December 8, 2020

November Books

Oh Crap! Potty Training by Jamie Glowacki 

I read this in May and then I read it again last month and I've flipped through it like a reference guide many-a-time in the last few weeks. Lots of parents I know have recommended it, from all styles of parenting, so I figured it would be the method to try.

While I was totally on board, Wells broke the mold and went off-book pretty early in the process so I was just left confused (hence the reference guide flipping). 

So, yes. Totally worth a read. But your toddler may be unpredictable so don't use it as a bible of sorts. 

The Night Swim by Megan Goldin 3 stars

This wasn't great. Initially, I thought it'd be like Sadie, but Sadie was way more compelling. In this case, I did not like the narrator. She came off as a Sarah Koenig rip-off. And those podcast excerpts were ridiculous...was that the whole episode? I mean, they just read like intros. I can't imagine subscribing to a podcast that gives me three minutes of information a week or something. Rachel was just unlikeable. There was also something weird about Pete being stuck in the hospital. I don't know. Clearly, I finished it but I wasn't impressed. 

Currently, I'm reading...all of these. I just can't stick with/enjoy one book:



The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab 1/3 of the way through

Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcy 1/3 of the way through (audio)

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman 50% through


And then my progress for 2020 so far...

I don’t know why I don’t just keep lists in Google Docs for everything. It’d make life a lot easier when it comes to counting up books in November. Every year for the last several years, I’ve found myself painstakingly clicking through my blog posts and keeping a tally sheet on scrap paper in front of me. For an organized person, I’m not *actually* that organized. 


My goal this year was 48 books because I read 47 last year but many of those were audiobooks so I physically read more in 2020 than in 2019. In 2019, I struggled to just sit with a book (paper or kindle) and read. In 2020, I did a lot of sitting and reading when I could’ve been cleaning or organizing or watching TV. I started to just consider it valuable time well-spent in a way I hadn’t in a few years. 


Toward the end of 2020, I began to realize that I’m an auditory learner. It’s why I like podcasts so much. I get a lot out of listening to someone explain to me. I downloaded Audible again and decided that my fiction reading was going to be hard-copy and my non-fiction could be audio. Reading nonfiction feels like a lot of work for me right now, so listening to it is a productive use of time.

My count for the year so far... 43 fiction - 3 DNF + 4 Nonfiction = 44 out of 48 books completed. 

               Fiction

  1. The Night Swim

  2. The Mall (DNF)

  3. The Vanishing Half

  4. Jane Doe

  5. One to Watch

  6. Home Before Dark

  7. Pretty Things

  8. The Guest List

  9. The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes

  10. Oona Out of Order (DNF)

  11. Her Every Fear

  12. It Ends With Us (DNF)

  13. Final Girls

  14. The Last Flight

  15. Lock Every Door

  16. The Last Time I Lied

  17. The Red Tent

  18. A Good Marriage

  19. Tell Me Three Things

  20. Invisible Girl

  21. The Wives

  22. This Won’t End Well

  23. Eight Perfect Murders

  24. Little Secrets

  25. If I Never Met You

  26. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

  27. The Holdout

  28. The List of Things That Will Not Change

  29. In Five Years

  30. Long Bright River

  31. The Other Mrs. 

  32. The Dilemma

  33. Such a Fun Age

  34. Dear Edward

  35. Regretting You

  36. The Marriage Lie

  37. Dead to Her

  38. You Are Not Alone

  39. The Family Next Door

  40. Husband Material

  41. Mrs. Everything

  42. The Other Woman

  43. Dear Wife


            Non-Fiction
  1. Oh Crap! Potty Training

  2. Blackout

  3. You’re Not Enough (and that’s okay)

  4. Risen Motherhood.


      How is your year-end reading goal shaping up?

      Linking up with Jana and Steph!

      11 comments:

      1. I liked Night Swim, but I read it for book club and I think having others to read it with helped. Anxious People was our book club book last month and I enjoyed that one as well, much more than his other books.

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        1. I never liked the other Backman books. I find this one to be so much more interesting! I bought my mom a copy for her birthday this month.

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      2. I had a spreadsheet on my work computer for my books just because I dont have excel on my home computers... I need to see how I can rig something up in Google docs for 2021

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      3. I passed my total books goal a bit ago (thanks, safer-at-home!). I'm reading my last 2020 publication now, and I'll spend the rest of the month trying to clear older books off my list. LOL Thanks for sharing and enjoy your holidays!

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        Replies
        1. If only I was a reader when I'm stressed out or anxious! Then I'd definitely have passed my goal already :) Hope you get some of those books off your TBR!

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      4. I hit my arbitrary goal but my reading was way off this year.

        I am not an auditory learner, so I prefer reading. Nonfiction is easier for me to digest listening sometimes.

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      5. I use Goodreads and it tracks the books for me. I used to count them up from my blog posts.

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      6. I hit my random Goodreads goal but read way less nonfiction this year than normal. I blame COVID.

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      7. Goodreads tracks that, its the only way I'd know which books were solely in the particular month.

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      8. I can't remember, are you not on goodreads?? I so love spreadsheets because you can track more data/compare more, but never remember to keep up with filling them out. I might try this year since I haven't read a ton of books. When I read about The Night Swim I thought it would be like Sadie, which I loved, but I'm not sure I'd like this one so much.

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      9. I keep my reading list in a tab on my blog; anyone can see it but it's really just there for me to keep track of what I've read and my reviews. I've had a hard time changing my reading behavior this year, since before I used to read more commuting and now- no more commuting. I was able to meet my Goodreads goal but not my NF goal of 12, and not sure about my goal of reading 25 from my digital or physical bookshelf because I forgot to keep track of that. I know I've had more DNFs than is previous years though; I've started and stopped so many recently.

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