Hey hey, it’s MJ, 

            Here we are in 2021 and here I am with my first batch of books I have read this year. I mentioned last year that I was going to read kind of differently this year and I want to break that down in this post so going forward it makes more sense because I am going to be reading some different things than I did last year and this year also I have increased my number read goal to 45 even though I for sure have also written 42 in various places but I am hoping to get 45 but if I only get 42 I won’t be all that upset. 

So what is my attempted reading book list this year? 

I am going to give you a list that comprises of 45 books so just bear with me. I own most of the books I plan on reading already so they are mostly already pulled from my collection and piled on the shelf in my office because why not. I am doing this to branch back out and not just read cozy mysteries this year, granted I will be reading a bunch of them because they are quick reads but I want to have a variety. 

-10 Classics (hopefully)

            I am not going to list them but it’s basically just a collection of classics I already have and throwing darts at the Barnes and Noble classics collection. 

-5 Historical Fiction

            I read a lot of pre-World War 1 English historical fiction and I haven’t picked one up since then so I plan on reading 5 historical fictions this year. 

-5 Sci-Fi or Fantasy

            I love sci-fi and fantasy but I haven’t been reading them lately so I have already picked five out of my collection and they are on the list.

-5 General Fiction 

            Just random books, they can be whatever genre of fiction that I kind of feel like but most of them are just regular books. 

-2 Memoir’s/ Autobiography’s 

            I like books about people written by the person it’s about, I read a few last year and I have had several in my collection for years and it’s time to give myself a reason to read them. 

-1 Non-Fiction

            It’s going to be education related because that’s kind of my life so I plan on finding one that interests me, I may have one or two so we’ll see when it comes to that. 

-2 Thrillers

            I like serial killers and true crime as much as the next person and I have some fictionalized versions of actual serial killers so I plan on reading them this year and I am both dreading and excited for it because I haven’t read a thriller in years. 

-15 Choice

            This is where the cozies will show up and just random books that I want to read because between all of the categories that I am putting myself under this year I still want to just read random things and have the flexibility to do that so 1/3 of the books are my choice. 

            Alright on from that, I will probably keep a count of how many I’ve read this year in each section and put that at the bottom just to keep me accountable to it because it’s me and if I don’t I will just read whatever I want all year and all of those classics will just go back in the shelves and I don’t want to do that. 

            Let’s be real though, of course my first book of the year was a cozy though so we are just going to roll into that. 

Eaves of Destruction by Kate Carlisle (3.8/5)

            Shannon Hammer as always is amazing and I love the series, I am going to do a suggested cozies post at some point soon so you know if you haven’t been following along you can just see what I enjoy reading. This one had so many twists and turns and I could feel the insanity of the person who actually committed the crimes. I loved the introduction of the character of Amanda, another woodworker and that’s again really cool because ladies doing carpentry is always a win in my book. I had to look up what an orangery actually looks like and I love them. I want a sun room made of glass on my house when I grow up. I still love the continued world building and I can’t wait to dive into the next one but I am going to hold off and read something else from my list first. 

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll (3.5/5)

            So I grew up with the Disney versions of this book and my goal is still 10 classics this year and so this was my first. I actually really enjoyed it, I know it’s a lot, it’s very fanciful and it’s supposed to be that way. Someone I knew in high school called it a Victorian Acid Trip and I have never done acid but I can understand what they meant because the movie is very trippy. It’s just a really interesting book because it’s taking something that I have only seen in animated and live action films but reading something so familiar but also reading Through The Looking-Glass it was much different than the movie and I thought that was pretty cool. I really enjoyed it and it wasn’t a hard read, I read it in two days and for me that’s about average overall for my book read time when I actually get a chance to sit down and read. This book, if you like the movie, you should read because it’s the original classic that has become so familiar over the years to so many audiences. 

Bridget Jones Diary by Helen Fielding  (3.5/5)

            Guess who didn’t know that this book was originally published in the 90’s, me, I had no idea. I saw the movie years ago, I think I might own it or I just watched it on the internet; honestly I cannot remember. I am a single human being approaching 30 and I am in that bubble where so many of my friends are getting married and having babies so I understood a lot of the feelings in this novel. Times have not changed much to be honest. I read it in pretty much two days because it was based around the premise of a diary so it was easy to read and digest and having seen the movie first I knew kind of what to expect but it was rather funny at parts and gave me a new take on really what we say we are going to resolve in the new year every year. I might read the other Bridget Jones novels at some point because let’s face it, I have been proven over and over again to love funny books. 

West of Sunset by Stewart O’Nan (3.5/5)

            So I have read a few books about authors from this time period including The Paris Wife and I really like reading about early 20^th century authors that we consider to be masters of the written word today. Truth be told though, I have never read any of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s actual books. I am planning on it eventually but I have never gotten around to reading any of them, even The Great Gatsby which is one of those books that so many people have read and look at you funny when you haven’t read it or at least seen the movie. I find the lives of creative people of the past fascinating and that includes authors, artists, and actors because even if it’s fiction it gives such a perspective on a real person no matter the fictional underpinnings. It was a long read but it kept me interested and that’s really all that matters. I cannot tell you how long this book has been in my collection and if you like reading about people who write, this is a good one to do that with. 

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (4/5)

            I mean I watched the mini-series on Amazon Prime when it came out and I even wrote a blog post on it all that time ago. You can read it if you like. I loved the book, the show did it justice which sometimes is not the case. Though the book was also different from the series in some regards but it still read like a film and I couldn’t put it down. It’s separated into days unlike many books that are separated into chapters and it has so many story lines that finally come together at the end and it’s fantastic. Because there is a series (and I am watching it again because I can) I can see each character clearly in my head by their series counterparts and the casting was amazing because it just fit as I read the book. I feel like I am disjointed on this one but I still love the idea of a flaming Bentley blasting Queen racing toward the end of the world. 

A Wrench in the Works by Kate Carlisle (3.5/5)

            Second cozy mystery of the year because I needed a break for all of the rest of the stuff I was reading. It was a really quick read, it only took me two days in like two hour and a half long blocks because that’s just how my day works. It was a good book and it kept me turning pages, it was really good, though I have not read a book by Kate Carlisle that I haven’t liked. This one was really fast paced and I loved meeting Chloe, Shannon’s sister, for the first time in the series after hearing about her through several books now. Whitney, that character, grinds all of my gears because she reminds me of people that I went to high school and even college with. I went to a university in my home town and a lot of the students would call people from town “townies” and there was also this connotation that they were better than the people who lived in town and that bothered me quite a bit. So that theme throughout the series is sure a true problem and I get it. 

Esperanza Rising by Pan Munoz Ryan (3.6/5)

            I read this with the sixth graders I work with, it was one of those books that I heard of but had never actually read but I did and as a coming of age book and a learning who you are kind of book for middle schoolers, it’s great. It’s really impactful in so many ways and seeing it through the lens of being an adult but also reading what kids had to say about it was fascinating to me. It is a quick read but if you have a middle school aged kid in your life, it’s worth the read. I did volley back and forth on whether or not to put this one on the list but this list is all the books I have read in 2021 so that means that it goes on the list! Also with this group I am going to get to read Tuck Everlasting and I’ve never read that one either so look forward to that eventually. 

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (5/5)

            I normally don’t get super excited for books but Erin Morgenstern writes amazing books I cannot describe them in words but The Night Circus is my favorite book and being able to read another one of her works (finally after it sat on my shelf for a while) was like coming home. There are no words for how good this book was, all of the threads coming together and creating what I would describe as a literary masterpiece. I have so many words but no words at all, it was more sweet than bitter which I loved and the symbolism throughout had me turning pages faster than I could read and actually process them but I couldn’t stop. I want to read it again already and I just finished it, I also put it down for like a week and a half but that was an accident and I wish I hadn’t. It is so vivid I could see it in my brain, it was like watching a movie that I didn’t want to end. It’s fanciful, fairy tale-esque, and just down right amazing, (I feel like I say that a bunch but it’s true), I cannot describe how this book made me feel, I have no words even though I have so many that I want to say but none of them would accurately articulate how good this book was. I want to go to the Harbor, I want to get lost in stories, and feel like I am surrounded by magic. If I did long form book reviews this would be at the top of my list but I just don’t do that no matter how much I would like to. I will leave you with this, and Fate fell in love with Time. (How cool is that?!)

            Well that’s it for part one and below I put a counter of all the genres that I plan on reading this year so you can follow along. I was hoping to get ten books read in January and February and I was on track for that and then things changed so here’s hoping that I get more read in March and April, I think I am going to do every two months this year instead, like I did the last several months of last year just because I don’t want these posts to be TL:DR kind of posts. (My next book is my first thriller of the year so look forward to hearing how I feel about that one.)

            I hope that everyone has a good start to the week and I will be back mid-week with another post!

            -MJ

Let’s keep track shall we?:

Classics:  1/10

Historical Fiction:  1/5

Sci-Fi/Fantasy:  2/5

General Fiction:  1/5

Memoirs/Autobiographies:  /2

Non-Fiction:  /1

Thrillers:  /2

Free Choice:  2/15