Books I read in 2017

1. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle

A good overview of activism concerning black feminism, intersectionality and prison abolitionism but gets kind of repetitive and doesn’t go as deep as I had expected.

By Angela Davis

2. The Island in the Caldera

Cute. But I hate trilogies where the books just end on a cliffhanger. I like it when books are self contained.

By Lin Xeuling

3. Act Like It

Very good romance story with excellent dialog. Love the “fake relationship turns real” trope.

By Lucy Parker

4. The Sellout

Excellent. I think this is should be required reading on everyones “Fight The System” reading lists going around this year.

By Paul Beatty

5. Lagoon

I’m generally a fan of crazy sea monster aliens folklore witchcraft stories so obviously really liked this one. A lot of people have criticisms about the general plot and general stiltedness of the writing, but I read Kabu Kabu before this and wanted more of that. Which this book delivered.

By Nnedi Okorafor

6. Madam President

This book is not great, but it’s been kind of depressing lately and I needed a nice wishful thinking read where a 3rd party lesbian becomes president in 2020.

By Blayne Cooper and T. Novan

7. The Colour of Love

Nice and easy.

By Radclyffe 

8. Desire by Starlight

Did you know every small town in America is full of good looking gay women?

By Radclyffe

9. Binti / Binti Home

Good.

By Nnedi Okorafor

10. The Happiness of Pursuit

A bit too self-helpy for me. Parts I did like were about this woman who got super into birding and decided she wanted to catalog the most bird species seen ever. I should have just read her book.

By Chris Guillebeau

11. A Conjuring of Light 

A satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.

By V.E. Schwab

12. Exit West

Very good.

By Mohsin Hamid

13. Swimmer Among The Stars

Also very good.

By Kanishk Tharoor

14. Harris bin Potter and The Stoned Philosopher

Pretty funny parody of Harry Potter if it took place in Singapore and everyone was Malaysian.

By Suffian Hakim

15. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Okay.

By Becky Chambers

16. Mackenzie’s Mountain

Fine.

By Linda Howard

17. The Border of Paradise

Not my favourite of our book club choices. A good reminder for myself of why I don’t read family drama general fiction. 

By Esmé Weijun Wang

18. New York 2140

This one took me awhile to read as it’s very long and I’ve been very busy but it’s very good. New York saves the world in some super uplifting utopian fantasy. 

By Kim Stanley Robinson

19. Fantasian

This was for book club, and I didn’t read the synopsis before heading to the very public park to sit and read what turned out to be an erotica lol.

By Larissa Pham

20. 1001 Dark Nights

After not learning my lesson in the book before, I again don’t read the synopsis and thought this was about something TOTALLY different! Need to read some YA next to even this out.

21. The Unnaturalists

Magical steampunk YA. Pretty good.

By Tiffany Trent

22. The Bridge

Nice story, not great writing.

By Karen Kingsbury

23. Nocturne Falls 5

So bad. So, so bad.

By Kristen Painter

24. The Duchess War

Classic bodice ripper. Good read.

By Courtney Milan

25. The Book of Speculation

I like books that switch between time frames to tell a story. I’m not so much into the carnival themes, but this was a nice read.

By Erika Swyler

26. The Map of Time and The Turn of the Screw

This book drove me crazy.

By Felix J. Palma

27. Witches, Sluts, Feminists

Book club book. Not great.

By Kristen Sollee

28. God’s War

I liked this one. Set on a futuristic bug desert planet with muslim women bounty hunters.

By Kameron Hurley

29. All Our Wrong Todays

Pretty good. Especially the part with the time machine that moves backwards in real time so the main character sits in a metal cylinder for 50 years.

By Elan Mastai

30. Meet Me In Atlantis

This book is awesome.

By Mark Adams

31. A Study in Brimstone

Pretty funny. I like Sherlock Holmes mashups where Watson is the smart one.

By G.S. Denning

32. One Damn Thing After Another

Cool premise but could have reaaally used a good editor. 

By Jodi Taylor

33. Ink and Bone

Pretty good even though i intensely disliked the main character. I picked this one up because after the last book, I wanted something about the Library of Alexandria.

By Rachel Caine

34. Vicious

Great. I love all her books.

By V.E. Schwab

35. Please Kill Me

Awesome book of interview exerpts going through the history of punk music.

By Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain

36. Basic Witches

Book club (it’s October so we’re reading spooky things).

Okay. Not really in the realm of my personal witchcraft preference but I appreciate that it was written.

By Jaya Saxena and Jess Zimmerman

37. The Witches Of New York

Another October book club pick. This one was good.

By Ami McKay

38. Jackaby

This was cute. Like a supernatural, American Sherlock Holmes. I like Holmes themed books where the Watson character is a woman.

YA I think?

By William Ritter

39. The Book of Dust

I’m having a hard time deciding if this was good or not because I’m totally clouded by nostalgic giddiness.

By Philip Pullman

40. Snow Crash

I’d been putting off reading this for awhile, worried it wasn’t as good as I remembered. It’s as good as I remembered.

By Neal Stephenson

41. Range of Ghosts

Pretty good.

By Elizabeth Bear