december book report.

Mockingjay. I reread part three of THG (half in time for the movie), and the other half the day after, and I'm glad that I did. Not only did it help out for the movie in terms of not being confused as to what was changed and what wasn't, it was kind of nice reading it again with bits of it remembered and bits of it forgotten, and now I'm super excited for part two of the movie. And even though most people hate the ending of the series, I actually kind of love it.
“It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

Crazy Rich Asians. Ugh this book. I read it for my book club with my friends, and it was my choice, which I regret. It was so damn long, there were so many characters, the book resolved only one out of the what seemed like hundreds of stories it started. It was just too much. I didn't like many of the characters, maybe because I hate the way the truly rich people are portrayed (stuck-up assholes) and the actual nice characters were so naive and weird that they didn't ever truly resonate with me. This is only the second book of our book club and we've hated both so far (which is record setting, because it's not often that I read a book that hooked me with its description only to not like it in the end). So honestly, the next one can't really get much worse, but stay tuned.


Still Alice. This book broke my damn heart. It was so beautiful, but so broken in such a real way. A friend of mine's mom was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's a few years back, and though I felt and still feel the deepest of sympathies for my friend, her mom, and their whole family, reading this book put their lives and experiences and her mom's life and experiences into context for me. It made it so much more real to hear from the perspective of someone with the disease, rather than from a bystander's perspective, and I think Lisa Genova did a spectacular job of conveying what Alice was feeling and how she was perceiving the world around her as her life was changing.
“My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment. Some tomorrow soon, I'll forget that I stood before you and gave this speech. But just because I'll forget it some tomorrow doesn't mean that I didn't live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn't mean that today didn't matter.”

We Were Liars. I loved this novel. I was surprised continually, I was mislead successfully, and heartbroken completely. The one thing I didn't really understand to be honest was the concept of the liars. There were a couple of times where we found out someone was lying about something or other, but as a full concept of the book, "liars" didn't really make sense to me. But it didn't affect how I felt about it, so whatever. Just thought I'd voice it, maybe someone else felt the same.
“Tragedy is ugly and tangled, stupid and confusing.” 

Paper Towns. This is my third John Green novel, and I loved it just like the others, but had a few qualms with it just like the others. The first qualm is that Margo is very similar to Alaska (adventurous, can't be tamed, opinionated), and Q was very similar to Miles (dorky, unconditionally in love with the idea of a girl). But it wasn't a huge deal. It was a quick read like JG's other books, and it was unpredictable enough among the predictable.
“That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfast cereals based on color instead of taste.”

The reading year is over, and I managed to almost reach my goal even though there were a couple of months this year that I barely read or didn't at all. 22/25 ain't bad, and I'm ready to take on a full twenty five this year, no excuses, no paperback lust list, and no conditions. (Also, check out the GIF I made myself. Please appreciate.)