December 2024 Wrap Up

Back at my mid-month wrap up, I had read 3 books. I said I needed to read 7 more books by December 31 to meet my goal of 100 books. It seemed like a lot, and maybe unlikely. Well, folks, I did it. Let's discuss.

A Man & His Cat by Umi Sakurai - When I realized I didn't have any manga or graphic novels on my shelves to read to boost my numbers, I had a panic attack until I remembered I now work in a very well-stocked library. I betook myself to the second floor and perused the manga and graphic novel shelves. I found this second in a series. I have read the first one and enjoyed it, so I grabbed this one. It was equally lovely. This guy who has never had a pet goes to the pet store and picks out the ugliest cat. He loves it. His wife has died and he is still grieving, but the cat helps.

My Dress-Up Darling by Shinichi Fukuda - Spoiler alert: I hated this. It's about a high school boy whose grandfather makes Hina dolls and he wants to do that too. He is an outcast at school because of his obsession with dolls. Until the alpha girl finds out he can sew. She gets him to make cosplay costumes for her. It's basically an excuse for drawings of a teenage girl's butt and boobs. Ew.

Growing Older with Jane Austen by Maggie Lane - This was great. I said before it's a look at all the older characters in Austen's novels and what they represent in the way of her opinions on various personalities.

Haiku: Japanese Art and Poetry by Judith Patt, Barry Till, and Michiko Warkentyne - I got this for Christmas. The day after Christmas, I was very sick and laid in bed most of the day. When I finally dragged myself into the kitchen to find food, I decided to distract myself with this. The poetry was okay. Some of them used words that didn't jive with the format of Haiku, which was jarring, but the art was fascinating. So many different styles.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld - I needed something that I could read quickly. This fit the bill. Our main character is Sally. She is nearing 40 and is a writer on a Saturday-Night-Live-type show. One week, the host is also the musical guest. He's a famous singer who has been on as musical guest only in the past, so Sally hasn't had much interaction with him. Recently Sally's office-mate became engaged to a starlet who hosted the show a few months ago. He's a regular guy and she's beautiful and famous. Sally writes a sketch for the show about how it never goes the other way. Beautiful and famous men don't fall for regular-looking women. The musician, Noah, seems to be showing interest in her, but she is so invested in this "rule" that she figures it's just flirting and shuts it down, even though she is interested herself. What surprised me is that only half this book takes place in the setting of the show. It skips a couple of years and suddenly it is August 2020 and Noah emails her, reaching out for some kind of interaction and it goes from there. I liked it. Sittenfeld writes a good yarn.

Lore Olympus, Vol. 2 by Rachel Smythe - This was a fun time. I love the artwork, even if I can't always tell which gods are which. All the yellow ones look alike.

The Last of August by Brittany Cavallaro - This is the second after A Study in Charlotte which I read earlier in 2024. In this one, Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Watson are spending Christmas break between his mom's house in London and her family's estate in Sussex. They also end up in Berlin when her uncle disappears and her mother is poisoned. It's a long story, but her brother has a global, hyper technical, surveillance business and they use his contacts to find out who is behind all the nastiness. It was fine. The romantic angst got annoying. They fought and made up and fought and made up far too many times. The spy stuff was cool, though.

And there it is. 7 more books to make a total of 10 for the month. It helped that I had 10 days off, even if I didn't spend a ton of that time reading. I got in more than usual.

Stay tuned for a wrap up of the entire year!