way to help me do that.
3 out of 5 stars. Alice Proserpine and her mother, Ella, have been running from bad luck for as long as she can remember. It follows them like a curse, dogging their heels wherever they go, chasing them from one stable (or not so stable) living situation to the next. Finally it catches up to them, and The Hazel Wood picks up just as things fall apart for our heroine.
This year’s holiday season was a huge book success for me: I gave books to basically everyone and I got a slew of books in return. I also got a mini-mountain of Switch games, which is great, but means we’re going to have some competing priorities. Good thing I have a week of vacation next week!
Each year, I set myself a pretty simple reading goal through the Goodreads Reading Challenge—just a number of books, no specifics, anything goes. In 2019, I want to be a bit more mindful with my reading choices, putting more focus on reading outside of my comfort zone and not just reading to increase a number. I’ll be tracking my progress in my Passion Planner, and I’ve decided to break my goals down into a few categories: books, comics, games (which I won’t be discussing here), and writing.
The Writerly Kind 