2019 Book Round Up

2019 was a year of good books! Most of the books I read achieved a four-star rating (perhaps I'm getting soft) and I added two books to my exclusive five-star list (Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin). One of the books I read was in French and a few of the poetry books I read included Spanish translations. I read a lot of poetry and books about poetry this year, and I also found a nice balance between my favorite genres of historical fiction and narrative nonfiction. I did not read any two-star books this year - which means I recommend all of the books in this post.

I committed to the Goodreads 2019 Reading Challenge with a goal of 52 books, eight less books than last year. This goal was far more manageable (I mostly kept to a book per week), so I am going to stick with this same goal for 2020. I was more intentional about the books I read, and my higher ratings reflect that!

I want to make more trips to the library and buy less books, which is so hard for me, but I cannot keep carting around all these books - especially as I look toward moving around after college. Stay tuned for the books I'll read in 2020!

Below you will find all of the books I read this year:

A guide to my rating system:

★★★★★ - Reserved for my favorite books ever
★★★★    - A must-read
★★★       - Enjoyable, I recommend it
★★          -  Not recommended but ok
★             - Bad, not interesting at all
✔             - Click the checkmark to read my review

1. When the Moon is Low by Nadia Hashimi ★★★★
2. The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant ★★★★
3. Loose Woman by Sandra Cisneros ★★★★
4. Lord of the Butterflies by Andrea Gibson ★★★★
5. Becoming by Michelle Obama ★★★★
6. A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ★★★★
7. Dancing after Hours by Andre Dubus ★★★★
8. The Paris Review Issue 201 ★★★★
9. Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer ★★★★
10. American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terence Hayes ★★★★
11. Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness by Carolyn Forché ★★★★
12. Légende de la Danse by Marie-Claude Piétragalla ★★★★
13. I'm Still Here by Austin Channing Brown ★★★★
14. The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo ★★★ ✔
15. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison ★★★★
16. Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels ★★★★★ ✔
17. 300 by Frank Miller ★★★
18. Emplumada by Lorna Dee Cervantes ★★★★ ✔
19. Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems by Lorna Dee Cervantes ★★★★ ✔
20. Dogs and Water by Anders Nilsen ★★★ ✔
21. The Road by Cormac McCarthy ★★★ ✔
22. Letters to Juliet by Lise Friedman ★★★
23. The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory ★★★★
24. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison ★★★★ ✔
25. Shame is an Ocean I Swim Across by Mary Lambert ★★★★ ✔
26. Kissing the Rod by Germain Greer ★★★
27. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell ★★★★ ✔
28. The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory ★★★★
29. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory ★★★★ ✔
30. How Poetry Can Change Your Heart by Megan Falley ★★★★
31. Madness Vase by Andrea Gibson ★★★★
32. The Sounds of Poetry by Robert Pinsky ★★★★
33. The Tradition by Jericho Brown ★★★★
34. The Making of a Poem by Mark Strand ★★★★
35. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace ★★★★
36. Tattoos on the Heart by Father Greg Boyle ★★★★
37. Dogfight by Matt Burgess ★★★
38. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin ★★★★★
39. You, Too, Could Write a Poem by David Orr ★★★★
40. All that Held Us by Henrietta Goodman ★★★★
41. Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits by Michael Harter ★★★
42. Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents by Cormac O'Brien ★★★
43. With Open Hands by Henri J.M. Nouwen ★★★★
44. Sacred Ground by Eboo Patel ★★★★
45. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn ★★★★
46. The Rose that Grew from Concrete by Tupac Shakur ★★★
47. The Best Bad Things by Katrina Carrasco ★★★★
48. Sourdough by Robin Sloan ★★★★
49. If They Come For Us by Fatimah Ashgar ★★★★
50. For Every One by Jason Reynolds ★★★★
51. The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn ★★★★
52. Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach ★★★