2026 READING LOG
Goal: 100 books, at least 60% of them new to me.
Ratings:
⭐ - KILL IT WITH FIRE. SEND IT TO HECK.
⭐⭐ - Kill it by whatever means you prefer, as long as it dies.
⭐⭐⭐ - Kill it or don't, I don't really care.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - No, don't hurt this book! Go kill a two-star book if you must!
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - If anything ever happened to this book, I would kill everyone on this site and then myself.
Here are some answers to FAQs:
Yes, audiobooks obviously count.
I will be giving half star ratings this year where applicable.
I'll add short reviews when I feel like it.
Audio dramas do not count.
No, these Q's are not actually A F.
🚫 - didn't finish
❓ - never read
⁉️ - partially read before
❗- read in the past
‼️ - read and reread, a favorite I can't help but return to periodically
Current read(s):
Before I Let Go - Marieke Nijkamp ❓
Finished in 2026:
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens ❓⭐ 4: lives up to the hype imo, though no version (not even the original) will ever beat A Muppet Christmas Carol 🤣
Edgedancer - Brandon Sanderson ⁉️ ⭐4
Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson ❓⭐3.5: look, it's a good story, but it's so fucking long I kept zoning out and being too intimidated by the length to go back and figure out what I'd missed. This book could have been two, and then it would have been much less of a chore and much more enjoyable. No singular audiobook needs to be 55 HOURS LONG. In fact, the first three books of the series could have been split into 5 or 6, and they would have been so much more digestible.
When Haru Was Here - Dustin Thao ❓⭐3: bumped up a half star for the twist at the end, but the writing was distractingly amateur. Lots of telling instead of showing, lots of unnecessary description (e.g. the main character is having a conversation with someone, and in the middle of it, the author writes, "I look at him." Like yeah, no shit, you're having a conversation. What is this supposed to convey? There's no emotion attached, no description, literally no reason to put that there). And the main character kept using the phrase, "I swallow my breath." Gurl hwat?? Like gulping air, like you're trying to burp on command or?! 🤦🏻♂️ I'm so confused lol
Outlander - Diana Gabaldon ❓⭐4: a long-ass book. but with good pacing and lots of intrigue! The audiobook narrator was excellent. However, don't get me wrong I love a good whump, but it got kind of old that Jamie was constantly getting hurt lol. Like okay, who else is gonna beat his ass? 🙄 Jamie Getting Hurt felt like it was treated as more of a plot point than it should've been. But I'm def gonna continue the series.
The Magician's Nephew - C.S. Lewis ‼️⭐4: I'm in a nostalgic mood okay?? The creation of Narnia is so fucking cool. Not my favorite of the series, but it's very good.
Semi-Well Adjusted (Despite Literally Everything) - Alyson Stoner ❓⭐4.5: such a raw and honest portrayal of the all-too-common "toddler to trainwreck" (Alyson's words) experience of child stars, and the all-too-uncommon recovery and return to physical and mental health afterward. Knocked off half a star for an ongoing stylistic issue, but overall very well done.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis ‼️⭐4
The Horse and His Boy - CS Lewis ‼️⭐4.5
Prince Caspian - CS Lewis ‼️⭐4
Fifth Season - N.K. Jemisin ❓⭐2: what even was that? It was so boring. The pacing was so monotonous. I was so tired of it that I played the last few hours on 1.5x-2x speed just to get through it. Thank god I didn't buy the rest of the trilogy lmao. There were interesting creative aspects, but the story was dull, a bit confusing, and I only kind of cared about one of the three POV characters (spoiler alert: they're all the same character at different points in her life, which is one of the interesting creative aspects I mentioned). This is one of those books where I'm pissed that I wasted time on it.
Dungeon Crawler Carl - Matt Dinniman ❓⭐4.5: omg this was so much fun?!?! DnD meets Hunger Games meets idk some alien takeover media I can't think of right now. It's so funny and the settings and actions are so well described, I can imagine the story in my head like a movie. Also, the narrator is FANTASTIC. Idk how he pulls so many different voices out of thin air and manages to keep them straight, but he's for sure on a level with Will Patton narrating The Raven Cycle, if not even better.
Carl's Doomsday Scenario - Matt Dinniman ❓⭐4
The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook - Matt Dinniman ❓⭐3: disappointed in the joke on trans women (Carl gets a book called "Best Laid Traps" and Donut asks if it's porn), and the poor editing is really starting to wear down at my tolerance. I try to let it go because language evolves and every author has Their Thing, but there's only so many times you can read the word "cried" as the ONLY speech tag that an author EVER uses to indicate a raised voice, and only so many times you can read "different to," "different than," and "different as" (not as different as, not like a simile, just different as!!! Like "a grape is different as a strawberry"!! What?!?!) instead of "different FROM," which is the correct usage - similar TO, different FROM, before you lose it. 🤦🏻♂️ Like I said, language evolves, and "different than" is extremely common, so I try to let that slide, but I can't get over the "different to" and "different as" lmao 🤦🏻♂️ There were a lot of other points where I wondered whether the editor actually read the thing, or just ran it through an AI program. 🙄
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - CS Lewis ‼️⭐4: this was never my favorite of the series, but the nostalgia factor makes it 👌🏻
Gay the Pray Away - Natalie Naudus ❓⭐4.5: I was pleasantly surprised by how well-written this was. I tend to go into queer YA novels these days with the expectation of poor/boring/depthless writing & storytelling (e.g. When Haru Was Here, I Wish You All The Best), but as a queer survivor of near cult levels of Christianity (not quite as bad as the main character), this book really hit home. The feelings, thought processes, and healing from religious trauma were articulated quite well, without devolving into prescriptive therapy-speak, which is another problem with many queer YA books involving any kind of trauma or mental health issue. The story did feel rather surface-level and rushed, but there's only so much a YA author can go into, only so long a book their publisher will allow, and there probably wouldn't have been a good way to show Lots Of Time Passing as the main character slowly deconstructed over the course of years like most people do.
The Silver Chair - CS Lewis ‼️⭐4.5
The Last Battle - CS Lewis‼️⭐4.5: oof, definitely a product of its time... Lots of racist terms in this thing. Other than that though, the story is so freaking cool. I know The Chronicles of Narnia are a Christian allegory, but I choose to just see them as a classic fantasy story with some parallels. 🤷🏻♂️ This book is the creepiest and most exciting out of all 7, and such an excellent ending to the series.
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - EL Konigsburg ‼️⭐4.5: this book is just so cute and fun, and a real nostalgia-inducing read for me. It always confused me as a kid how Claudia and Jamie weren't utterly terrified of the consequences of their running away... Turns out their parents aren't abusive 😅 welp. I used to plan to run away all the time as a kid and teen, but for MUCH more serious reasons. So as a kid reading the book for the first time, I thought Claudia was such a stupid brat for doing all of this when obviously there would be horrific punishment, but yeah, uh, turns out my parents weren't normal lmao.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars - Christopher Paolini ❓⭐3.5: Paolini can be incredibly long-winded. This book definitely could have been condensed and then it might have been more engaging. But I did appreciate all the subtle references to popular sci-fi like Hitchhiker's Guide and Firefly. There was an element of the alien culture that annoyed the shit out of me and grated on my nerves whenever it was used (which was anytime the main character talked to the aliens and vice versa). And it felt like the main characters had a bit too much plot armor, like from the descriptions of injuries some of them DEFINITELY should have died immediately, but surprise! It's not as bad as it looked and there's futuristic science-fictiony stuff that can fix anything! 🤦🏻♂️ Still, nothing to sneeze at for a first sci-fi novel, but I'd rather have been reading the Inheritance series.
Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon ❓ ⭐4.5: still really enjoying this series! The books are sooo long, but they're well-paced and engaging enough to retain my interest. (The first time I borrowed this audiobook on Libby, I got maybe halfway through before the loan was due, and I couldn't renew the loan because there were people waiting on it, so I had to start it over when my turn came up again because I would've forgotten everything from the first half if I didn't lmao.)
Midnight Sun - Stephenie Meyer ❓⭐3: Stephenie's answer to people rightfully accusing Edward of being toxic and creepy and a walking red flag 🤣 the whole book felt like Stephenie defending herself and her character with Edward's inner voice lol. There were a couple interesting tidbits that weren't shown from Bella's POV, and Stephenie DEFINITELY grew as a writer between Twilight and Midnight Sun; it was much better written. That said, I will most likely not be rereading because I simply don't care. 🤣
Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson ❗⭐3: I read this once before as a teen, shortly after the movie came out, and didn't really remember it. It's not often I say the movie was better, but...the movie was better; the book was pretty boring. Granted, the book was geared toward a much younger audience than yours truly, but so were a lot of other books, like The Chronicles of Narnia, and those were much more entertaining than this one. 🤷🏻♂️
The Gate of the Feral Gods - Matt Dinniman ❓⭐3.5: I'm still interested enough to keep going, but still not a die-hard fan and don't expect to be, lol. I maintain that these books were shittily edited.
Voyager - Diana Gabaldon ❓⭐4.5
Raw Dog - Jamie Loftus ❓⭐5: super funny and educational read! The author did a great job at telling the history of hot dogs while remaining engaging as she recounted her cross-country road trip trying hot dogs from all over the US.
Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon ❓⭐4
The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon ❓⭐4
The Genius of Birds - Jennifer Ackerman ❓⭐2: holy shit I despised the narrator lmao. She made otherwise interesting source material so dull and boring, and difficult to follow because of the pauses she took for commas and periods were equally long, so every few seconds I did sort of a double take like wait, was that a whole sentence? Did I miss someth - oh, she's finishing the sentence now okay 🤦🏻♂️ The book was written in a bit of a dry, academic way, but I think reading with my eyeballs would have been more engaging.
Take My Hand - Dolen Perkins-Valdez ❓⭐4: The story was great, and inspired by sickening true events. The narrator barely changed her voice for different characters for a lot of the book, which was especially annoying in short snatches of conversation that had no speech tags - it was often really hard to keep track of who was talking.
Superman's Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis And What WE THE PEOPLE Can Do About It - Erin Brockovich ❓⭐4.5: informative and radicalizing. Especially relevant and important in light of the water crisis being caused by AI data centers.
A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon ❓⭐4.5: I think the reasons I can stick with and enjoy these egregiously long books, as opposed to Brandon Sanderson's works, are that at least they're set on Earth, the number of POVs is very limited (and the first few books only had one POV, providing a solid grasp of the world and its characters without having to get used to occupying different heads), and there are no fantasy races or creatures to remember and imagine. I love fantasy, but it takes so much more brainpower to follow with any distraction at all.
A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows (Outlander novella) - Diana Gabaldon ❓⭐ 4
Virgins (Outlander novella) - Diana Gabaldon ❓⭐4
The Custom of the Army (Outlander novella) - Diana Gabaldon ❓⭐3
The Shadow of What Was Lost - James Islington ❓⭐3: is it just me or was there like, no description of anyone except Asha? And hardly any environmental description? I get not wanting to be too heavy-handed with description, but Christ I need SOMETHING to picture to keep characters straight and not be lost. Maybe I just can't divide my attention between fantasy audiobooks and work, but the book was weirdly paced and for the most part pretty boring. Might be different if I read it on paper, but the audiobook didn't make me care enough to bother.
An Echo in the Bone - Diana Gabaldon ❓⭐4.5
The Space Between (Outlander novella) - Diana Gabaldon ❓⭐3.5
Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir ❓⭐4.5: that was so good! There's always so much science in Weir's books, I feel like I'm learning something (though idk how much of it is legit science and how much he makes up for fiction's sake 😅). I do wish there had been a "Where Are They Now?" epilogue from Straat's (sp?) POV, and more about Adrian (the planet, not Rocky's mate) at the end. I feel like I spent the whole book waiting to get to the alien planet, and then hardly any time was spent on it - however, that could be because I saw the movie first lol.
Written In My Own Heart's Blood - Diana Gabaldon ❓⭐4.5
Dry - Neal & Jarrod Shusterman ❓⭐4: I was on the edge of my seat the entire book waiting to see how the heck it could end well, but the resolution seemed way too easy. Most of the book was great, though. The characters were well-defined and unique, the fear and scarcity felt real, and the consequences were well imagined. I also liked that no one ended up in romantic relationships (spoiler alert lmao) because characters are forced together in way too many YA stories.
Plain Bad Heroines - Emily M. Danforth ❓⭐4: spooky, atmospheric, not fast paced but interesting enough to keep my attention anyway. Also gay. All the gay. 😍
