I really, really enjoyed The Namesake, and it completely deserved my first five-star ranking of 2017. It’s about the son of Indian immigrants and his experiences growing up in America, and how his name shapes the man he becomes. I wrote about deciding on the stars it needed and what I liked about it here!
A sidebar: I’m here to give this a shot again in 2017! I wrote a few reviews in early 2016, but eventually tapered off because I found it so difficult to write about books that didn’t really mean much to me – I found it really frustrating to scrape together 250 words for a book in the two or three star range. So for this year, I’ve decided to only write reviews for books that earn four or five stars by my ranking. I’m not promising that I’ll never write a one-star review, as I find them hilarious and they’re often some of my favourite posts, but I want 2017 to be a considerably more positive year for me (and maybe the world) so my focus is on sharing books that I really, really loved. My total goal is to read 156 books this year, so 52 four & five star books and subsequent reviews seems entirely within range. I’ll keep my eyes peeled to see what everyone else is loving!