Every year on New Year's Eve, you make a resolution to read at least X number of Books a year, the number usually ranging from 10 to 100, but at the half-point in the year, you look at your read books (spoiler: it's zero) and give up on the challenge altogether. While it might not be possible to start at the beginning of the year and read through your challenge from the beginning, it is, in fact, possible to salvage your reading goal.
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Reading short and powerful books is a productive habit that everyone must develop. While not everyone might be able to finish their reading challenge, it's crucial to start reading (baby steps).
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
When her therapist asks Andrea Bern who she is, she knows all the correct answers: a designer, a friend, a daughter, a sister. But deep down, she knows the truth is precisely the opposite: she's alone, a drinker, a former artist, a shrieker in bed, captain of the sinking ship that is her flesh. Though it's a painful reminder of her own pitiful singleness, she's looking forward to the arrival of her niece; only, she is born with a heartbreaking ailment that has her family rethinking what really matters.
A raw, compact tale of a young woman (Andrea) trying to find her way in the world, All Grown Up is a 209-page book that will stay with you long after it's over.
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Normal People tells the tale of two teenagers, Connell and Marianne, who pretend not to know each other at high school. Still, when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne's house, they form a strange and indelible connection that they are willing to conceal at all costs. When they end up at the same college, their personalities end up reversed, and when they're headed in different directions, they are always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together.
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Now a drama series on Hulu and Netflix, Normal People is Sally's best work and a profoundly lonely and depressing love story that will have you vividly awake through all of its 288 pages.
Float Plan by Trish Doller
Anna hasn't been the same since the loss of her fiancé. She's a ball of grief, shrinking each day. Until one day, Anna receives a reminder of a trip she and her late fiancé were supposed to take together. She decides to set sail alone but soon realizes she can't do it alone. She hires Keane, a professional sailor, but little does she know he's struggling in his own misery.
A romance might follow as they figure out their way through the sea and reconsider their lives. With just under 272 pages, Float Plan is a reminder that starting over doesn't mean letting go of your past, it means making room for your future.
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
Dannie Kohan is as meticulous as they come. She just aced her interview and is now engaged to her beloved boyfriend. Her day couldn't have been better. But when she wakes up in the morning, she finds herself in bed with a different man and a different ring - five years later. Thankfully, life is still the same when she wakes up from a weird dream. Until 4 ½ years later, she finds herself on a similar path.
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A heartwarming tale of joy and heartbreak, 'In Five Years' reminds us of the power of loyalty, friendship, and the unpredictable nature of destiny, well within 255 pages.
Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
The children in the city of Lucille have always learned, "There are no monsters anymore. They don't exist." Jam and her best friend, Redemption, have grown up around this lesson, and Jam believes it until she meets Pet. A creature made of horns, claws, and colors, Pet is a monster that emerged from one of her mother's paintings and a drop of Jam's blood.
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Within 208 pages, Pet covers Jam's quest as she saves her best friend and fights monsters in a world that denies their existence. A riveting tale covered with a simple idea that masks more complex meanings, the book is a must on your TBR.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Esther Greenwood is a brilliant, beautiful, and exceptionally talented individual. She's the best at what she does, but she hasn't been feeling her best lately. She feels like she's going under, and this one might be for the last time.
In this acclaimed and unremitting masterpiece marked 244 pages, author Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that her insanity feels tangible and rational - the experience more riveting than going to the movies. A profound insight into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Guy Montag is a fireman. His one job is to destroy everything illegal, from the printed book to the houses in which they are hidden. He is almost indifferent to it by now. He doesn't question why he does what he does or the ruin that ensues from his actions. But he must question everything he has ever known when his eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.
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Marked at 159 pages, Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
An influential cultural milestone of modern American literature, The Color Purple, portrays the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated at an early age, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their trust and loyalty to each other across time, distance, and silence. The book covers a series of letters spanned over twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, and draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery, and Sofia and their experience.
The Color Purple is a riveting tale that breaks the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating women's lives through their struggle, growth, and bravery., all in a matter of 288 pages.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Somewhere between the massive passage from life to death lies an endless library. Every shelf has an infinite number of books, and each book holds a chance at an alternate life. While we all wonder what our life would have been like in different circumstances or after an alternate decision, would we trade our life for another if we had the opportunity to visit the library? When faced with the same challenges, Nora Seed must search within herself to decide what is truly fulfilling in life and what makes it worth living in the first place.
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With just over 288 pages long, The Midnight Library will have you questioning your life choices.
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Arthur Less is a failed novelist nearing fifty. When a wedding invitation from his boyfriend of the past nine years, now engaged to someone else, arrives at his doorstep, he must decide of a lifetime. With a series of half-baked literary invitations he's received from around the world lying on his desk, Arthur makes a bold choice. He says yes to all of them. What transpires is an around-the-world-in-eighty-days fantasia that will take Arthur Less to Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India, and Japan and put thousands of miles between him and the problems he refuses to face.
As Arthur tackles problems he didn't see coming, all 263 pages of Less will have you loving it through the tears.
