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👍🏼Pick It: if U2's “Sunday Bloody Sunday” is the extent of your knowledge concerning Northern Ireland.
👎🏼Skip It: if thick ‘n' rich journalism bores you.

I initially picked Say Nothing thinking the story of the mysterious disappearance and murder of Jean McConville would coddle my true crime cravings. So by the end of Chapter 3, largely dedicating to staging the developing conflict, I felt duped...but hooked.

The Troubles?
The IRA?
The Stickies?
The What?
The Who?
Here was major period of history reading like a revelation! Never touched, mentioned nor acknowledged in any one social studies class.

Before Say Nothing, I largely type-casted History as regurgitated black-and-white events, contained in dusty books, inked to yellowing pages, shoved on forgotten shelves. This book refreshed the genre with a curiosity to learn about the world around me, over the wall, over the pond.

The magnitude of history is hardly digestible for a fifth grader during a five-month learning frame, so I don't fault my K-18 history teachers for skimming or omitting chunks of happenings. However, this book spoke to the need for writers like Keefe to revive the stories that go unsung.

Keefe's ability to give the in-depth, decades-spanning scoop on the Troubles is stunning. Because of his careful narration, I closed the book with conviction that history class is still in session and happening now.

So to be considered active participants in this world, we must pick up books like this one to develop empathy and to stay cognizant of the shifting landscapes and consequential evolutions of countries and cultures outside our own.

I'll admit it. Homeless-to-Harvard stories aren't my schtick. There's too much cinematic drama, expected slip-ups that ultimately make for an eye-roll and less-than-engaging story, no matter how truly extraordinary and true it is.

Enter: Educated. What a force, this book. Westover's frank recollection makes a reader feel he or she is in the room - you feel her pull to something outside the world she knows, you see the impossibility that surrounds her every basic desire.

Queen of the Spoiler Alert, I, of course, knew Tara Westover was going to be just fine. Better than fine, in fact. Which is what separates Westover's skill as an author and storyteller that much more stirring. Educated has become one of those required-reading recommendations for me.

Interstellar meets The Adjustment Bureau in this phenomenal sci-fi, psychological thriller. Crouch asks readers to question the choices of past + future and recognize the consequences of each.

Initially and admittedly, I was intimidated that the physicsscienceatoms jargon would cloud even the most arousing of plots. Crouch manages to create a graspable, mind-bending universe and drop readers right into it.

I hardly remember taking a breath while reading this book. When I did eventually break for sleep + sustenance, I was preoccupied with the world Jason was currently in, fleeing from or the door he was searching for.

What if I had eaten eggs for breakfast instead of cereal?
What would happen if I pursued Job A over Job B?
How would my life be altered by a moment of uncharacteristic boldness?

Post-Dark Matter, questions about the mundane and major still hound me.

👍🏼Pick It: For a heavy-bagged, home-hitting version of Harry Met Sally
👎🏼Skip It: If you damn any romance that deviates from Happily Ever After

“Well, that destroyed me,” I said, out loud, to no one in particular, when I closed this book.

Marianne and Connell are not living out a particularly unique trope. Boy likes girl. Girl likes boy. Boy and girl can never get the timing right. Boy and girl feel too wrong to be right for the other. Rooney is the difference maker here. She pieces out truths and extracts fears that go unearthed by even the most self aware and vulnerable individuals.

The result: me, the reader, fighting the every-page urge to annotate passages of my library copy, rip sentences for later recycling to scream, “THIS! I FEEL LIKE THIS!”

Rooney is a prolific rarity in the character-driven plot. The way she lays out the ever-shifting dance or demise of Connell and Marianne's relationship is a dizzying masterpiece.

As lovably-literal as Amelia Bedilia and as dysfunctionally-warped as Meredith Grey, Eleanor is one of the most unique character voices of any book I've read. This story had me giggling. This story had me grieving. Honeyman's writing reveled in fineness.