r/52book

Just finished James by Percival Everett. This was one of the more difficult ones for me to rank and I’ll likely have to sit with it awhile.

The premise as the retelling of Huck Finn was great and the parts the strayed from the orginial story were so beautifully told.

But the ending….. feels like the threw away the entire story and message for a different direction at the end. Wonder if others felt similar as I see this book universally praised.

Honestly part of the fun of this challenge for me has been posting on here / seeing what people think of various books, even if the comments are sometimes.... not very kind because of particular tastes. The tiers are not ordered, though I did enjoy the HWFWMs slightly more than the Bobiverses in that tier.

Book list (left to right):

Top:

• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
• The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
• There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
• Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
• Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Next down:

• Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
• The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams

Next down:

• Thrawn by Timothy Zahn
• Recursion by Blake Crouch
• He Who Fights with Monsters 10 by Shirtaloon
• Oyasumi Punpun, Vol. 1 by Inio Asano
• Stoner by John Williams
• Thrawn: Alliances by Timothy Zahn

Next down:

• He Who Fights with Monsters 7-9 by Shirtaloon
• Bobiverse 1–4 by Dennis E. Taylor
• Primal Hunter by Zogarth
• The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
• This Is Water by David Foster Wallace
• 1% Lifesteal, Book 1 by Robert Blaise
• Sky-Out: Lived Experiments in Solar Eschatology by Ouroborista
• Frankenstein: 1818 Text by Mary Shelley

Next down:

• Chrysalis by RinoZ
• Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
• Merchant Crab by H0st
• Foundation by Isaac Asimov
• Dungeon Crawler Carl 2–3 by Matt Dinniman
• Bobiverse 5 by Dennis E. Taylor

Next down:

• Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
• A Practical Guide to Evil by ErraticErrata

Next down:

• Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
• Liberal Fascisms by Slavoj Žižek

Next down:

• Punk 57 by Penelope Douglas

I've loved seeing everyone else's posts! Wanted to share what I've been up to in my literary life!

Edit: updating in accordance with mod rules!

New Favorites:

• The Correspondent - Virginia Evans
• East of Eden - John Steinbeck
• Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer
• Piranesi - Susanna Clarke
• A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles
• Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
• The Cruelest Miles - Laney/Gay Salisbury

Loved, think about often:

• The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides
• The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
• The Wager - David Grann
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter - Stephen Graham Jones
• Circe - Madeline Miller
• Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver
• The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster
• Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
• Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
• Orbital - Samantha Harvey

Good! Enjoyable:

• Yellowface - R.F. Kuang
• Hana Khan Carries On - Uzma Jalaluddin
• The Great Mann - Kyra Davis Lurie
• Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larson
• All Systems Red - Martha Wells
• Bad Blood - John Carreyrou
• Dinner with Vampires - Bethany Joy Lenz
• The husbands - Holly Gramazio
• These Heathens - Mia McKenzie
• Sharp Objects - Gillian Flynn
• Martyr! - Kaveh Akbar
• Service Model - Adrian Tchaikovsky
• S is for Space - Ray Bradbury
• Marion - Leah Rowan
• The Maidens - Alex Michaelides

Meh:

• The Long Walk - Stephen King
• The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins
• The Cure for Women - Lydia Reeder
• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid
• The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks
• The Book Censor's Library - Bothayna Al-Essa
• The Ghostway - Tony Hillerman
• Authority - Jeff VanderMeer

Did not like:

• It's Not Her - Mary Kubica
• Discipline - Larissa Pham
• Every Summer After - Carley Fortune
• The Guest List - Lucy Foley

HATED (DNF):

• The Secret History - Donna Tartt

I’m so glad that I took the advice of many and finally read this book.

After only reading 26 books in the last 10 years I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do it (The last time I finished 52 in a year was 2014!) But I wanted to spend less time mindlessly scrolling social media, and I had a long commute on a bus so I started reading a bit and then fell back in love with reading with Philip K Dick, and I just haven't stopped. I found myself reading just stuff I KNEW I would like / love however and tried to branch out, but I haven't found anything I would rate 1* yet. I find myself critical of my own rating scale, how do you folks approach your rating system?

I've ordered the books in each tier from left to right in order of how much I enjoyed them that's why some things in a series are out of order. I put non-fiction after fiction.

5+ Star / Favourites

Gravity’s Rainbow Thomas Pynchon

Vineland Thomas Pynchon

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick

A Scanner Darkly Philip K. Dick

We Have Always Lived in the Castle Shirley Jackson

Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad

The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin

Stag Dance: A Quartet Torrey Peters

The Third Person Emma Grove

Hangsaman Shirley Jackson

No Longer Human Osamu Dazai

5*

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Mark Twain

The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson

Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories Amal El-Mohtar

Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen

Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk

A Canticle for Leibowitz Walter M. Miller Jr.

Martian Time-Slip Philip K. Dick

Ubik Philip K. Dick

Sky Daddy Kate Folk

Please Stop Trying to Leave Me Alana Saab

Tender Is the Flesh Agustina Bazterrica

The Bird's Nest Shirley Jackson

War Is a Racket Smedley D. Butler

Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men Lundy Bancroft

The Haunted Self Onno van der Hart

Apology & Crito Plato

4*

Persuasion Jane Austen

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain

You Weren't Meant to Be Human Andrew Joseph White

The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick

My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh

The Lottery and Other Stories Shirley Jackson

The Complete Stories Franz Kafka

Skin Game Jim Butcher

Heated Rivalry Rachel Reid

The Chapo Guide to Revolution Chapo Trap House

Transgender History Susan Stryker

3*

The Infinite and the Divine Robert Rath

The Fall of Cadia Robert Rath

Iron Widow Xiran Jay Zhao

The Firm John Grisham

Battle Ground Jim Butcher

Peace Talks Jim Butcher

Kiss of Seduction: A Court of Chains Story Rawnie Sabor

Game Changer Rachel Reid

Tough Guy Rachel Reid

Three Years War Christiaan Rudolf de Wet

Will Grayson, Will Grayson John Green

2*

Heretical Fishing Haylock Jobson

Common Goal Rachel Reid

Dungeon Crawler Carl Matt Dinniman

The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook Matt Dinniman

Carl's Doomsday Scenario Matt Dinniman

A would-be historian takes an interest in a man who helped develop the atomic bomb and discovers an aburdist religion and a new lethal substance along the way.

I had a good time with this book. It was easy to read, it flowed well, it was funny, and it definitely has my brain working. I like how things came together (and didn't come together, in some cases). It felt really absurd and poignant at the same time. Enjoyable read!

This is my third Sager and I have very much enjoyed all three.
I think he’s a great storyteller.
This one tells the story of a woman who returns to a place she experienced a childhood tragedy, both to confront her ghosts and to attempt to solve the mystery.
There are multiple twists throughout, some big ones and lots of small misdirections.
Much of the story centers around two groups of teenage friends, and includes all the emotional drama you would expect.
One event near the end was a little too convenient, but overall no worse than you find in most fiction.
Great read. Highly recommend.

Barely even spoilers but just in case….>!I really enjoyed the extra twist at the very end, though it opens up some questions of the earlier events. Whether they were actually real instead of hallucinations, and of course opens many completely unanswered questions. Usually I’m good with shocking endings like this, but I would have really liked an epilogue with some questions answered. Oh well.!<