Mari's 2014 Reading Round Up: Challenge Fail!

So the Goodreads challenge started somewhere along the lines of 50 books. Sometime midway through the year that number shrunk to 40 and on December 31... to 39. Cuz I refuse to fail! But who am I kidding, I lost that thing.

Number Read

39 books. A little on the low side but it's just a number and doesn't encompass the joy I got from all these books this year and the amount of time spent enjoying each one.

Largest Book

The sheer beauty of Dragonfly in Amber. What a fantastic trek. Glad to say, I didn't notice the whooping 950ish pages. They whizzed by and I miss them.

Diverse Reads

I define this as books that contained diverse settings and people of different cultures and geographical backgrounds.

Outlander
Scotland!! I loved seeing Gaelic on the pages. There is nothing better than seeing another cultures language on the pages, foreign but real and beautiful.  In the first two books we got a whiff of1700s living in Scotland, England and France.

I Hunt Killers 
Connie is a sexy and strong black character. I loved the relationship that was between the protagonist and Connie. In a tiny racist town, the son of a convicted serial killer and an African American beauty stand tall against peoples prejudices, an awesome sight.

Isla and the Happily Ever After
School in Paris, home in NYC, son of Senator, Daughter of hipsters, ex-girlfriend of indian heritage. I adore this friend group.

Prisoner of Smoke and Fog
I adored the clash of cultures, prejudice and reality of being Jewish vs. Nazi. Also, great representation of Nazi life, 1940's time period and mental illnesses like psychosis.

Thanks for Reading! 

MARI