Books Read in 2020

Flowers in the Attic - VC Andrews

Petals on the Wind - VC Andrews

And Still I Rise - Maya Angelou

Proof - David Auburn

I'm Still Here - Austin Channing Brown

Piece of Cake - Cupcake Brown

When No One Is Watching - Alyssa Cole

In at the Deep End - Kate Davies

All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr

Dear Evan Hanson - Val Emmich

The Vagina Monologues - Eve Ensler

This Is How It Always Is - Laurie Frankel

Freedom - Jonathan Franzen

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

There Are Things I Want You to Know (About Stieg Larrson and Me) - Eva Gabrielsson

American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Cold Cold Heart - Tami Hoag

Wow, No Thank You - Samantha Irby

Daisy Jones and the Six - Tara Jenkins Reid

The Sun and Her Flowers - Rupi Kaur

Ask Again, Yes - Mary Beth Keane

The Outsider - Stephen King

Revival - Stephen King

Orphan Train - Christina Baker Kline

The Blue Shoe - Anne Lamott

The Preservationist - David Maine

Carry On, Warrior - Glennon Doyle Melton

The Last House Guest - Megan Miranda

What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty

My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh

Sweat - Lynn Nottage

The Book with No Pictures - BJ Novak

Yours 'Till Niagra Falls, Abby - Jane O'Connor

Topics of Conversation - Miranda Popkey

Grief Is the Thing with Feathers - Max Porter

High School - Tegan & Sara Quin

Dog Sees God - Bert V. Royal

Look Again - Lisa Scottoline

Calypso - David Sedaris

We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver 

More Happy Than Not - Adam Silvera 

Never Let You Go - Chevy Stevens

Sing, Unburied, Sing - Jessamyn Ward

The Death of Mrs. Westaway - Ruth Ware

Nothing to See Here - Kevin Wilson

Red at the Bone - Jacqueline Woodson

Sold by Patricia McCormick

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi M. Durrow

"I always know when they start talking about me or white folks because they start to talk real low. Sometimes I think that I can hear better because I have one good ear. No matter how softly they whisper I can hear them."

"At school everything about black history you learn in one month. I already learned about most of the things in my other school. The main ones are slavery and how Lincoln made the slaves free...I hear the stories different no though. Whatever those things had to do with each other, I know now that they also had something to do with me." 

"I like it when people give me clues to how I should respond."

"I am a good student if not a good girl. Those are the things I will make count. The other things won't count. I can make things not count by writing them down any way I want....It's not a true story, but I tell it to myself. What difference does it make anyway? I tell myself that story because it could be true. i could have happened that way. If there's no on else to tell another side -- the only story that can be told is the story that becomes true."

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

We Come Apart by Sarah Crossan and Brian Conaghan

The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace

Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Fred Hampton.
Marcus Garvey.
Bobby Hutton.
Nat Turner.
Huey Newton.
Emmett Till.
Khalil Harris

"You know none of this is your fault, right?" Momma asks. 
How in the world did she do that? "I know."
"I mean it, baby. It's not. You did everything right."
"But sometimes right's not good enough, huh?"

I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin

"But it turns out that you had your own story, and I had mine. Our stories might have overlapped for a while-long enough that they even looked like the same story. But they were different."

"...she is still just a puppy, a little ball of white fur. And we run, she yips and wags her tail...Fluffernutter is tied to a leash, which is looped over a stick in the ground; it would take nothing at all for Fluffernutter to pull the stick out and come running after us, but she doesn't. She thinks she is more trapped than she actually is."

All Days Are Night by Peter Stamm (Translated by Michael Hofmann)

"As the victim, you have to bear the horror of the other person."

"Never will I succeed in putting as much strength in a portrait as there is in a head. The mere fact of living demands such willpower and energy..." -Alberto Giacometti

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

"...the great thing about this life of ours is that you can be someone different to everybody." Finch

"...maybe you never dreamed of seeing Indiana, but, ...here's what I think: I think I've got a map in my car that wants to be used, and I think there are places we can go that need to be seen. Maybe no one else will ever visit them and appreciate them or take the time to think they're important, but maybe even the smallest places mean something. And if not, maybe they can mean something to us. At teh very least, by the time we leave, we know we will have seen it, this great state of ours. So come on. Let's go. Let's count for something. Let's get off that ledge."

"Pale, with dark hair, the one who is coming is melancholy, romantic. And I am arch and fluent and capricious; for he is melancholy, he is romantic. He is here." -V Woolf, The Waves

She was smart, stubborn, moody, funny, mean when she lost her temper, sweet, protective of the people she loved. her favorite color was yellow. ...I could tell her anything, because the thing about Eleanor was that she didn't judge. She was my best friend." I've never had one. what's it like? "I guess you can be yourself, whatever that means--the best and the worst of you. And they love you anyway. you can fight, but even when you're mad at them, you know they're not going to stop being your friend."

Sorry wastes time. you have to live your life like you'll never be sorry. It's easier just to do the right thing from the start so there's nothing to apologize for.

Finch's Great Manifesto: It means 'the urge to be, to count for something, and if death must come, to die valiantly, with acclamation--in short, to remain a memory.'"

I know myself well enough to know that no one else can keep you awake or keep you from sleeping.

It's not a lie if it's how you feel. Sometimes things feel true to us even if they're not.

Julijonas Urbonas, the man who thought up the Euthanasia Coaster, claims it's engineered to "humanely--with elegance and euphoria--take the life of a human being." ...those 10Gs create enough centrifugal force on the body so that blood rushes down instead of up to the brain, which results in something called cerebral hypoxia, and this is what kills you. ...think about the phrase "elegance and euphoria," and how it describes exactly what I feel with Violet. For once, I don't want to be anyone but Theodore Finch, the boy she sees.

in his poem "Epilogue," Robert Lowell asked, "Yet why not say what happened?" I'm not sure. Maybe no one can say. All I know is what i wonder: which of my feelings are real? which of the mes is me? There is only one me I've ever really liked, and he was good and awake as long as he could be.

Yard War by Taylor Kitchings

"So people can throw bombs in other peoples' yards and still be good. As long as they keep their yards nice and go to church."

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

Bait by Alex Sanchez

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

Carry the One by Carol Anshaw

Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Maas