Last weekend, I finished my 100th book of 2013 – The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb. One hundred! Every year I challenge myself to finishing 100 books, so now I am done. Consider this blog shut down until 2014. Closed for hibernation.

Oh, I am just kidding. Contrary to popular opinion, I actually have things I’d like to post about between now and January 1. And remember when I made a huge stinking deal about not reading for a week? Yeah, it’s not like I’m going to stop at 100. Heck, I had to read like 104 to convince Goodreads I’d met my goal of 100 since I re-read Game of Thrones so many damn times.

It’s actually been a few years since I had to put in any real, concerted effort to get to 100. Grad school will do that to a person. Serving on awards committees and writing professional reviews will do that to a person. It’s not much of a challenge anymore.

But I’m reluctant to tinker with the number. I like reading 100 books a year, but it never feels like “not enough” reading. If anything, I sometimes wish I could read some longer, intense books without feeling the constant pressure to move forward. Once, I seriously considered giving myself a “reverse quota” – only reading 50 books in the year. But then I think about allllll the books in the wide wide world that I will never get to read if I don’t read more more more more and then I want to read 200 a year.

I will probably just stick with one hundred. It feels substantial. It’s doable. It’s round. It’s high enough to keep me from slacking off and low enough so I’m never frantic. It’s nice. It’s familiar. I’ve been doing it for years. I’ll probably do it again.

I love reading about how other people read, so I’m looking forward to reading about everyone’s 2014 reading goals in the coming months. If I think of anything more creative than “I’ll just read 100,” I will let you know.

I am a bit of a reading voyeur/exhibitionist.

This is news to nobody.

I enjoyed reading Janssen’s post last week about books she gave up on.

Ah. How interesting. I have plenty of friends who just can’t give up on books! They balk at the very suggestion that instead of wasting their time on a book the so obviously do not enjoy, they might, you know, not read that book. Heck, I even have friends who read entire bad SERIES! I’m not here to slam your reading habits, though. I only rarely give up on books myself, but I try to reserve the desperate-reading-slog for books I have another incentive to finish.

Just Read What You Want.

Anyway. While I don’t have enough DNF books in my recent memory to share them with you, I do have an ABUNDANCE of unread books from my main source of non-reading bad habits: the good old, Check-out, Don’t Read, Return dance. Otherwise known as The Ones That Got Away. Or, One Librarian’s Quest to Singlehandedly and Artificially Boost Her Library’s Circ Stats, One Book At A Time.

Anyway, these books, I didn’t get to read. Allow me to exhibition them for you.

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

Hot summer title buzz. We ordered and reordered this one. My new-found fantasy radar dinged. I placed it on hold.

… I wondered why it was so huge and heavy looking. I think my Favorite Roommate texted me to lament over the ridiculous family tree printed on the inside cover.

Basically, I did not accept the challenge. Wimpy wimp wimp.

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

This one was huge and heavy looking, too, but OH how I wanted to read it. I did. I read the first few pages and my heart sighed. Remind me to tell you about how much I love Elizabeth Gilbert. Go ahead, judge away, you cannot halt my affections. Her writing just sings to me. And I was so sad to have to return it.

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Look guys. I don’t want to give up on reading Gayle Forman, but if you knew how many times I have checked out her books without reading them, your head would spin. I don’t know why! Maybe I need to apply the good old Bring One Book While You Are Trapped on an Airplane technique. Or try audio, which is actually a similar tactic. “You are going to LISTEN to this book while you DO THE DISHES and there’s NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO AVOID IT.” Force-reading. Yeah, THAT’S fun…

The Yonahlossee Riding Camps for Girls by Anton DiSclafani

I got an inkling that I wanted to read a lot of summer camp books this summer, since I love summer camp books. This adult fic book popped up right around that same time, so I was excited.

Then the summer got away from me. Ah well.

I am questioning the validity of this post. Does anyone actually want to read why I *didn’t* read a random set of books? Am I making a valuable contribution to… anything? I’m afraid I’m too far into this post to worry about that now. I must trudge forth.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid

Another Hot Summer Book that languished, ignored, on my shelf.

Gorgeous by Paul Rudnick

And a Hot Summer YA Book that I let go to pasture, as well. It feels worse when my unread books are light and fluffy. It would have taken me one Saturday morning to finish this one. ONE Saturday morning! What was I doing for all of those Saturdays? Statistically speaking, playing Skyrim. Shame shame shame.

This week I was reading two books at once. As I am wont to do. I was actually reading like, five books at once, but the two books I’d like to mention are Kate DiCamillo’s Flora & Ulysses and John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars.

Flora & Ulysses is Kate DiCamillo’s latest middle grade novel. It’s on the National Book Award long list. It stars a precocious, cynical 10-year-old who loves comic books but finds her parents irritating. She finds a squirrel who has superpowers and has to defend him from the evils of everyday people who don’t think squirrels can have superpowers and want to hit him over the head with a shovel.

You may have heard about this book called The Fault in Our Stars. Once or twice, at least. It stars a precocious 16-year-old realist who loves an obscure book by a reclusive author. She finds a cute boy who has an artificial leg and they fall in love and go to Amsterdam.

I would argue that Flora Belle Buckman and Hazel Grace Lancaster are kindred character sisters. They both have a similar perspective of the world, a distinct point of view, a sense of humor. Flora could have been a younger, pre-cancer Hazel… or at least Hazel would have been Flora’s favorite babysitter.

I liked both of these books a great deal. While I was reading Flora & Ulysses, I was tickled by DiCamillo’s punchy dialogue and silly characterizations – especially her unnaturally verbose child characters. I think my favorite line was Flora’s friend William describing his father:

“My father, my real father, was a man of great humanity and intelligence… also, he had delicate feet. Very, very tiny feet. I, too, am small of foot.”

This kind of wordplay just tickles me. Is this a necessary character detail? No. Is it over-the-top? Yes. Do kids talk like this? Absolutely no.

You know who else talks like this? Hazel Grace and her boyfriend Augustus. I am similarly tickled when their “Lonely, Vaguely Pedophilic Swing Set Seeks the Butts of Children.” Is it over the top? Yes. Do teens talk like this? Probably not.

I just think it’s so sad that there have been so many reviewers who dismissed The Fault in Our Stars entirely based on this point. I get that Green’s dialogue rubs many readers the wrong way, that he shows his authorial hand more than others, but I don’t think either of those rationale are reason to completely pan a book. And most negative reviews I’ve read are by reviewers who aren’t actually terribly familiar with YA in general; to such reviewers, for a character not to seem Teen-y enough is criminal. When you dwell in a world where most of your friends, colleagues, and fellow professionals have a respect for YA, it’s easy to forget that the rest of the book-reading populace – professionals included – think YA exists only to portray teens realistically.

Their hamartia? (Thanks, Hazel) If you are a reader casting a judgment over a book for not portraying teenagers accurately or realistically, you are also arguing for a particular view of Teen-hood, of childhood. One that is flavored by your own experiences, perspectives and biases. One that may be accurate, but probably isn’t.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not liking Green’s dialogue. But in general, I think we hold YA up to a lot of bizarre standards that nobody requires of adult literature, or even children’s literature. Nobody is lambasting little Flora Belle Buckman for exercising her flamboyant vocabulary all over DiCamillo’s book. Nobody who reads adult literary fiction feels it necessary to analyze whether or not the average adult would utilize a particular fictional cadence or turn of phrase. It’s annoying. It perpetuates false perspectives of teen literature and teenagers. It’s lazy. It’s professionally irresponsible.

I think Flora and Hazel would approve of this diatribe, too.