Have I read my most anticipated releases of 2019?

Twice a year I post lists of books I am super excited about reading – and I wanted to see whether I have actually read those books and whether I liked them or not. My reading was fairly odd last year, so I am assuming I won’t have done as well as I did in 2018.

For the first half of the year I featured ten books I could not wait to get to.

1. The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang. I LOVED this.
2. The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders. Sadly I could not get into this book. I am fairly sure that had more to do with my wonky reading mood during 2019 and I will try to read this again at some other point because I do love Anders’ writing.
3. Mother Winter by Sophia Shalmiyev. This seemed custom-made for me but somehow did not quite work for me.
4. Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James. I hyped this up so much in my head and ended up bouncing off it, hard. I hated the casual violence too much to keep reading it.
5. Long Live The Tribe Of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden. This is SUCH a good memoir that I cannot recommend highly enough.
6. Storm of Locusts (The Sixth World #2) by Rebecca Roanhorse. I loved this even more than I loved the first book in the series and will from now on read every adult book Roanhorse publishes. She is just brilliant.
7. What My Mother And I Don’t Talk About ed. by Michele Filgate. I realized after adding this book to my list that the contributors include men – so I did not get to it yet but I am planning on buying it soon.
8. The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West. The publication date kept being pushed back but I now own this and will hopefully get to it soon.
9. No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us by Rachel Louise Snyder. I would like to listen to the audiobook of this but haven’t yet found it.
10. The Dragon Republic by R. F. Kuang. I tried reading this for months but I was just not in the mental headspace to deal with its relentless bleakness and the brutality of the storyline. I am unsure whether I will ever be back in the reading mood for this.

I only read four of these books and DNFed an additional two. This is depressing.

For the second half of the year I named ten books I was super excited about.

1. Three Women by Lisa Taddeo. I have not gotten around to this book yet but I am still super excited about it.
2. The Need by Helen Phillips. Again, I did not get to this. I am currently trying not to buy too many books and also maybe a horror novel about pregnancy/ children is not the best idea at the moment. I still want to get to it at some point!
3. I’m Telling the Truth But I’m Lying by Bassey Ikpi. I sadly did not love this. I found te reading experience difficult even if I can appreciate what Ikpi does on an intellectual level.
4. Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino. I thought this was absolutely brilliant. I listened to the audiobook which is my favourite way of consuming non-fiction.
5. Shelf Life by Livia Franchini. I read but didn’t love this.
6. Pet by Akwaeke Emezi. I haven’t even bought this one yet. Middle Grade is just never the age range I get excited about.
7. In the Dream House my Carmen Maria Machado. I am still waiting for the audiobook to make it to Audible Germany. I prefer listening to memoirs on audio.
8. How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones. I can now read this! Once I buy it, that is.
9. Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Diaz. Another one that I am beyond excited about that I did not even purchase yet.
10. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. I cannot believe I haven’t gotten around to buying this yet.

I only read three of these books and loved only one. This is even more depressing than the first part of this post. I really did not do too brilliantly on this – which was kind of to be expected, given how weird my reading year went. I hope this year will go better, most anticipated releases wise. (you can find my first post for 2019 here)

Wrap Up: September & October 2019 or I think I’m back now

I’m back. I think. I quietly stayed away from my blog and Goodreads for weeks now. The reason is a brilliant one though: I am pregnant. While I love it and I am so glad – I also felt like I was run over by a truck for the better part of three months. So, I just didn’t read much. And then when I started reading again, I only read really, really trashy romance novels (and I mean that in the nicest way possible) and didn’t feel quite like talking about them. I also stopped blogging and reading other people’s blogs, but I think I am back now. And excited for it! (I wrote this paragraph a while ago – and then my body decided to not yet be done with feeling awful – so this wrap up is late and mostly without pictures.)

Books I read in September & October:

1. The Bone Season (The Bone Season #1) by Samantha Shannon: 4 out of 5 stars (review)
2. Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3. Trick Mirror: Reflections of Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino: 4 out of 5 stars (review)
4. Crossing the Line (Sinner and Saint #1) by Lucy Score: 3 out of 5 stars
5. Breaking the Rules (Sinner and Saint #2) by Lucy Score: 3 out of 5 stars
6. Up in Smoke (Crossing the Line #2) by Tessa Bailey: 2 out of 5 stars
7. Mr. Fixer-Upper by Lucy Score: 4 out of 5 stars
8. Duke in Darkness (Wickedly Wed #1) by Nicola Davidson: 3 out of 5 stars
9. Runaway Girl (Girl #2) by Tessa Bailey: 4 out of 5 stars
10. Driven by Fate (Serve #5) by Tessa Bailey: 3 out of 5 stars
11. The Price of Scandal by Lucy Score: 3 out of 5 stars
12. Protecting What’s Theirs (Line of Duty #1.5) by Tessa Bailey: 3 out of 5 stars
13. His Risk to Take (Line of Duty #2) by Tessa Bailey: 3 out of 5 stars
14. Asking for Trouble (Line of Duty #4) by Tessa Bailey: 3 out of 5 stars
15. Baiting the Maid of Honor (Wedding Dare #2) by Tessa Bailey: 4 out of 5 stars
16. The Mopster’s Masseuse by Jessa Kane: 1.5 out of 5 stars
17. Bared by Alta Hensley: 1.5 out of 5 stars
18. So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo: 3 out of 5 strs
19. Shelf Life by Livia Franchini: 3 out of 5 stars (review)
20. The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esmé Weijun Wang: 5 out of 5 stars

Favourite of the Month:

The Collected Schizophrenias was absolutely stunning. I adored everything about this impeccably written essay collection/ memoir and I want more people to read it. I

Review: Trick Mirror – Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino

Verdict: Sharp, rambling, wonderful.

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Genre: Essay collection

Published by Fourth Estate, August 6th 2019

Find it on Goodreads.

We are living in the era of the self, in an era of malleable truth and widespread personal and political delusion. In these nine interlinked essays, Jia Tolentino, the New Yorker’s brightest young talent, explores her own coming of age in this warped and confusing landscape.

From the rise of the internet to her own appearance on an early reality TV show; from her experiences of ecstasy – both religious and chemical – to her uneasy engagement with our culture’s endless drive towards ‘self-optimisation’; from the phenomenon of the successful American scammer to her generation’s obsession with extravagant weddings, Jia Tolentino writes with style, humour and a fierce clarity about these strangest of times.

Following in the footsteps of American luminaries such as Susan Sontag, Joan Didion and Rebecca Solnit, yet with a voice and vision all her own, Jia Tolentino writes with a rare gift for elucidating nuance and complexity, coupled with a disarming warmth. This debut collection of her essays announces her exactly the sort of voice we need to hear from right now – and for many years to come.

This is an incredibly strong essay collection, brought down by a first essay that did not work for me and made picking this back up difficult for me. But once I finished that first essay, Jia Tolentino gives the reader an incredibly well-structured and presented collection. I know why this was one of my most anticipated reads for this year.

Jia Tolentino writes about many different things but always through a lense of feminism and internet culture – something I particularly adore as a feminist who is very much online. Her essays have a rambling quality that worked exceedingly well for me because I could trust her to pull her different strands of argument back together by the end of each essay. She combines the personal with the political, always underpinning her arguments with quotes and statistics in a highly effective way. This is the type of essay collection I adore.

My absolute favourite essay of this collection is about ecstacy – both the drug and the concept in religion. Tolentino reflects on her own religious upbringing, her relationship to drugs, her discovery of Houston’s hip hop scene, and her experience with god in a way that should not work for me (I am not particularly interested in any of these topics on their own) but that was just incredible. If you are only going to read one essay from this collection, make sure it is this one.

Content warning: discussions of rape culture and rape, bigotry, misogyny, racism.

I received an ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Fourth Estate in exchange for an honest review.

Rachel and I have too many ARCs – a “hold me accountable” TBR

I have too many unread ARCs on my shelves and I am starting to get really annoyed at the fact. My reading has been very different the last I don’t even know how many months (actually I do know; since October last year) and as a result I haven’t read the books I thought I would read but have not stopped requesting books either. Which means that at the moment I have the ridiculous number of 26 unread ARCs, 15 of which are past their publication date. I don’t know about you all but for me, once I don’t manage to read an ARC by its publication date, chances are I won’t read it anytime soon – which is stupid because I want to read those books! I am not alone in this, so Rachel @paceamorelibri and I have decided to hold each other responsible and do a two week long stretch of reading ARCs, starting on September 1st. You should join us!

High priority:

Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri

Published November 2018

I was approved for this ARC after it had already been published and then I just never got around to reading it. Which is a shame because apparently it features gods (possibly my favourite thing ever! See recommendations here) and a really well-done romance – this book could not be more up my alley if it had been written with me in mind. I figure if I read it now I can get hyped about the next book in the series, which will be released in November.

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

Publishing Date: Oktober 1st 2019

Pretty much the only Booker longlisted book I am interested in this year. I adored Winterson’s memoir when I read it last year and have wanted to read more of her ever since. This sounds absolutely brilliant I really should get to it before the short list is announced – so that I have at least one potential horse in the game.

 

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

Publishing Date: September 12th 2019

I was a bit apprehensive when I requested it but it so anyways because the hype got to me. But since then people whose taste I trust have loved it – so I am really looking forward to this. I do love a good portal fantasy but I don’t love books about books. But the reviews are so good!

 

The Outside by Ada Hoffmann

Published June 2019

I have a complicated relationship with scifi. I want to love it and often adore the premises but then never super enjoy the books. This one sounds SO brilliant and made for me though. I mean, AI Gods? (Like I said, I adore books about gods) How could I not request a copy? I really need to get to this.

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

Published August 2019

I have been looking forward to this book for ages, so I have absolutely no excuse. I really, really want to read this. But for some reason I have not been able to read non fiction lately at all. I hope this will change soon!

 

Unsure and will do a Try A Chapter Tag with

Invitation to a Bonfire by Adrienne Celt

Published July 2018

Another book I received after its publication date – and one I keep forgetting that I own. It is losely based on the Nabokov marriage and I think it would be interesting to compare it to what I learned about Vera and Vladimir Nabokov reading Stacy Schiff’s incredible Vera a few weeks ago. It is, however, historical fiction, a genre I frequently struggle with and have mostly given up on. Hopefully this will work for me now.

The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell

Published March 2018

I requested this when I was trying to read as many eligible books for the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction. And then promptly never picked it up. It isn’t quite my type of book but the reviews are good. I will have to read a bit and see how much I like it.

 

Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron

Publishing Date: September 3rd 2019

I wished for this because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. However, I apparently did not expect to have my wish granted (it is the third wish I have had granted, so maybe I am a unicorn?) – I am not sure I will love this. I have struggled a lot with YA these last few years, so this might not work for me at all. It does sound interesting though and maybe myself-imposed absence in the YA world will help me like this.

Read a bit and need to decide whether I want to keep reading:

I have the habit of starting a book and putting it down at some point when I am not immediately loving it. I have five ARCs that I have read at least some part of but for some reason or other put down again. I need to read a bit more of each of these books and then make the decision whether I want to keep reading or not.

City of Lies by Sam Hawke

Cala by Laura Legge

Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O’Keefe

The Snakes by Sadie Jones

Knock Wood by Jennifer Militello

 

Please join us in our attempt to finally make a dent into our ARC piles! Which of these books should I prioritize? (I cannot promise to actually listen to anybody)

 

Most anticipated releases of the second half of 2019

I love compiling these lists because I love getting excited for books. So far this year I haven’t done so great at actually reading my anticipated releases (here are the ones for the first half of the year) but who knows, maybe that’ll change. Spoiler alert: for somebody who has only read like 3 non-fiction titles this year, I sure am looking forward to many memoirs. I really need to get my reading back to normality.

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

Bloomsbury, July 9th

Genre: Non-Fiction

Every review of this I have seen has been glowing – and it sounds like it could be just the perfect book for me. I love non-fiction about women.

The Need by Helen Phillips

Penguin / Viking, July 16th

Genre: Horror, Fiction

I read Helen Philips’ short story collection Some Possible Solutions a while ago and while I didn’t enjoy every story, those I liked I absolutely loved. I also think her vague and metaphorical style might really work for me in novel form. I also am always interesting in books about motherhood – and one with a horror slant sounds like just the book for me.

I’m Telling the Truth But I’m Lying by Bassey Ikpi

Harper Perennial, August 6th

Genre: Essay Collection

I am mostly excited for this because Akwaeke Emezi loved it – and I figure everything they love, I’ll love. I also really love personal essay collections, I adore the title, and I usually enjoy the non fiction titles I read published by Harper, so this should be right up my alley.

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

Random House, August 6th

Genre: Essay Collection

I love Tolentino’s writing and am super excited about a full length essay collection by her. I cannot see myself not loving this. I also adore the old school hipster style cover more than I am comfortable admitting.

Shelf Life by Livia Franchini

Doubleday, August 23rd

Genre: Fiction

This sounds absolutely excellent and I do adore the cover (always a plus). I love stories about women whose life have exploded around them – and this one seems to be interestingly structured as well.

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

Faber&Faber, September 10th

Genre: YA, Fantasy

I know nearly nothing about this book except that for Emezi I am willing to read a YA novel. Their writing is exciting without end and while I am even more excited for their upcoming adult novel, I will be reading this nonetheless. But the cover is killing me (and not in the good way).

In the Dream House my Carmen Maria Machado

Graywolf Press, October 1st

Genre: Memoir

This is the book I am most excited about. I adore Machado’s writing and this memoir sounds incredible (it has been getting a steady number of intriguingly high praise).

How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones

Simon and Schuster, October 8th

Genre: Memoir

This is the first book published this year that made me cross with myself for choosing to not read any books written by men. I will be reading this the moment 2020 roles around. I love Jones’ writing and this memoir sounds incredible.

Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Diaz

Algonquin Books, October 29th

Genre: Memoir

This is comped to Myriam Gurba’s Mean and Marie Terese Mailhot’s Heartberries. Both of which I adored.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Harvill Secker, November 5th

Genre: Fiction, Fantasy

Like many others, I adore The Night Circus. So when Morgenstern’s new book finally got announced, I like many others, squealed. I cannot wait to read this. But the covers are all truly awful.

What are some of the books you are looking forward to?