Reflective Starlight-core

Petra’s Ghost - C.S. O’Cinneide. A widower with a haunting secret about his wife’s death hikes a Spanish pilgrimage trail, where he is confronted by ghosts of many, many forms. An interesting if oddly toned reflection on morality and guilt.

Boy Swallows Universe - Trent Dalton. In 1980′s Brisbane, Australia, a young boy who is growing up surrounded by morally grey figures, including drug dealer parents and a convicted murderer babysitter, struggles to discern exactly what a good person is. Incredibly, incredibly heartwarming, with one of the most gripping and ultimately uplifting endings I read this year.

Freedom - Jonathan Franzen. A middle-aged environmentalist struggles to keep his family together, as his wife is depressed and his arrogant son has become a Young Republican. I still don’t fully understand what the thematic point of this book is supposed to be, but I don’t care, it was an absolute joy to read.

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel - Sara Farizan. An Iranian-American lesbian girl struggles with her sexual orientation, amongst many other existential dreads, at a private high school. This is literally the wlw version of the mlm book I’m writing and I don’t know how to feel about that, but I still enjoyed it.

The Queen’s Resistance (‘Queen’s’ Series #2) - Rebecca Ross. After winning the revolution, history major Brienna and her friends struggle to put down dissident factions while considering whether the deposed king’s young grandchildren can be expected to change their ways. Generally same-same in terms of quality as Queen’s Rising - the romantic plotline makes slightly more sense now, but is still quite questionable.

Polly Wants to be a Writer - Laura Michelle Thomas. A teenage girl with a dream to become a writer learns of her ‘literary dragon’, a companion and critic, and becomes embroiled in a plot to defend these dragons from those who wish to harm them. The melding of reality and fantasy is really weirdly done, but I love the idea of helping young, insecure writers learn to deal with their inner critics.

We Were Not Men - Campbell Mattinson. After losing their parents to a car accident, two twin boys struggle to connect with their parents, their surviving step-grandmother, and with each other. I still don’t fully know what this book was about on a thematic level, but I still really, really enjoyed it - this and Trent Dalton made me truly fall in love with Australian fiction.

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte. In an 18th century aristocratic family, tension is introduced when the daughter falls in love with an orphan, only for their love to be forbidden by social divides and said division to have horrific consequences. I was increasingly shocked by what horrible, horrible people all the major characters are, but they all have pretty interesting villain origin stories.

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald. A man moves to an upmarket Long Island neighbourhood and meets his enigmatic neighbour, who hosts lavish parties for the sole purpose of getting his crush to notice his wealth. The thematic statements are interesting if a little on-the-nose, but overall the book is way too short.

Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass - Lana del Rey. A poetry collection from one of the most enigmatic singer-songwriters in recent memory. The poems I could actually understand were absolutely breathtaking (favourites were LA Who Am I to Love You, Sport Cruiser, and Never to Heaven).

More Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin (Tales of the City #2). The queer, horny 20-somethings in San Francisco keep on living their crazy lives. The plotlines of this book are genuinely absurd, much more so than the last one, but again the characters are so unironically wonderful I still remained really, really invested.

The Power of One (Peekay #1) - Bryce Courtenay. After being bullied in 1930′s boarding school, a white South African boy dreams of becoming a boxer, and in the process of pursuing said dreams accidentally becomes an icon of racial justice. Really, really heartwarming story of what it actually takes to change people’s minds and lives, enhanced by Courtenay’s wonderfully nuanced understanding of 1930′s and 40′s South Africa.

The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick. In an alternate 1960′s where the Axis won WW2, various characters struggle to survive and thrive in Japanese-occupied San Francisco and Nazi-occupied New York. The world is interesting if unrealistic, but there are way too many characters and plotlines for a 200-page-novel to ever satisfyingly resolve them all (spoiler: it resolves none of them).

Odds Against Tomorrow - Nathaniel Rich. A paranoid NYC accountant starts making a living out of insuring business for apocalypse scenarios, but when an actual apocalypse scenario strikes New York, he is forced to reconsider his life. I loved loved LOVED this book right up until the ending, which just left me shocked and asking “Wait, that’s it?”

Tandia (Peekay #2) - Bryce Courtenay. Peekay, the boxer from Power of One, is now deliberately fighting for racial justice during the onslaught of apartheid, a process which leads him to meet Tandia, a half-Indian, half-African woman who is traumatised from her teenage rape. Power of One is more well-known, but this is much, much better and maybe the best book I read this year - the unpacking of systemic racism is brilliant, the characters are so compelling, and I needed several business days to process THAT ENDING.

Truth of the Divine (Noumena #2) - Lindsay Ellis. Another alien arrives to Earth while the US is debating what rights should be awarded to aliens, forcing the college dropout interpreter to befriend and work with a nosy journalist. It’s very appropriate that I read this and Tandia back to back, as they’re both sequels which were miles better than the original, they’re both very philosophically and thematically compelling, and both their endings ripped my soul out of my body.

Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom. A memoir from a burnt-out journalist who visited his old professor while the latter was dying of ALS, and during said visits received invaluable life advice. There’s definitely a reason this is the most successful memoir of all time; Morrie is that rare person who actually had a concrete, correct idea of how to live a fulfilling life and made it his mission to share that knowledge.

The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen. A naive grandmother sets her heart on gathering her splintering family together for one last Christmas at home, not realising that in doing so she is forcing every member of her family to confront exactly what is wrong in their lives. The characters are so realistic it hurts and the story is so gripping you forget it’s 500+ pages long (B5 pages for the record).

The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro. A longserving butler looks back on his time working for an aristocratic British family, reflections which show the audience how the values of butlerhood have had a haunting effect on his mental state and emotional maturity. Ishiguro’s writing style is very reflective and tangential, which can make this a bit of a slow burn, but the characters and message truly do make it worth it.

The Bookshop of the Broken-Hearted - Robert Hillman. After his wife and son leave him for a Christian cult, an Australian farmer falls in love with a Holocaust refugee bookseller, while trying to save his ex-wife and son from said Christian cult. The love story is really, really sweet, but this is one of those books that tries to tackle too many issues and ends up doing none of them super well.

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda (Love Simon) - Becky Albertalli. A closeted gay teenager contemplates how to come out while striking up an anonymous online relationship with another closeted gay at his high school. I related to and enjoyed this book a lot for no particular reason.

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro. A group of young English people reflect on their time at boarding school and how said boarding school was not, at all, what it seemed (the specific premise of this book is actually a massive spoiler so I have to be kind of vague). This book gave me the heebie-jeebies but in a good way.

Eleanor and Park - Rainbow Rowell. A boy who is trying too hard to be cool and edgy falls in love with the new girl in his school and defends her from her abusive stepdad. The romance is so emotionally investing I completely overlooked the egregious racial stereotyping and had to find out about it from YouTube.

The House on Carnaval Street (also published as Margarita Wednesdays) - Deborah Rodriguez. A memoir, detailing Rodriguez’s move from being a hairdresser in Afghanistan to dealing with PTSD in the Californian woods, and ultimately moving to an idyllic Mexican town. Fun story: despite this being a memoir, I actually found it in the fiction section of the library, but Rodriguez’s life is that crazy yet compelling it almost belongs in the fiction section.

Tales of the City (Tales of the City #1) - Armistead Maupin. A group of 20-something’s in 1980′s San Francisco, most of whom are not straight and all of whom are very horny, deal with relationships and the randomosities of life. The characters are literally amazing; literally one of my life’s dreams is to be part of this sort of friendship group.

A Match Made in Mehendi - Nandini Bajpai. A Desi teenage girl uses her family’s Indian matchmaking principles to create Tinder but for her high school, at which point hijinks ensue. The premise is a little absurd, but it’s very well-handled and I did end up genuinely caring about the characters.

Conversations With Friends - Sally Rooney. A cynical literature student falls in love with a married actor, and over the course of their relationship is forced to confront her own unacknowledged vulnerabilities. The level to which this is a realistic portrayal of modern relationships is chilling.

This is probably the most inconsequential thing anyone has ever done but this was the first year I kept a list of the books I’ve read so I kind of wanted it to build to something. I also do kind of hope that those who bother to read this very very very very long list will find at least one book they might be interested in:

Act of Grace - Anna Krien. An Australian Iraq vet, an Iraqi pianist refugee, and an Indigenous Australian activist watch as their lives intersect in ways they could have never imagined. The twists and turns are really, really interesting, but the ending is way too abrupt.

Cloud and Wallfish - Anne Nesbet. In 1989, an American family move to communist East Berlin for toooootally legit reasons, forcing their ten-year-old son and his speech impediment to make new friends. The friendship story is really sweet and all, but the out-of-nowhere spy thriller mystery subplot is the real top-tier stuff.

Under the Visible Life - Kim Echlin. A Pakistani woman in a stable but loveless marriage and a half-Chinese woman in a passionate but unstable marriage both move to NYC and bond over their love of piano. One of the two protagonists is waaay more compelling than the other and it does affect the book’s quality.

Wrecked - Maria Padian. A budding college romance comes under stress when it emerges that the girlfriend’s roommate is accusing the boyfriend’s dormmate of rape. So empathetic, complex, multifaceted, and realistic it should be compulsory reading for anyone who has any opinion at all about sexual assault.

Axiom’s End (Noumena #1) - Lindsay Ellis. In an alternate 2007, a college linguistics dropout is kidnapped by one alien and befriended by another, leading her to become the interpreter and advocate for the latter alien. The worldbuilding is great, but Ellis has said this book’s main purpose is set-up and it shows.

The Queen’s Rising (‘Queen’s’ Series #1) - Rebecca Ross. A young girl who is her world’s equivalent of a history major finds out that her supernatural ability is crucial to a plot to overthrow a tyrannical king. The worldbuilding is absolutely breathtaking, but the romantic ending is extreeemely questionable.

Anna Karenina - Lev (Leo) Tolstoy. In late 19th century Russia, an aristocratic woman devotes herself to a passionate extramarital affair, while a farmer who has a crush on her sister-in-law undergoes several existential crises. It’s really long and can be a bit of a slow burn, but the good parts (most notably the resolutions for both main protagonists) make it so, so worth it.

The Rise of Kyoshi (Kyoshi Series #1) - F.C. Yee. In the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe, a young servant girl discovers she is the all-powerful Avatar immediately after losing two people very close to her, an event that pushes her to join an outlaw gang. As is to be expected from ATLA, the worldbuilding and character development are both absolutely fantastic.

The Shadow of Kyoshi (Kyoshi Series #2) - F.C. Yee. After being revealed to the world as the Avatar, Kyoshi has to fight rival factions in the turbulent Fire Nation. It’s shorter and faster-paced than Rise, but honestly I couldn’t tell you which one I like better - they’re pretty much the same in terms of quality.