This week, I finished:

How Not To Fall Apart by Maggy van Eijk Book about the author's history of non suicidal self injury and other mental health issues. Solid "meh" from me. There's an audience for this book-- an 18-year-old struggling with self harm who has not yet been to therapy-- but I'm not the audience. I did like the author's description of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy techniques from a client perspective.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North Book about a character who is re-born as himself each time he dies. I loved this. It starts slow but enjoyable and ends as a complete page turner. I was worried, as I reached the end, that it wasn't going to wrap up in a satisfying way, but it definitely did!

Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives by Gary Younge The author of this book chose a random day and described the deaths of all children and teens who died by gun violence on that day. That description is probably enough for you to know how you will feel about this book. More than anything, it's bearing witness.

The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown Book about the Donner party. Another one that I loved. Very much reads like historical fiction, even as a nonfiction book.

Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski Book about women's sexual health and pleasure. I mostly loved this book (and the research is very solid, as a current Counseling Psych PhD student), but have some complaints. The author's language is occasionally unnecessarily juvenile, which I feel like can feel patronizing. Also, I wish that she had considered the possibility of a broader audience. It's really assuming the reader is a cisgender woman, which is fine, but there's a lot of other folks who might still get benefit from this information. For example, I feel like I could not really recommend this to a heterosexual man because he would so clearly not be the target audience, even though I think there are a lot of heterosexual men who would get great benefit from some of this information.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman Overall, I generally liked this. I'd heard a lot about the "quirky" main character but was kind of surprised at the plot itself. I really liked how issues of romance and friendship were addressed. I did not like the conversations Eleanor had with her therapist and wish the author had run them by an actual therapist before publishing. (Nothing was outlandish "no therapist would ever do that" but I don't think the author's intent was for the reader to think the therapist was not very skilled and not trauma-informed in their practice. Not a book-ruiner, but, as my partner said, "I think a lot of authors think they don't have to do any research unless they are writing historical fiction").

This week, I started:

The Eye of Zoltar by Jasper Fforde

Magic For Beginners by Kelly Link

Finished The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Catherine Webb. Tremendous novel about a really unique concept love it!

Started reading The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege, by Marilynne Roach. I am taking a trip to Salem in October so I thought it would be fun to read up on the witch trials. The beginning was slow but hopefully it will pick up.

Finished reading The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North. What a drag! An interesting concept but the narrator was so bland, it just went on and on with exposition and pointless philosophising.

Now reading Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng and loving it so far.

My professor assigned my class to read Animal Farm, by George Orwell. I've read 1984 and was really immersed by it. Can't wait to devour this one.

The start of the year has been a tough and busy time for me so I haven't finish any book so far. This a bit sucks but fortunately now I'm starting to get my own pace. Thus another book I've been reading for now are

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North, I've always been a big fan of the time looptrope and this novel just amazes me with its complexity and implication on the reality as we know it. So far, I've reached the halfway mark of it.

An Indonesian translation of Official History in Modern Indonesia: New Order Perceptions and Counterviews, by Michael Wood. Lately, I got interested too in my country national history. The New Order was an obscure time in the country's history since there are many details published only for the sake of the regime. But this translation is just really hard to get through, it seems like the translator mostly relied in Google Translate and didn't even bother to double check. Yet, I'll keep going since I'm confident I can get through this nuisance and there are just too many valuable information I can get.

The last one is, Stages in Writing, by Karl K. Taylor. After one and a half hectic months I decided that it's my time to seriously pursue my dream as a writer. I think this book really suits me well for that. It's only seven chapters, with each chapter discussing about how to write different texts of different functions. It seems basic but the book actually explains its material well, especially some of the most overlooked mistakes or details from aspiring writers, and there are a lot of passages that I can take notes from.

Finished:

The Skeleton Cupboard: Stories from a Clinical Psychologist by Tanya Byron. Overall, was not impressed. While I was expecting that stories would be composites, I wasn't expecting the author to wholly construct so many stories with her as the magic savior and I wasn't expecting the author to have so many crude comments about clients. I am currently training to be a psychologist and was hoping for something that felt true to my own experiences.

A Cruelty Special To Our Species by Emily Jungmin Yoon This is a quite short poetry anthology focused on the experiences of Korean comfort women. Beautifully written.

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber Loved this. Strongly recommend, particularly for folks on the left of the political spectrum.

Started:

The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown

Another Day of Death in America by Gary Younge

Still reading:

Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

The First 15 Lives of Harry August, by Claire North - Finished this week. A nice twist on time travel shenanigans. In the vein of "The Bone Clocks," or "100 years of Solitude," the supernatural is never questioned, just dealt with.

Started The Animators, by Kayla Rae Whitaker

Finished Kings of Paradise, by Richard Nell. Fantastic book. Can't wait for the sequel.

65% of the way through the audiobook of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North.

Started The Changeling, by Victor LaValle.

Finished listening to The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North. Good book. 2/2 on enjoying Claire North books. Will have to check out some more.

Made good progress on The Changeling, by Victor LaValle, about 70% through it. The beginning was slow while it built up the background and foundation of the characters. That first 100 pages or so. Since then it really seems to be going places.

Finished Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss Lots of good ideas and insights into top performers.

Started The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North About 100 pages in and enjoying it so far. Different than what I usually read.

Finished reading The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North Really interesting idea of repeating the same life over and over again. Made me question if the idea had somehow been taken from "reality." Not my all-time favorite but compelling and enjoyable read.

I just finished The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North not five minutes ago.

I loved it. It is one of my favourite books that I’ve read in the past few years. She is an extremely talented writer—the prose is beautiful. The concept is interesting and extremely well thought out. The implications of the premise feel so real (being able to communicate back in time by speaking to a dying person as a kid, being able to communicate forward in time by leaving artifacts). I love that every time through the cycle things are different. You really get the sense of being awash in a sea of time.

Harry feels so real. He goes through the stages I imagine a real person would go through if they experienced this. His relationship with Vincent is so tragic, intriguing, and complex.

Incredible book. Well written and very human science fiction.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North

This isn't an awful book by any means, gave it a 2/5 which for me is usually decent enough writing style that people may enjoy it, but the plot wasn't good enough to finish for me. I got to about the halfway part, it's not a long book, but it drags, Harry isn't really what I'd call a relateable character (personally, not the whole reliving your life thing obviously) or one you root for and I just couldnt be brought to care about him or the end of the world.

To me this feels like a book with a lot of missed potential.

The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August, by Claire North

It’s a great book so far.

Finished:
Carrie, by Stephen King
Darkness on the Edge of Town, by Brian Keene

Started:
Kings of Paradise, by Richard Nell
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North

Everyone was raving about this book and it has 4 stars on Goodreads but I must be missing something because I hate it. Am going to finish because it was a Christmas present, so hopefully it will improve.