h1 Reading analysis

Hi Girls!

(and my dad or the occasional male follower of mine) 

Q2 of 2026 is already wrapping up if you can believe that—which means we are halfway done with our reading annual challenges. In most years, this is a crushing reality indicating my shortcomings in the first six months. To be fair, I have been a college student the past four years and have done most of my reading over the summer months and during the month of December. This beautiful and transformative year is already different for me. I am on book number twelve with four more days of H1 to go—we might even make it to thirteen! 

Instead of delivering you my Goodreads list in order as my profile and reading history shows, I have gathered some analytics to let you into my reading life a bit more intimately.  

Poetry: 

Poetry was my first love of literature beyond YA novels and dystopian fantasy worlds that kept me entertained in my early years. It made me feel grown up to dissect a sentence and attribute it to several meanings while questioning each word’s intent. I think of Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice” or any given Emily Dickinson poem scribbled illegibly to be published after her death. Poetry transitioned me from a reader to a writer and gave me the confidence to pursue creative writing as a career. 

figure it out: notes from my early twenties by Julianna De Gennaro 

My ex-boyfriend's childhood friend’s ex-girlfriend wrote and published this collection and I immediately purchased it. Maybe I felt a bond with her that I was searching for more of within her words and within her hurt. She isn’t a “writer” (anyone can be a writer--allow me to be binary for a few minutes), yet she has a book on available for purchase and I do not. She is brave and confident which are the main traits you also need to be a writer, so I am very glad she was able to find purpose on this path. This book is a collection of poems and what I imagine to be edited notes app blurbs that encapsulate being a girl in your early twenties. 

Mary Wants to Be a Superwoman by Erica Lewis 

I went to Nashville last summer with my dad and he insisted on going to Third Man Records which did not interest me after five minutes of window shopping. That was until I stumbled upon a shelf of books in the backroom, and I picked up this book. I also wasn’t aware it was titled after a Stevie Wonder song until I flipped through and realized ever poem was connected to music. Through music Erica Lewis dissects intersectionality (her black, native, and white descent) and Southern family roots through powerful words. Beyond the enthralling text, I was excited to see on the spine, Third Man Books. The record company also had a book publishing branch and suddenly my dad and I’s worlds collided. 

Literary Fiction: 

In college, I discovered there was a word for the genre I liked to read. Literary Fiction is a beautiful overlap of imagination and reality which I find to be the most relatable form of writing besides CNF. I can dive into books and truly see myself as the narrator as they experience life as non-seamlessly and very effortful as the rest of us do. Naturally, this has become my most read genre so far this year.  

Girl Dinner by Olivie Blake 

I got this book for Christmas from my mom, which I won’t lie did concern me. I wasn’t expecting her to pick out something I’d take in as my own; she gave up on buying me clothes years ago for this very reason. Girl Dinner was a slow start, as most lit fic is, but it mixed my worlds of a potential future in academia and being a sorority girl together thrillingly. I can’t say too much without spoiling so I will give a list of words that convey the overall gist: dark academia, outcast, investigative, female friendships, devotion. If you liked Bunny by Mona Awad, you would like Girl Dinner! 

Weather by Jenny Offill 

Weather is a stream of consciousness lit fic that gives you just enough to stay intrigued but not enough to feel like you truly know the characters. It does inner monologue like My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. Lucy Dacus, singer and bandmember of boygenuis, left a comment on Goodreads saying, “This book made me feel like I have adhd, mild depression, and severe anxiety oh wait” if that gives you any insight on the tone and style of Offill’s magnificent work. 

The Guest by Emma Cline 

I read The Guest as an audiobook on my way home from my mom’s house in upstate New York. I was trying to stay away with my bottled Starbucks drink from the Dandy and an audiobook that was on my TBR. The Guest swept me up and into its world faster than I anticipated as the narrator is a twenty-two-year-old running from her problems in desperation for her next escape. It hit home at the perfect time for me as it made me okay with moving on to start a new life that was actually meant for me. The ironic part is my life blew up and rained shambles down upon me just twenty-four hours later, so I am convinced the book found me just when I needed it. 

Animal by Lisa Taddeo 

One of my best friends has been telling me about Animal for months and she finally dropped it off at my house in March. It was a slower start than I cared to give my attention toward, but her enthusiasm kept my eyes glued to the pages. About half-way through is when I really started to turn the pages and before I knew it I was finished. It explores womanhood in an unglamorous way with deep cuts into the patriarchy which is exactly what the doctor ordered in this current political climate. 

The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante 

My sweet, sweet Elena Ferrante, I came back for more. Last summer I read her Neapolitan Quartet series and found myself with one foot in Napoli and one here at home. I studied abroad in the same region as the books take place, so every word brought me back to those cobblestone streets with dialect shouts. The Lying Life of Adults starts off very similarly as the Neapolitan Quartet does with characterization and setting, but soon adapts into a world of its own. I am most intrigued by how realistic the fiction is and makes me wonder how much of the novel is truth. Elena Ferrante is just a pen name and the author has never revealed themselves, which gives me the right to assume the author is writing about their own life.  

Classic Literature: 

Emma by Jane Austen 

My mom said she picked the name Emma for me because she liked it in the Gwenyth Paltrow film adaptation of Emma by Jane Austen. The next time I went to the bookstore after hearing that, I bought a copy of the book, though didn’t get around to reading it in full until this year. The novel opens up, “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich,” which was plenty to get me on board with her characterization I told myself I was destined to encapsulate due to our names. It follows Emma’s matchmaking hobby on the English Countryside until it reveals harsh truths about herself which results in eventual self-actualization and personal-growth. It’s a fun story, especially with Austen’s witty banter embedded within. 

Mrs. Dalloway by Virgina Woolf 

There was a copy of Mrs. Dalloway on sale at my university’s pop-up bookstore and I grabbed it before it was gone. I have read Woolf’s feminist essays, but never a novel so it was next on my to-do as an English major. The novel takes place over the course of just one day which is always an equally intriguing as impressive feat. It features a glimpse into English high society after the war which shifts both culture and characters’ livelihood. 

Creative Nonfiction: 

My one true love in this life might just be creative nonfiction. I didn’t know that was a genre until I was nineteen, but soon after I realized that I had actually been writing personal essays, lyric essays, and early memoir drafts for my entire life. This year I decided to be a teaching assistant for a Forms of Writing Essay class and now it is my most defining trait—I am without a doubt an essayist (this is an essay you’re reading right now). 

The Balloonists by Eula Biss 

The Balloonists was one of the assigned readings for this class. It wasn’t mandated that TAs read everything, but I made sure to at least 85% of the time. This book-length essay follows the lyric form where nonfiction and poetry spit out a lovechild. She plays with whitespace and builds an experimental relationship with readers that inspired me to be a better writer. 

Bending Genre: Essays on Creative Nonfiction by Margot Singer 

Essays on essays—what's not to love? This is one of those books I read to help teach better but will forever keep on my bookshelf because I didn’t quite grasp the writerly advice as I may later in my career. More notes later (a few years)! 

The Battle for Wine and Love: Or How I Saved the World from Parkerization by Alice Feiring 

Accidentally, I saved the best last. The Battle for Wine and Love is the greatest thrift find thus far in my life that I accidentally found while perusing a wall-length bookshelf of tattered covers. By happenstance, I pulled out this memoir searching for old world wines and following relationships along the way. I have a memoir in essays (in progress and way too underdeveloped to talk about) from my Advanced CNF class where each essay, often about great loves or great despair, are told through the lens of wine metaphors. Depth, full, spicy, robust, balanced, intense, etc. are all words that can describe both love and wine. Finding another writer who pursued this topic, especially in such a inadvertent way, is one of the great joys of life. 

This will be up on Lost in Thought Blog as well as my Substack (also @lostinthoughtblog) which recently hit over 500 subscribers! It is so meaningful to have a community of like-minded readers and writers. Comment what books you are reading at the moment or your favorites from H1 of 2026! 

Emma Claire Ritter