The first 60 books of the year

I made a goal this year to read at least 120 books. That was about 20 more than I read last year (yes, I keep track of these things because yes, I am a nerd), and it came out to 10 books a month, which seemed reasonable.

Much to my surprise, I’m about two months ahead of schedule, since I passed the halfway point this week—guess that’s what happens when one doesn’t have homework taking up 24 hours a day and then some. Since I’ll be leaving the country in September, it’s a good thing that I’m moving along so well—I’m not sure what my access to books in English is going to be after that point, but I suspect I’ll have limited choices. I’m also leaving behind my favorite public library in just a month, which is going to kill the number of new books I get each week. I don’t have the funds to buy ten new books every week, especially if they could turn out to be awful. I also definitely don’t have the space to keep them somewhere. One of these days I’ll take a picture of my bookshelf as proof.

Anyway, I figured I’d do a quick recap of books 1-60, all of were given scores from 0-5, 5 being the highest and indicating that said book is generally awesome.

First book: The Red Leather Diary, by Lily Koppel, 3.

30^th book: 10 Things I Hate About Me, by Randa Abdel-Fattah, 3.

60^th book: Beautiful, by Amy Reed, 1.

Books receiving the full 5 points: The Last Time I Was Me, by Cathy Lamb and Paper Wings, by Marly Swick.

Books receiving 0 points: Winter Love, Winter Wishes, by Jane Claypool Minter (this book was an example of the perilous dangers of picking up any book that has figure skating on its cover) and My Name is Sus5an Smitth. The 5 is Silent, by Louise Plummer.

Average score for the first 60 books: 2.25.