The Chalk Man by CJ Tudor

The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood

We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samantha Irby

Listen to Me by Hannah Pittard

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

"...maybe it means we've forgotten ourselves. And we keep forgetting ourselves. And that's the big grown-up secret to survival."

"You're only beginning to learn what you don't know. First you must relearn your senses. Your senses are never inaccurate -- it's your ideas that can be false."

"Most of the girls I knew didn't get asked out on dates. People got together through alcohol and a process of elimination. If they had anything in common beyond that they would go out and have a conversation."

"Just what is it that people got accomplished on their days off? She seemed like a writer -- but she never spoke of specific projects. And she never spoke of writing, of sitting down with pen to paper.  ...'Hmm. A writer. I try to engage in the task of setting something true on paper. But if you take art too seriously you wind up killing yourself.'"

"You don't care about consequences? Then it's too late. That he's complicated, not in a sexy way, but in a damaged way. I could tell you damage isn't sexy, it's scary. You're still young enough to think every experience will improve you and in some long-term way, but it isn't true. How do you suppose damage gets passed on?"

"I liked having answers. And of course he understood. Maybe that was what unsettled me, the way he spoke in decrees, but I was always aware that he was  a man. There were no shared sympathies between us. He didn't ever seem to have a question, and I don't mean curiosity, but a throbbing, existential, why-is-it-like-this question. He had already mastered the answer to that Why?"

"Aging is peculiar. I don't think you should be lied to about it. You have a moment of relevancy, when everything is speaking directly to you, expressing you exactly. You move toward the edge of the circle and then you're abruptly outside the circle. now what do you do with that? Do you stay, peering backward? Or do you walk away?"

"How much I had taken for granted...That was the full circle, wasn't it? Learn how to identify the flowers and the fruits so I could talk about the wine. Learn how to smell the wine so I could talk about the flowers. Had I learned anything besides endless reference points? What did I know about the thing itself? Isn't this what you dreamed of, Tess, when you got in your car and drove? Didn't you run away to find a world worth falling in love with, saying you wouldn't care if it loved you back?"

"The lilacs smelled like brevity. They knew how to arrive, and how to exit."

"You love the truth as it applies to everyone else."

"That was the morning I committed the first sin of love, which was to confuse beauty and a good sound track with knowledge."

"I loved his ghost. How impossible it is to forget the stories we tell ourselves, even when the truth should supersede them. That was why he adored me for a minute. Because I saw a beautiful, tormented hero. Rescue and redemption. I never saw him. All promise."

"But I see the marks on people. Strangers who sit at the bar alone and order a drink with intimacy."

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

When Paul Met Artie by G. Neri Illustrated by David Litchfield

"For months, that's all they do -- sit nose to nose in the basement, practicing every sound until it's perfect."

"They record themselves to hear their flaws until there aren't any left."

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" The Authorized Graphic Adaptation by Miles Hyman

And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman

  This is a simple little nugget. At only 76 pages, it's easily consumed in one sitting. I spent the last 20 in near-uglycry. Written to help the author understand his own struggles with the loss and dementia of those close to him, this hit super close to home. My grandfather spent his last 15 years locked in by Alzheimer's and my dad is currently battling the middle stages of Parkinson's. Surely I'll use some of these lines to cope in the next few years. 

(*sidenote: i'm super impressed by the author's grasp of English. if i didn't know that he was Swedish, i wouldn't know. most works by Swedish authors, translated or not, are grammatically and idiomatically hogwash.)

  "Tell me about school Noahnoah," the old man says. 

  He always wants to know everything about school, but not like other adults, who only want to know if Noah is behaving. Grandpa wants to know if the school is behaving. It hardly ever is. 

  "Our teacher made us write a story about what we want to be when we're big," Noah tells him. 

  "What did you write?" 

  "I wrote that I wanted to concentrate on being little first." 

  "That's a very good answer." 

  "Isn't it? I would rather be old than a grown-up. All grown-ups are angry, it's just children and old people who laugh." 

"Almost all grown adults walk around full of regret over a good-bye they wish they'd been able to go back and say better. Our good-bye doesn't have to be like that, you'll be able to keep redoing it until it's perfect. And once it's perfect, that's when your feet will touch the ground and I'll be in space, and there won't be anything to be afraid of."

  "What does it feel like?" 

  "Like constantly searching for something in your pockets. First you lose the small things, then it's the big ones. It starts with keys and ends with people."

  "Are you scared?" 

  "A bit, Are you?"

  "A bit," the boy admits.

  Grandpa grins. 

  "That'll keep the bears away." 

  "When you've forgotten a person, do you forget you've forgotten?"

  "No, sometimes I remember that I've forgotten. That's the worst kind of forgetting. Like being locked out in a storm. Then I try to force myself to remember harder, so hard that the whole square here shakes."

"It's a never-ending rage, being angry at the universe." 

  "And I don't think you need to be scared of forgetting me," the boy says after a moment's consideration. "...Because if you forget me then you'll just get the chance to get to know me again. And you'll like that, because I'm actually a pretty cool person to get to know."

2017 Reads

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker
The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich
The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris
Things Left Unsaid by Stephanie Hemphill↶↶
My Darling, My Hamburger by Paul Zindel↶↶
Revival by Stephen King
Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Map of the World by Jane Hamilton
Borderlines by Caroline Kraus↶↶
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
The Sixth Man by David Baldacci↶↶
The Dive from Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer↶↶

The Book of You by Claire Kendal
Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris
Those Girls by Chevy Stevens
The New Neighbor by Leah Stewart
Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple
Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan
The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter↶↶
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss↶↶

↥Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong
↥All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood
Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
Stay by Victor Gischler
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

↥The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel
↥Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton
↥Lexicon by Max Barry
The World's Strongest Librarian by Josh Hanagarne
Love That Dog by Sharon Creech↶↶
Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech↶↶
Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick↶↶
She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb↶↶

Machine Man by Max Barry
Eggs by Jerry Spinelli↶↶
Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty
Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner

A Darkness More Than Night by Michael Connelly
Are You Sleeping by Kathleen Barber↥
Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker


count to date: 42
↶↶ indicates a reRead
↥ indicates a favorite of 2017


up next: A Clockwork Orange, Fig, Empire Falls, Last Night in Twisted River, Devil in the White City, What is the Bible?, Everything is Awful

random thoughts: i wish this list included more YA...and was numbered in the 40s. trying to celebrate that my brain has the capacity to read twice as many as last year and more. that's a victory in itself. alas, i have 6 weeks left.