Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.

— Jean Rhys

So, this was the first year that I’ve done a book challenge. I have been an avid reader my entire life, but I found that I was falling into patterns where I was reading the easy stuff, the books I knew that I would like, and I was craving a push to get me outside of my comfort zone. I found the PopSugar Reading Challenge, and I’m so glad that I did. This has been a journey that has me reading all sorts of different books – some that I loved, some that I very much didn’t . It also connected me to more readers, and genres I didn’t even know existed.

I feel like this pushed me and pulled me in the best possible ways. Below are mini-reviews of the first 9 books I read for these prompts.

A book becoming a movie in 2019: Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

I would rate this 3 out of 5. I know that I’m probably in the minority here, based on other reviews that I have seen, but I just didn’t find this book particularly compelling or surprising. In the psychological thriller, an agoraphobic believes she has seen a crime through the window, but can’t get out of the house to figure out what is happening. A fairly predictable set of strange circumstances follow. The book has its moments, and is an interesting look at agoraphobia, but overall it isn’t high on my recommendation list.

A book that makes you nostalgic: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

No matter how many years it has been between readings, this book will be a 5 of 5 for me. I haven’t read this classic tale of family and magic in many years, but when I thought of nostalgia, it came immediately to mind. I feel like everyone has already read this book, but if you haven’t, you should.

A book written by a musician: Just Kids by Patti Smith

I can only give this 3.5 of 5 stars. I’ll be honest, this really isn’t my genre, so my rating may be low for those who enjoy autobiographies. Patti Smith is an interesting character who clearly lived a really unique life. The book is written fairly lyrically. Despite that, there just wasn’t enough meat to the story or connectivity to really hold my interest through the entirety of the book.

A book that should be turned into a movie: The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

Unlike the previous book, this is firmly in one of my favorite genres. Mostly because of its potential, I’d rate it as 3.75 of 5 stars. The premise is that there is a hidden library and librarians that move through time and worlds to retrieve dangerous and powerful books. The underlying world is a fascinating idea. Unfortunately there was too much setup in this first book of the series for it to truly shine. I haven’t read any more of the series, but I suspect that there is great potential for the next books to turn into a really great fantasy series.

A book with at least 1 million ratings on Goodreads: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I unexpectedly fell head over heels for this book and give it an easy 5 of 5. Set in World War II, it follows the life of a little girl and her adoptive family. It is narrated by death. When I first started the book, I was struggling with some of the stylistic aspects – it seemed abrupt and a bit disjointed. But that soon faded and I fell deeply in love with this heart-wrenching story and the characters within. By the end the style made complete sense and I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

A book with a plant in the title or on the cover: Blue Dahlia by Nora Roberts

I’m glad I gave this book a chance, and would rate it at 4 of 5. Part romance, part ghost story, part a tale of heartbreak, part a tale of finding family where it grows. When a woman is recovering her life after the death of her husband, she moves south and gets a job in a gardening store. In the process of healing and watching over her sons, she just may find love if the resident ghost doesn’t stop her. My sister is a HUGE fan of Nora Roberts, but I’ve never really read a whole lot of her books. I really enjoyed this one. The characters are a bit too much to to be realistic, but the story is sweet and throwing in a haunted southern house and a lot of gardening and southern charm made the read so enjoyable that I went on a detour from the challenge and read the rest of the trilogy.

Re-read of a favorite: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Given the prompt, it should be no surprise that I’d rate it 5 of 5. There is a reason this is a classic and a favorite. Re-reading it did me some good and reminded me just how lovely this story is.

A book about a hobby: The Renaissance Soul by Margaret Lobenstine

This was probably the book where I started adding a lot of self-help type reading to my year, because the book truly inspired me. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I give it 5 of 5. This might be pushing the category a bit, but when I was thinking about my many and varied hobbies – none (other than reading) that I can say I’ve really gotten into enough to want to read a book about it – I realized that what I really wanted to think about was how to narrow down my hobbies and find what I was really passionate about. I found this book, and it describes my soul to a tee. If you’re a person who is constantly wanting to do new things, try new things, and can’t find that one passion everyone talks about, this book is for you. Time to stop feeling guilty or empty because you’re interested in many things all at once.

A book you meant to read in 2018: Start with Why by Simon Sinek

I’d give this 4 out of 5, which is really quite high for me, as I’m a businesswoman and very particular about business books. The book fits nicely with my recent obsession with exploring myself and my passions more thoroughly, particularly as they fit with my work life. I was introduced to Simon Sinek’s work through a business leadership program I was in, and I loved the TedTalk. So I picked up the book in 2018, but didn’t get around to reading it until 2019. It’s a great treatise on why businesses succeed long-term, and why they don’t. It really emphasizes the need for people to not just work for a paycheck, but for a business to succeed the employees and managers must know why and believe in why they are coming to work every day.

That’s the first part of the list! Stay tuned for the next part of the list, and don’t forget to follow the blog and drop me a line if you’ve read any of these books, want to read them, and what you think of them!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Nuggets of gold from the first 9 of the PopSugar Challenge 2019
1. My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating in a draft. – A.J. Finn, The Woman in the Window

2. Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. – Mrs. Whatsit – Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

3. I don’t understand it any more than you do, but one thing I’ve learned is that you don’t have to understand things for them to be. – Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

4. The artist seeks contact with his intuitive sense of the gods, but in order to create his work, he cannot stay in this seductive and incorporeal realm. – Patti Smith, Just Kids

5. The atmosphere of the place soothes her automatically; the rich lantern lights, the sheer decent of paper and leather, and the fact that everywhere she looked, there were books, books, beautiful books. – Genevieve Cogman, The Invisible Library

6. Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness. – Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

7. People observe the colors of a day only at its beginning and ends, but to me it’s quite clear that a day merged through a multitude of shades and intonations with each passing moment. A single hour can consist of thousands of different colors. – Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

8. If you never changed your mind, what was the point of having one? It seemed to Hayley she’d known too many people who were stuck in one way of thinking, and how could that be using the brain God gave you? – Nora Roberts, Blue Dahlia

9. I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience. – Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre