january

• low moon, jason
• the green mile, stephen king
  • “I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't.”

february

• under the whispering door, tj kune

april

• the handmaid's tale, margaret atwood
  • “Don't let the bastards grind you down.”
• the guest list, lucy foley
• the murder of roger ackroyd, agatha christie
• the long walk, richard bachman/ stephen king

may

• murder on the orient express, agatha christie
• flowers for algernon, daniel keyes
• gone girl, gillian flynn
  • "She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot."

june

• the count of monte cristo, alexandre dumas
  • “It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.”
• the secret garden, frances hodgson burnett
  • “One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts—just mere thoughts—are as powerful as electric batteries—as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live... surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place."

july

• the virgin suicides, jeffrey eugenides
• we are okay, nina lacour
  • "everything you own should be beautiful or useful"
• ikigai, héctor garcía + francesc miralles
  • "fall seven times, rise eight" - japanese proverb
  • "it's not what happens to you, but how you react that matters"
• stardust, neil gaiman
  • “have been unavoidably detained by the world. Expect us when you see us.”
• my sister's keeper, jodi picoult

august

• verity, colleen hoover
• crying in h mart, michelle zauner
  • "life is unfair, and sometimes it helps to irrationally blame someone for it."

september

• recursion, blake something

october

• something wicked this way comes, ray bradbury

november

• the very secret society of irregular witches, sangu mandann

december

• a tale for the time being, ruth ozeki
  • "first I was like, No way am I saying that, but when you hang out with people who are always being supergrateful and appreciating things and saying thank you, in the end it kind of rubs off, and one day after I'd flushed, I turned to the toilet and said, "Thanks, toilet," and it felt pretty natural. I mean, it's the kind of thing that's okay to do if you're in a temple on the side of a mountain, but you'd better not try it in your junior high school washroom, because if your classmates catch you bowing and thanking the toilet they'll try to drown you in it. I explained this to Jiko, and she agreed it wasn't such a good idea, but that it was okay just to feel grateful sometimes, even if you don't say anything. Feeling is the important part. You don't have to make a big deal about it."