33. “The Road,” Cormac McCarthy

A father must protect his son as they try to scrape together a life in this sparse post-apocalyptic tale.

I think it is pretty well established that I get a little too involved with dystopic novels and might sometimes get confused about whether or not they are really happening. But I read most of this book in the cold on my front stoop while I was locked out of my house and smoking to keep warm, and, yeah, I kept thinking I was the only person carrying the fire. Even as parents with toddlers and small dogs strolled past me.

Page count: 287
Total pages: 10,452

32. “Room,” Emma Donoghue

I would seriously read a book of every moment of Ma’s and Jack’s life from kidnapping to death.

Page count: 321
Total pages: 10,165

31. “Wasted” Marya Horbacher

A wrenching read.

Page count: 289
Page total: 10,165

30. “The Know-it-all,” AJ Jacobs

Subtitle is: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
Page count: 371
Page total: 9,876

29. “The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook,” Deborah Bray Haddock

Page count: 265
Page total: 9,505

28. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” JK Rowling

Page count: 652
Page total: 9,340

27. “Hary Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” JK Rowling

It’s sort of weird how Umbridge disappears for like half the book? And is it just me, or does Harry get less insufferable after she makes him do lines?

Page count: 870
Page total: 8,688

26. “The Uglies,” Scott Westerfield

It Tally’s world, everyone becomes pretty on their sixteenth birthday, and are whisked away from the ugliness in which they have grown up to become self-assured Pretties. SHOCKINGLY, this might not be the best thing and doesn’t erase the pain of being ugly, just turns it into a disease.

Tally can’t wait for her birthday to take away the burden of her squinty eyes and frizzy hair, and to reunite her with her best friend, Peris, who turned pretty two months before her. When she meets Shay, a fellow ugly with the same birth date as her, Tally is happy to have someone to pass her last few months of ugliness with. But when Shay reveals that she is running away rather than be made surgically pretty, Tally is torn between her community, the desire to be pretty, and the urge to protect her new friend.

Page count: 402
Page total: 7,618

25. “The Magicians,” Lev Grossman

Think “Chronicals of Narnia” with cynicism and self-hatred instead of Christianity.

Page count: 402
Page total: 7,618

24. “Bossypants,” Tina Fey

I read this book in a few hours, which is something I have not been able to do for a while. Somewhere in the middle, I fell asleep and had a dream wherein Tina Fey was instructing me on how to get a dozen doughnuts and keep them all to myself. (The recommended technique was to transport said doughnuts by car to a second location that also sells doughnuts. And then to eat the doughnuts in your car. Turns out Tina Fey can’t drive. Otherwise, I think it is suitably Liz Lemonish.

Page count: 276
Page total: 7,196