Books Read 2017
2017 was an insane year for reading. I read 100 books!!! I definitely will not read that many books this year, but it was very exciting to reach that benchmark. It was mostly due to a children's literature class I took in the spring, where I had to read a ton of kids books. It was a whirlwind and a whole lot of fun. Anyways, reading 100 books meant I read 29,773 pages! Whew!
(Books I read in 2014, 2015, and 2016)
Here's the fun category breakdown of what I read:
YA Fantasy: 14
YA Fiction: 3
YA Sci-Fi: 5
YA Western: 1
YA Graphic Novel: 6
TOTAL YA: 29
Juvenile Historical Fiction: 7
Juv Fantasy: 8
Juv Fiction: 17
Juv Graphic Novel: 5
Juv Non-Fiction: 6
Juv Biography: 1
Juv Poetry: 2
Juv Sci-Fi: 2
JUV TOTAL: 48
Memoir: 4
Non-Fiction: 4
Religion: 5
Graphic Novel: 1
Sci-Fi: 4
Fantasy: 1
Fiction: 3
Bio: 1
ADULT TOTAL: 23
I'm not going to write summaries of everything I read this year, but I'll highlight a few of my favorites!
January
1. Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge (YA)
💖2. Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo (Juv)
This is a delightful tale of a young girl who makes friends with a squirrel that has superpowers. It was joyous and heartfelt and complex and I want to recommend it to every kid in my library.
3. Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool (Juv)
4. Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina (Juv)
5. Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (Juv)
6. Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson (Juv)
7. Dork Diaries: Tales From a Not-SO Talented Pop Stars by Rachel Renee Russell (Juv)
8. Goosebumps: The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb by R.L. Stine (Juv)
9. P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams Garcia (Juv)
10. Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Juv)
11. Judy Moody, Girl Detective by Megan McDonald (Juv)
12. George by Alex Gino (Juv)
13. Dramacon Vol. 1 by Svetlana Chmakova (Juv)
14. The Rose and the Dagger by Renee Ahdieh (YA)
15. Reign Rain by Ann M. Martin (Juv)
16. Attack on Titan Vol. 1 by Hajime Isayama (Juv)
February
17. Fish in a Tree by Lynda Hunt (Juv)
18. Hand in Hand by Andrea Pinkney (Juv)
19. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (Juv)
20. Superman Versus the Klu Klux Klan by Richard Bowers (Juv)
21. One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (Juv)
22. Crystal Storm by Morgan Rhodes (YA)
23. Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst (YA)
24. Penny from Heaven by Jennifer L. Holm (Juv)
25. Yes, She Can! by Glenn Stout (Juv)
💖26. The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (YA)
I know this is an old graphic novel, but this autobiography is really incredible. It follows a girl in Tehran during the revolution, and tracks changes both in her life and in the country as she grows into adulthood.
27. The Harlem Hellfighters by Walter Dean Myers (Juv)
28. A Young People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (Juv)
29. Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key by Jack Gantos (Juv)
30. Fat Angie by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo (YA)
31. The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levin (Juv)
32. Branded by the Pink Triangle by Ken Setterington (Juv)
33. Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai (Juv)
34. Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool (Juv)
March
35. Jepp, Who Defied the Stars by Katherine Marsh (Juv)
36. Mockingbird (mok'ing-burd) by Kathryn Erskine (Juv)
37. Wanting Mor by Rukhsana Khan (Juv)
38. A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman (Juv)
39. The Crossover by Kwame Alexander (Juv)
40. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (Juv)
41. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (Adult)
42. Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman (Juv)
43. The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer (Juv)
44. Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin (Juv)
45. Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (YA)
46. The Adoration of Jemma Fox by Mary E. Pearson (Juv)
💖47. Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It by Gail Carson Levine (Juv)
This is an entire book of poetry modeled after the poem "This is just to say" by William Carlos Williams (which is maybe my all-time favorite poem) AND the book happens to be written by one of my favorite authors. So basically it was everything I've ever wanted.
April
48. Out of Sorts by Sarah Bessey (Adult)
49. Another Day as Emily by Eileen Spinelli (Juv)
50. The Maze Runner by James Dashner (Juv)
51. The Great Trouble by Deborah Hopkinson (Juv)
52. Enchantment Lake by Margi Preus (Juv)
💖53. Feed by M.T. Anderson (YA)
This sci-fi/dystopian book follows a teenage boy in a hyper technical world. He has a feed in his head that he uses constantly and which seems to make life fuller and more interesting. I felt like this book (published in 2002) is an incredible take on social media and attachment to digital devices (before any of those existed as we know them now). This is another one that I feel like everyone should read.
54. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (YA)
55. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale (YA)
56. The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown edited by Catherine Burns (Adult)
May
57. Peter Pan J.M. Barrie (Juv)
58. 100 Birds Taught Me to Fly by Ashley Mae Hoilland (Adult)
59. All Joy and No Fun by Jennifer Senior (Adult)
60. A Small Revolution by Jimin Han (Adult)
61. Soviet Daughter by Julia Alexeyeva (Adult)
62. Simply Give Birth edited by Heather Cushman-Dowdee (Adult)
63. Drag Teen by Jeffery Self (YA)
💖64. The Martian by Andy Weir (Adult)
I'm super late to the Martian train, but I was still super impressed. This book was fun and scientific and dramatic and great. The author just releas
65. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Adult)
66. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell (Adult)
67. The Church and the Kingdom by Giorgio Agamben (Adult)
June
68. Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson (YA)
69. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Original Screenplay by J.K. Rowling (YA)
70. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (YA)
71. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir (YA)
💖72. The Circle by Dave Eggers (Adult)
This is another futuristic dystopia. It follows a woman who starts working at a social media company that kind-of-sort-of starts taking over the world. It was brilliant and scary and made me want to get off of all social media forever.
July
73. The Burning Point by Tracy McKay (Adult)
74. The Knot in the Grain by Robin McKinley (YA)
75. The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns (Adult)
76. Venus Prime 1 by Peter Preuss (Adult)
💖77. Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman (YA)
This was a fun YA Western (not something I read much of) that followed a young woman avenging her father's death and discovering old secrets about her family. It was dramatic and fun and an enjoyable read.
August
78. Third Wheel: Peculiar Stories of Mormon Women in Love by Melissa Leilani Larsen (Adult)
79. Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan (Juv)
80. Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan (Juv)
September
💖81. Real Friends by Shannon Hale (Juv)
This graphic novel memoir of Shannon Hale's childhood made me laugh and cry and laugh some more. I empathized a lot with her growing up (diagnosed social anxiety can make childhood hard!) so this one really stuck with me.
💖82. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (Adult)
Jesse recommended this to me because it had re-framed how he saw the world after he read it, and it did the same for me. This is the sequel to Ender's Game but it is very different from that book. This book discusses aliens and humanity and philosophy and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone.
83. Wonderwoman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo (YA)
84. Hollow City by Ransom Riggs (YA)
85. Castle Waiting by Linda Medley (YA)
October
86. Trials of Apollo by Rick Riordan (YA)
87. The Book of Mormon Girl by Joanna Brooks (Adult)
88. Mother's Milk by Rachel Hunt Steenblik (Adult)
November
89. The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan (Juv)
90. Swarm by Scott Westerfeld (YA)
91. Queer, There and Everywhere by Sarah Prager (YA)
92. Solo by Kwame Alexander (YA)
93. Unbelievable by Katy Tur (Adult)
December
94. Lumberjanes Vol. 4: Out of Time by Shannon Watters (YA)
95. Lumberjanes Vol. 5: Band Together by Shannon Watters (YA)
💖96. Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo (YA)
Leigh Bardugo has quickly become one of my favorite authors. She writes in an incredible fantasy world that feels vibrant and gritty and is incredible to read. This book is a series of short stories set in the same world as her other series, with the added perk that the stories are illustrated in a unique way. The story starts out with just a little bit of illustration around the edge of the page, and the illustration grows and gets more detail as the story progresses, until the final illustration shows the end of the story. And, of course, the stories were luscious and clever and some were perfectly scary. I loved this one.
97. Maus I by Art Spiegelman (YA)
98. Spill Zone by Scott Westerfeld (YA)
💖99. Landscape with Invisible Hand by M.T. Anderson (YA)
This is by the same author as Feed and tells the story of a teenage boy a few years after aliens have made contact with Earth, disrupting everything about life. While it's technically about aliens, I feel like there's a lot of parallels to the imminent future, where machine learning, AI and computers are set to replace a huge percentage of jobs and make human labor essentially useless. This was short and episodic and everyone should pick it up.
100. The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen (Adult)
I know I only highlighted a few books, but there were so many books that I really, really loved. If anyone wants more details or recommendations from what I read this year, please let me know!
(Books I read in 2014, 2015, and 2016)
Here's the fun category breakdown of what I read:
YA Fantasy: 14
YA Fiction: 3
YA Sci-Fi: 5
YA Western: 1
YA Graphic Novel: 6
TOTAL YA: 29
Juvenile Historical Fiction: 7
Juv Fantasy: 8
Juv Fiction: 17
Juv Graphic Novel: 5
Juv Non-Fiction: 6
Juv Biography: 1
Juv Poetry: 2
Juv Sci-Fi: 2
JUV TOTAL: 48
Memoir: 4
Non-Fiction: 4
Religion: 5
Graphic Novel: 1
Sci-Fi: 4
Fantasy: 1
Fiction: 3
Bio: 1
ADULT TOTAL: 23
I'm not going to write summaries of everything I read this year, but I'll highlight a few of my favorites!
January
1. Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge (YA)
💖2. Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo (Juv)
This is a delightful tale of a young girl who makes friends with a squirrel that has superpowers. It was joyous and heartfelt and complex and I want to recommend it to every kid in my library.
3. Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool (Juv)
4. Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina (Juv)
5. Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (Juv)
6. Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson (Juv)
7. Dork Diaries: Tales From a Not-SO Talented Pop Stars by Rachel Renee Russell (Juv)
8. Goosebumps: The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb by R.L. Stine (Juv)
9. P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams Garcia (Juv)
10. Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Juv)
11. Judy Moody, Girl Detective by Megan McDonald (Juv)
12. George by Alex Gino (Juv)
13. Dramacon Vol. 1 by Svetlana Chmakova (Juv)
14. The Rose and the Dagger by Renee Ahdieh (YA)
15. Reign Rain by Ann M. Martin (Juv)
16. Attack on Titan Vol. 1 by Hajime Isayama (Juv)
February
17. Fish in a Tree by Lynda Hunt (Juv)
18. Hand in Hand by Andrea Pinkney (Juv)
19. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (Juv)
20. Superman Versus the Klu Klux Klan by Richard Bowers (Juv)
21. One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (Juv)
22. Crystal Storm by Morgan Rhodes (YA)
23. Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst (YA)
24. Penny from Heaven by Jennifer L. Holm (Juv)
25. Yes, She Can! by Glenn Stout (Juv)
💖26. The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (YA)
I know this is an old graphic novel, but this autobiography is really incredible. It follows a girl in Tehran during the revolution, and tracks changes both in her life and in the country as she grows into adulthood.
27. The Harlem Hellfighters by Walter Dean Myers (Juv)
28. A Young People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (Juv)
29. Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key by Jack Gantos (Juv)
30. Fat Angie by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo (YA)
31. The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levin (Juv)
32. Branded by the Pink Triangle by Ken Setterington (Juv)
33. Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai (Juv)
34. Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool (Juv)
March
35. Jepp, Who Defied the Stars by Katherine Marsh (Juv)
36. Mockingbird (mok'ing-burd) by Kathryn Erskine (Juv)
37. Wanting Mor by Rukhsana Khan (Juv)
38. A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman (Juv)
39. The Crossover by Kwame Alexander (Juv)
40. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (Juv)
41. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (Adult)
42. Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman (Juv)
43. The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer (Juv)
44. Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin (Juv)
45. Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (YA)
46. The Adoration of Jemma Fox by Mary E. Pearson (Juv)
💖47. Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It by Gail Carson Levine (Juv)
This is an entire book of poetry modeled after the poem "This is just to say" by William Carlos Williams (which is maybe my all-time favorite poem) AND the book happens to be written by one of my favorite authors. So basically it was everything I've ever wanted.
April
48. Out of Sorts by Sarah Bessey (Adult)
49. Another Day as Emily by Eileen Spinelli (Juv)
50. The Maze Runner by James Dashner (Juv)
51. The Great Trouble by Deborah Hopkinson (Juv)
52. Enchantment Lake by Margi Preus (Juv)
💖53. Feed by M.T. Anderson (YA)
This sci-fi/dystopian book follows a teenage boy in a hyper technical world. He has a feed in his head that he uses constantly and which seems to make life fuller and more interesting. I felt like this book (published in 2002) is an incredible take on social media and attachment to digital devices (before any of those existed as we know them now). This is another one that I feel like everyone should read.
54. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (YA)
55. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale (YA)
56. The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown edited by Catherine Burns (Adult)
May
57. Peter Pan J.M. Barrie (Juv)
58. 100 Birds Taught Me to Fly by Ashley Mae Hoilland (Adult)
59. All Joy and No Fun by Jennifer Senior (Adult)
60. A Small Revolution by Jimin Han (Adult)
61. Soviet Daughter by Julia Alexeyeva (Adult)
62. Simply Give Birth edited by Heather Cushman-Dowdee (Adult)
63. Drag Teen by Jeffery Self (YA)
💖64. The Martian by Andy Weir (Adult)
I'm super late to the Martian train, but I was still super impressed. This book was fun and scientific and dramatic and great. The author just releas
65. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Adult)
66. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell (Adult)
67. The Church and the Kingdom by Giorgio Agamben (Adult)
June
68. Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson (YA)
69. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Original Screenplay by J.K. Rowling (YA)
70. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (YA)
71. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir (YA)
💖72. The Circle by Dave Eggers (Adult)
This is another futuristic dystopia. It follows a woman who starts working at a social media company that kind-of-sort-of starts taking over the world. It was brilliant and scary and made me want to get off of all social media forever.
July
73. The Burning Point by Tracy McKay (Adult)
74. The Knot in the Grain by Robin McKinley (YA)
75. The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns (Adult)
76. Venus Prime 1 by Peter Preuss (Adult)
💖77. Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman (YA)
This was a fun YA Western (not something I read much of) that followed a young woman avenging her father's death and discovering old secrets about her family. It was dramatic and fun and an enjoyable read.
August
78. Third Wheel: Peculiar Stories of Mormon Women in Love by Melissa Leilani Larsen (Adult)
79. Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan (Juv)
80. Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan (Juv)
September
💖81. Real Friends by Shannon Hale (Juv)
This graphic novel memoir of Shannon Hale's childhood made me laugh and cry and laugh some more. I empathized a lot with her growing up (diagnosed social anxiety can make childhood hard!) so this one really stuck with me.
💖82. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (Adult)
Jesse recommended this to me because it had re-framed how he saw the world after he read it, and it did the same for me. This is the sequel to Ender's Game but it is very different from that book. This book discusses aliens and humanity and philosophy and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone.
83. Wonderwoman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo (YA)
84. Hollow City by Ransom Riggs (YA)
85. Castle Waiting by Linda Medley (YA)
October
86. Trials of Apollo by Rick Riordan (YA)
87. The Book of Mormon Girl by Joanna Brooks (Adult)
88. Mother's Milk by Rachel Hunt Steenblik (Adult)
November
89. The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan (Juv)
90. Swarm by Scott Westerfeld (YA)
91. Queer, There and Everywhere by Sarah Prager (YA)
92. Solo by Kwame Alexander (YA)
93. Unbelievable by Katy Tur (Adult)
December
94. Lumberjanes Vol. 4: Out of Time by Shannon Watters (YA)
95. Lumberjanes Vol. 5: Band Together by Shannon Watters (YA)
💖96. Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo (YA)
Leigh Bardugo has quickly become one of my favorite authors. She writes in an incredible fantasy world that feels vibrant and gritty and is incredible to read. This book is a series of short stories set in the same world as her other series, with the added perk that the stories are illustrated in a unique way. The story starts out with just a little bit of illustration around the edge of the page, and the illustration grows and gets more detail as the story progresses, until the final illustration shows the end of the story. And, of course, the stories were luscious and clever and some were perfectly scary. I loved this one.
97. Maus I by Art Spiegelman (YA)
98. Spill Zone by Scott Westerfeld (YA)
💖99. Landscape with Invisible Hand by M.T. Anderson (YA)
This is by the same author as Feed and tells the story of a teenage boy a few years after aliens have made contact with Earth, disrupting everything about life. While it's technically about aliens, I feel like there's a lot of parallels to the imminent future, where machine learning, AI and computers are set to replace a huge percentage of jobs and make human labor essentially useless. This was short and episodic and everyone should pick it up.
100. The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen (Adult)
I know I only highlighted a few books, but there were so many books that I really, really loved. If anyone wants more details or recommendations from what I read this year, please let me know!
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