Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C. S. Lewis

I honestly found some of this book hard to follow. Lewis is clearly one of the smartest people I've ever read--he remembers almost everything he ever read and had references to every classic in Latin and Greek in every other sentence. As someone who doesn't know any classics, it was hard to catch all the references. But it was fine. Not really a memoir as you'd think by the title. 

Bomb Shelter: Time, Love, and Other Explosives by Mary Laura Philpott

I really loved this memoir in essays. She writes about parenting and worrying and time passing and loving your children, and it felt really poignant in spots. It was meaningful.

Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard by Tom Felton

I'll read anything Harry Potter. Tom Felton hasn't ever been my favorite HP actor, but Camille had his posters on our walls... and I like him a lot after listening to his audiobook. Kind of a light memoir considering he's my age but it was a quick fun listen.

Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas

This was hilarious and so well done as a group of stories about her childhood growing up as an immigrant in America. I love these types of cultural stories. 

Becoming Duchess Goldblatt by Anonymous

I had never heard of Duchess Goldblatt before this but Amanda recommended it, and I really enjoyed it. I felt like it was surprisingly deep and hopeful and nice. 

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeannette McCurdy

This was so painful and wrenching to listen to, because of the abuse and pain she had to go through. I hope she manages to keep improving. 

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May

This was okay, nothing too fascinating in it. I don't honestly have anything worth saying about it. 

Eat a Peach by David Chang

I didn't realize I was going to be reading another Asian-American immigrant/child of immigrants story, after reading We Were Dreamers and Portrait of a Thief, but it turned out to be a part of Eat a Peach too. David Chang is a famous restauranteur who opened Momofuku in NYC in the early 2000s, and his memoir is unexpectedly candid about his flaws and his mistakes. He doesn't even spend a lot of time apologizing for what he's done; he just acknowledges them and talks about his mental health problems and the things he was going through at the time. He was blunt and sarcastic and definitely not a stereotypical memoir-type author, and I thought it was a really interesting view into the life of a professional chef.

That Sounds Fun: The Joys of Being an Amateur, the Power of Falling in Love, and Why You Need a Hobby by Annie F. Downs

This is another one of these unexpectedly Christian authors that I accidentally stumbled across and ended up reading her book. I liked the idea of the title, because I feel like books that are about hobbies and being an amateur sound up my alley, and will be motivating to help me try new things and get out of my ruts. And I thought this was a fine book, with cute essays and stories, but honestly nothing super shocking or brand new. It was only about 6 hours and I got through it super quickly and don't remember anything super concrete about it, even though it was just a few weeks ago. So it was so-so. 

We Were Dreamers: A Superhero Immigrant Story by Simu Liu

I honestly have no idea why I decided to check this book out--I'm not a big Marvel person, but I did really like Simu Liu in Shang-Chi and I have really had an interest in Asian stories lately. I was really surprised by Liu's openness about his experience as a Chinese-Canadian immigrant and what he dealt with in relation to his parents. It was definitely a hard childhood with extremely high expectations, and I couldn't help but think about all of the Asian kids I went to high school with, at a similar time as Liu, and wonder how extreme some of their lives were while we were in high school. He was super open and shared stories that I would have been tempted to gloss over. And I loved how he talked about his grandparents, and how his voice got choked up multiple times as he talked about them. He seems like someone I would like to be friends with in another life. 

I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America by Tyler Merritt

I basically only know about this guy because he is dating Jen Hatmaker, who has written several books I've read but also is one of the funniest people I follow on Facebook (maybe the only non-real life human I actually follow on Facebook). It seemed like he was kind of a public figure himself, although I'm still not exactly sure what for, and I basically saw that he'd written a book and thought I would read it. It was a fun read, kind of a memoir about his life growing up in Las Vegas and getting into musical theater and Christianity, but also filled with important info and discussion about racism and being black in America and being judged for the color of his skin. I really enjoyed it and his vulnerability and honesty about his past mistakes, but also his hilarious, relaxed, and simple writing style. 

When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed

I really loved this graphic novel. I'm so interested in this genre of realistic graphic novels that depict hard, real-life events, like Dancing at the Pity Party. I think it's such an effective way to show emotion and to use simple language to convey what happened. (I remember I wrote a whole essay about the comic book format in Maus my sophomore year of college. I think I need to re-read it.) This is a graphic novel telling the story of a refugee camp in Africa (I can't remember the exact country now), which is an extremely hard and sad topic, from the perspective of two boys living in the refugee camp. I loved the relationship between the two brothers and what they learned as they grew up, and how it showed that there was still hope even in one of the most difficult places on earth. 

I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet by Shauna Niequist

I'm discovering that there is a whole genre of Christian self-help authors that I don't know anything about. I think of Jen Hatmaker as the prime example, and there are a whole bunch of women who orbit around her and do very similar things (although maybe they're all orbiting together and I just know of Jen Hatmaker the best, I don't know). Over the years, I keep accidentally reading books that I think are just books of essays or memoirs and then realizing that they belong to this elite club of Christian female speakers who all know each other and do the same thing. This was one of those times. I actually really like it and enjoy their books, but it's always surprising how many of them are basically doing the same thing. I had never heard of Shauna Niequist, but she apparently had some big drama in her family and the church her father ran, which she kept alluding to cryptically in her book, and which I of course had to google. But I'd never heard about it so that wasn't part of the draw for this book. I liked her essays about what she learned from moving to NYC from her hometown after living there all her life, and about parenting boys and learning from mistakes and stuff. The main title of the book is a great reminder. 

Office BFFs by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey

I listened to the Office Ladies podcast from the beginning, and I really enjoyed hearing all of Angela and Jenna's stories about their time on The Office. I loved hearing their voices and hearing about them as real people, not as characters on a TV show, and I loved their friendship. So I wanted to check out their book as well. I listened to it as an audiobook because I really love their audio format, but it ended up feeling basically a lot like their podcast, especially because many of the stories they told I had heard on the podcast. I still enjoyed this book, but if you've listened to the podcast, it's pretty similar. 

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad

I really enjoyed this audiobook memoir by Jaouad about her experience being diagnosed with leukemia when she was 22 years old, and having to figure out how to keep on living after surviving her four-year fight with cancer. I thought Jaouad was a really compelling and honest narrator, and I liked how her narrative went over not just the experience she had dealing with cancer, but also what it was like coming back into the real world of the healthy after being in the "kingdom of the sick" for so long. It felt kind of like it ended abruptly after her road trip around the country--I would have liked a little more of what happened to her after that and how she really felt like she continued recovering--but it was already a pretty long book and it was definitely well done. 

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

I've read several of David Sedaris's books and always thought they were funny. Austin gave me this book for Christmas and even got it signed by David Sedaris himself (which he did very inappropriately, haha). None of his essays stand out too well in my memory even just a little while later after I read it, but I feel like he is always fun to read. I always wonder if he will ever get tired of writing about himself or about his family, or if they will get tired and tell him to stop. But I'm glad he's written what he has. 

Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe

I had heard that this book was a fun story of the history of Trader Joe's, and I thought it sounded interesting enough to read myself. It was available on e-book so I checked it out to read on the plane on our trip to Utah. I thought a lot of it was interesting--it was pretty fun hearing about the beginnings of Trader Joe's and how he started from it being a small chain of convenience stores and how it changed over time. I felt like I learned a lot about the history of California and how grocery stores run and that was fascinating. But it was pretty boring a lot of the time too and he got kind of rambly. I kind of feel like I should have stopped reading but once I got too far in I wanted to finish it. Overall it could have been better if it was shorter. 

Real Friends, Best Friends, and Friends Forever by Shannon Hale

I really liked this graphic novel series by Shannon Hale. It's a really cool idea to me--a graphic novel memoir for middle schoolers about Shannon Hale's middle school experience with her friends, her anxiety, her goals and dreams, and learning about getting to know people and make friends. I really loved how realistic and honest she was about what it was like for her. I feel like this could be a really great book for any middle schoolers, especially girls, just showing how normal these friend problems can be and how important good friends are. I really enjoyed all of these books and I especially loved how fast I got through them since they were graphic novels. 

Night by Elie Wiesel

I've never gotten around to reading this, even though I've always heard about it as a Holocaust story and a classic that everyone should read. I have had it on my shelves for years, and it's so short that I really should have done it a long time ago. In the end, I started and finished it on the same night, so it went really fast. But it was so sad--I think that's part of the reason why I never read it--and so horrifying to read what Wiesel went through in the concentration camps during WWII. It was crazy to read about how his family was living their normal lives and how slowly things changed and got worse and worse, but they still thought they were going to be okay--until all of a sudden, they were killed. It was just a gradual change and they were so used to being orderly and obedient--just like us. It really makes you question, what if this happened here? This happened there, and they were just normal people just like us. Wiesel really wanted people to think about what how people saw them and knew what was happening, but didn't do anything about it. We need to not be like that.

As a side note, this was my 1000th book that I've read on Goodreads. Not too shabby! I was super pleased to hit that milestone!

Crying in HMart by Michelle Zauner

I loved this audiobook memoir. Michelle Zauner writes about her relationship with her mother, watching her mother die from cancer, growing up half-Asian in a small Oregon town, and her relationship with Korean culture and food and how that has evolved over her lifetime. The book has some flashbacks about her childhood, but mostly focuses on her mother's battle against cancer and Zauner's attempt to help and then grieve. She wrote in the most tantalizing way about Korean food, which made me want to go out right now and learn what all of those things are and to learn how to make them. And I found it so interesting that at the end, she became famous and achieved fame through her music, which she was giving up throughout the process of the book. I had no idea that was coming. I loved the whole arc of this story and the writing was brutally honest and really well done. Such an interesting memoir.