As the year comes to an end, I’m left to reflect on all the books I’ve read in the last twelve months. Not an easy task since this is the first year I set a goal of reading fifty books. Regardless of whether you consider that number astonishing or laughable, it proved a challenge for me to meet it. It proves an even greater challenge to reflect on those fifty books and come up with something noteworthy to say about them. I could attempt to rank them from worst to best, but I find this does very little in actually telling you what I thought about them. Instead, I wanted to organize and discuss them based on their rating. These ratings will be between one and five. As I didn’t rate as many books a three or less, I’ll lump all those books together. Then the fours and fives will get their own sections.
Three or Less:
- ⅕ “Scottish Myths” by Jake Jackson
- ⅖ “Folklorn” by Angela Mi Young Hur
- ⅖ “The Book of Awesome Women: Boundary Breakers, Freedom Fighters, Sheroes and Female Firsts” by Becca Anderson
- ⅖ “These Tiny, Infinite Things: an inquiry in to names & naming” by Lost Maps and W. Awry
- ⅖ “Reading for the Common Good: How Books Help Our Churches and Neighborhoods Flourish” by C. Christopher Smith
- 2.5/5 “Extinction” by Douglas Preston
- ⅗ “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” by William Shakespeare
- ⅗ “The Mysterious Abductions” by Tracey Hecht
- ⅗ “Shriek: An Afterword” by Jeff VanderMeer
- ⅗ “Finch” by Jeff VanderMeer
- ⅗ The Spiderwick Chronicles Book 1: “The Field Guide” by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
I would consider myself rather forgiving of a lot of things, so for a book to be rated a three or less, it’s failed in one way or another to meet my most minimal of requirements. What are those minimum requirements? Well, I need a book to…
- make sense (whether that’s the plot, story, or just how the information is organized),
- be entertaining (this is as true for non-fiction as for fiction),
- not be too predictable,
- and have relatable and interesting characters.
While these requirements are certainly subjective, the books in this section have all landed here because they failed to meet at least one of these qualifications. The lower the rating, the more likely that book failed to meet multiple standards.
The Fours:
- “Treasure Hunters” by James Patterson
- “The Neil Gaiman Reader” by Neil Gaiman
- “Winnie-the-Pooh” by A.A. Milne
- “S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-to-Know Sexuality Guide to Get Through Your Teens and Twenties” by Heather Corinna
- “The Adventures of Robin Hood” by Howard Pyle
- “Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex” by Angela Chen
- “Laziness Does Not Exist” by Devon Price
- “The Moth Keeper” by Kay O’Neill
- “On a Sunbeam” by Tillie Walden
- “A Guest in the House” by Emily Carroll
- “Aru Shah and the Song of Death” by Roshani Chokshi
- “The Two of Them Are Just Like This Vol. 3” by Takashi Ikeda
- “Hovergirls” by Geneva Bowers
- “The Night Eaters, Vol. 1: She Eats the Night” by Marjorie M. Liu
- “Tokyo Ghoul Vol. 11” by Sui Ishida
- “Tokyo Ghoul Vol. 12” by Sui Ishida
- “I’m Glad My Mom Died” by Jennette McCurdy
- “Do Unto Animals: A Friendly Guide to How Animals Live, and How We Can Make Their Lives Better” by Tracey Stewart
- The Spiderwick Chronicles Book 2: “The Seeing Stone” by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
- “A Merry Little Meet Cute” by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone
Anything with a rating of four has, at least, managed to meet my minimum requirements. Again, I don’t think that these requirements are all that hard to attain. However, there are a few exceptions as well. Sometimes a book doesn’t necessarily meet all my minimum requirements, but sometimes it exceeds in such a way that I can forgive it for not being perfect. James Paterson’s “Treasure Hunters”, for example, is a very predictable story in many regards (it is a children’s book after all). However, I can overlook its predictability for the fact that it does exceptionally well in the other three standards.
The Fives:
- “Ansel Adams: Our National Parks” by Ansel Adams
- “A Wolf Called Wander” by Rosanne Parry
- “Because of Winn-Dixie” by Kate DiCamillo
- “Illuminae” by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
- “I Cannot Reach You, Vol. 7” by Mika
- “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry” by Fredrik Backman
- “Six of Crows” by Leigh Bardugo
- “Heartstopper: Volume Five” by Alice Oseman
- “Dinosaur Sanctuary, Vol. 1” by Itaru Kinoshita
- “The Two of Them Are Just Like This Vol. 4” by Takashi Ikeda
- “Pocket Queer Wisdom: Inspirational Quotes and Wise Words from Queer Heroes Who Changed the World” by Hardie Grant
- “We Should All Be Feminists” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- “World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
- “Every Body: An Honest and Open Look at Sex from Every Angle” by Julia Rothman and Shaina Feinberg
- “Women & Power: A Manifesto” by Mary Beard
- “Tokyo Ghoul Vol. 13” by Sui Ishida
- “Tokyo Ghoul Vol. 14” by Sui Ishida
- “Crooked Kingdom” by Leigh Bardugo
- “Midnight at the Shelter” by Nanci Turner Steveson
- “Before the Ever After” by Jacqueline Woodson
- “Atomic Habits” by James Clear
Aw… the fives. What separates these from the fours is the way they leave a trace behind. Either in my heart or my mind. (A few manage to do both!) I can talk generally about a book I rated a four. But ask me about a book I’ve rated a five? I could go on for hours about the emotions it made me feel, the characters I fell in love with, and/or the stunning way it kept me hanging on every word. When a non-fiction book falls in this category, it’s likely left my mind racing with new ideas and/or a new perspective on the world around me. In summary, a five leaves a piece of it with me, while also taking a part of me.
If you stuck it out through this entire post, thank you! I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you read any of the books on this list? How do you go about rating books? Are you more lax, like me? Or do you rarely rate things a four or five? Let me know with a comment! And be sure to have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve!