Happy Fourth of July to all my U.S.A. readers!

We’re well past this year’s halfway mark, and with that, I’m happy to announce that I’m actually ahead of my Goodreads Reading Challenge of reading fifty books in 2019. This time last year I was flailing around, trying to catch up with my annual reading goal by hosting a personal Post-Mid Year Freak out Read-a-thon. It seems that the same strategy I usually employ to catch up on my reading goal—picking shorter books and reading contemporary fluff—helped put me ahead of schedule. Ultimately though, it was the huge chunks of time I’ve had being in the waiting since I graduated combined with a streak of great book recommendations that allowed me to stay on top of the challenge.

It’s time to pay it forward by highlighting the best of the great book recommendations that I read. Here are my favorite books of 2019 (so far):