Books I Read in 2018

One of my 18 for 2018 goals is to read at least one book a month over the course of the year. I’m less strictly tied to the idea of one book finished each month, rather the focus of the goal is to get through at least 12 books. I decided a great way to hold myself accountable to this goal is to keep an ongoing blog post draft of brief reviews for each book so at the end of the year I not only have my proof of ready, I also have several book reviews to share with you all. 

I enjoy reading self-help books, books about the body and brain, autobiographical books, and books about how humans work. I don’t generally enjoy fiction as I personally have trouble really picturing a story in my mind. I will ALWAYS rather see the movie. The books you will see reviewed below will certainly reflect those slightly atypical interests and I hope my reviews may be able to turn you on to something new.

The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book was the first book I finished in early 2018. I talked about this book in a book chat video on my second channel, but to summarize my sentiments I wouldn’t recommend this book. It’s very surface level and doesn’t dive deep into the world of emotional intelligence. I wanted to know more from a science and research perspective. This book felt very much like something you would get free with a HR conference registration. This is definitely a skip in my book.

I enjoyed this book for the most part. It’s comprised of 10 essays written by women successful in their respective fields. Each essay covers a habit that particular woman has used over the course of her careers and how it has served them on their journey to success. There were maybe two essays I didn’t connect with as much, which I think was more because of writing style and not the lesson being conveyed. Overall, this was a nice light read that I think any young woman entering the workforce could probably benefit from.

I picked this book up from work. I think it was laying around from a partnership my company briefly had with the company mentioned throughout the book. That in itself should have been forewarning as to how the book would read but I apparently didn’t catch on until I was too far into the book to turn back. While there is some useful business information in the book, it felt a lot like an advertisement for the author’s business coaching company. It read way too much like an ad and I didn’t enjoy taking in the information being provided.

I bought this book because I enjoyed the Light Watkins episode of the Rich Roll podcast and I needed to spend more money to get free shipping on an order. Each chapter provides a quality of some sort to work on for better inner strength and activities at the end of each chapter to lead you through improving these qualities. Overall, I enjoyed the book but I wish that it was longer and would have delved deeper into the topics. I definitely plan to read Light’s other book Bliss More some time soon.

This is a book quite similar to the previous one. The chapters consist of tips for being more mindful and tasks to help keep you on track along your mindfulness journey. While this book definitely goes more in depth than The Inner Gym, it still left me feeling like something was missing or I needed more information. I just couldn’t connect with this book. It didn’t click for me.

I really enjoyed this book. Its without a doubt the best book I read all year. Augusten Burroughs has a snarky manner of writing that keeps you drawn into what he has to say. With advice on life’s various unsavory experiences, throughout the book you feel the author wants the best for you and appreciate his straight shooting. I highly recommend this quick read. I know I’ll be keeping it in my collection for possible future reads.

One of my mom’s neighbors was getting rid of a ton of books and had them all sitting on a table in front of his house. I picked up this one because it had an interesting female bust on the cover and had a super cute vintage look. I can’t say I paid too much attention to the content but I knew it was poetry. After getting a few poems in I was hooked. I’m terrible at summarizing whole books of poetry but something about this book I really connected to. There were a few that seemed to be about parenthood that I didn’t really connect with everything else I really enjoyed. I think I’m going to keep this one around and reread it some time.