every book I've ever reread
the 160ish books I've read most, in order
I am a chronic rereader.
As a fundamentally picky person, there have been entire years of my reading career in which I would rather revisit a onetime favorite than undertake the vulnerable, potentially disastrous process of discovering something new.
Not always, because I’m actually really chill and brave, but on occasion.
That combined with a childhood spent reading the same books over and over again means I have vast experience in rereading. And not all of them have gone well.
Here’s all my reread books, in order of how many times I’ve read them and how that turned out.
This is coming a little late because it turns out ranking over a hundred books takes a while. Who knew! (Me. I’ve done this several times before.)
162-168. The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling (read at least 3 times): I was never the hugest Hogwarts dork on earth, but I dabbled in my youth. What began as a nostalgia reread collapsed completely by the seventh book, which is in truth reprehensibly bad.
159-161. The Selection trilogy by Kiera Cass (read 2 times): The difference two years of frontal lobe development can make…immense.
158. The Help by Kathryn Stockett (read at least 5 times): I got this for Christmas when I was approximately 11 and read it nonstop for several years. Later I learned about the concept of the white savior.
157. The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood (read 2 times): On the strength for my feelings for this book I read a half-dozen more Ali Hazelwood big-guy-small-girl-I’m-so-little romances, each traumatizing me more than the last, and then I returned to this. It actually sucking made a kind of sense in hindsight.
155-156. The Anna and the French Kiss trilogy by Stephanie Perkins (read 2 times): I’m sorry to say I feel a level of personal betrayal here. The first book in this trilogy invented romance according to my teenage self, but as it turns out they’re all…bad? Nightmare.
154. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell (read 3 times): One of these days I will have to issue an apologetic public statement about the ways Rowell’s writing soothes my spirit, but this one, like The Help, became obviously bad the moment I achieved personal consciousness.
152-153. The To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy by Jenny Han (read 2 times): It is nowhere near as bad as the Summer I Turned Pretty clustercuss, the equivalent of publishing a body-melting pool of acid. Nor is it good.
151. Just One Year by Gayle Forman (read 2 times): I love (unfortunately) the first book in this duology, but the second one didn’t hit on either encounter.
150. The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor (read 2 times): For years, in spite of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland being my favorite book, I had to follow up that I hated every retelling except the Looking Glass Wars. Now I say I hate all of them.
149. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell (read 2 times): A lot more stalking-based than I remembered it being.
148. All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (read 2 times): Damn I loved this suicide porn.
147. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes (read 2 times): The way I stood 10 toes down defending this book against the ableist allegations. Then I reread it like …welp.
146. My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick (read 2 times): There’s a timeline in which my brain never solidified and I’m still reading summer-covered YA contemporaries with author names like Huntley Fitzpatrick. And I say that with love.
145. Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville (read infinite times): I had a really privileged adolescence, which is why I can say confidently that being assigned this in multiple classes is one of the worst things that’s ever happened to me.
144. Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin (read 2 times): I thought this WWII Hitler assassination motorcycle contest fanfiction was a masterpiece on first read. That’s all.
143. On the Fence by Kasie West (read 2 times): How is this not the same book I just mentioned?
141-142. A Court of Thorns & Roses / A Court of Mist & Fury by Sarah J. Maas (read 2 times): Would it surprise you to know that there was an 11 month period, between when I read this book and when the third in the then-trilogy came out, when I actually loved it? Makes you think.
140. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (read 2 times): Loved this as an edgy/angsty teen. Strongly disapproved of it by the time adulthood came around.
139. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (read 2 times): My first boyfriend bought me a signed early edition of this as a birthday gift, which troubled me greatly post-swift breakup for being a really good present. Rereading it and not liking it helped.
138. Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes (read 2 times): I’m a You defender (see way, way below) but all of its sequels are a scourge on God’s earth.
137. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell (read 2 times): I think writing a book in which you include fanfiction passages from an obvious Harry Potter ripoff and then actually writing and publishing multiple full-length installments of said ripoff may be one of the funniest things you can do.
136. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (read 2 times): Pros — the titular circus (which rocks). Cons — characters, plot, stakes, significance. What I call “literally all the book stuff.”
135. The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson (read 2 times): I didn’t like this much when I first read it, and then I read I’ll Give You the Sun (will make an appearance in the Elite Masterworks phase of this list) a million more times, and then since there were still no new Jandy Nelson releases I circled back here. Still didn’t hit.
134. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (read 2 times): Not amazing historical fiction. Definitely readable historical fiction.
133. The Hating Game by Sally Thorne (read 4 times): Four reads is such a cry for help. I feel like a benevolent witch must have cast a spell on this book to make it seem mid on that last go-round just to cure me of revisiting it.
