In 2012 I joined an incredible service called Goodreads. Its a service that helps you track what you've read, want to read, and are currently reading. They also have personal goal tracking on the site that tracks how many books you want to challenge yourself to read every year. In 2012 my goal was 20 books and I hit 28. A lot of that had to do with commuting with Jenn to Rosemead. In 2013 I set a goal of 25 and wouldn't you know it I hit my goal with only twelve days to spare.  Here are the 25 books I read in 2013 in order of how I read them. 

Jenn and I have watched around a dozen seasons of The Amazing Race. At the very beginning of the first episode of a season we pick our teams who we are going to root for. The competition between Jenn and I really heated up when Jenn won in Season 9 with the hippies, and has continued to this latest season, 23. 

I really enjoyed the original Hunger Games. It had a great cast and did an excellent job of recreating the novel its based on. In fact it might have been the closest retelling of a book I've seen. Going into the second movie, Catching Fire, I knew that this movie had an uphill battle ahead of it. Catching Fire is easily the least interesting book of the trilogy. 

I've been searching for that movie. The one that makes me think. The one that warms my heart and makes me want to go back and immediately re-watch it. Well I think I found it in About Time. I've professed my love for books/movies with time travel in them, so going in About Time already had a leg up. However what I didn't expect was one of the best movies I've seen all year. 

This summer was a dry spell for good movies (as you can see by my recap)  however this fall/winter looks like it could save the year. The first big movie of the fall is Gravity starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and the early reviews were incredible. 

One of our favorite shows in the last five years is Breaking Bad. Conceptually I never thought this show stood a chance. A high school science teacher who has cancer and decides to cook meth to make money for his kids. I mean really? How is that going to work?

But the master Vince Gilligan put together a masterpiece. Sadly the show ended this past weekend. Unlike many shows it went out on top with one of the better finales I've seen. It managed to tie up loose ends and give all of the characters satisfying conclusions.