These are the books that kept me going this year and the books that I would not save if my house were on fire.
Burn It: The first to go would be “Alice in Zombieland” by Gena Showalter. I wanted more Alice, more zombies, less teen melodrama. I read it as a favor to a friend because she loved the book so much, but I was very sad to tell her that I liked nothing about it except one side character named Brent. I would like to publically apologize to my family for my commentary throughout the reading of this book.
Bury me with it: If I could read no other book ever again other than this one, I would be fine. “The Last Jedi” by Jason Fry is the novelization of Rian Johnson’s movie “Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi”. I loved the movie and getting my hands on the book was something I wanted to do as soon as I left the theater. It gives so much more insight to all of my favorite characters and shows so much that we didn’t get to see in the movie. I adore this book.
Won’t Touch It With A 10-Foot Pole: “Blood and Salt” is one of the books I have a full lengthed review of in the “Reviews” portion of this blog. It is difficult to describe my distaste for this book in a few short sentences, but I will try. I wanted to like it, I really did, but when a horror book has too much romance, it loses every shroud of mystery and thrill. Let’s all agree that the next horror book we read won’t have a love interest that drives the entire plot, yeah?
Will Read Until the Day I Die: In this category goes literally anything by Leigh Bardugo. This year alone I read “Six of Crows” (review coming soon) and it’s sequel “The Crooked Kingdom”, “King of Scars”, “Shadow and Bone”, “Siege and Storm”, and “Ruin and Rising”. I absolutely adore her work. Is it flawless? No. Do I love every single second I spend reading them? Yes. If you have yet to pick up a Leigh Bardugo book and are a fan of YA Fantasy, please, please, please give her books a try.
DNF’d After the First Chapter: “Stalking Jack the Ripper” by Kerri Maniscalo was a book that I saw in the library and just had to have. Ask anyone in my family and they will tell you that I love Ripper books, fiction and nonfiction. I wanted to love it, oh how I wanted to love it. For a while, I did. Then I came to my least favorite trope in a novel with a female protagonist lead who is into the sciences. It always seems that women in novels like these aren’t able to comprehend both religion and science at the same time. Every book I read with a girl who works in any field related to STEM, she always seems to denounce God in the first couple of chapters and I’ve just grown tired of it. As a Geoscience major at a Christian college, this is not a stereotype I can get behind. As soon as the main character revealed this about herself, I set the book down and didn’t pick it up again until I was at the library to return it.
Reread of the Year: There is one book that I read a while ago that I adored and simply could not get my mind off of. It was the story of a bear and a girl and an unlikely friendship. “East” by Edith Pattou was this story. It’s mystical and magical and romantic and overall a beautiful story. Just writing about it makes me want to read it again. It is a beautiful story that I would highly recommend.
Let Down of the Century: If there is one thing I love more than anything else in the world it’s a good old historical fiction novel with a hint of magic. When my librarian gave me “Spectacle” by Jodie Lynn Zdork, I was so excited. Sadly, it did not fulfill my needs. A full lengthed review is coming soon so you can see where all my aggravations lie, but for now I will leave you with the fact that it wasn’t all I thought it would be.
Redeemed the One Above: On the flip side, “The Tombs” by Deborah Schaumberg had the mystic historical fiction vibe that “Spectacle” truly lacked. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it was cute and it was kind of scary at some points and I actually cared about the characters that were in the book. If you’re a fan of historical fiction and low fantasy, this one will tickle your fancy.
Nonfiction That Really Floated my Goat: I am not generally a fan of non-fiction, but as I said before, I will read anything Jack the Ripper. I read two Ripper books this year, “A Portrait of a Killer” by Patricia Cornwell and “Naming Jack the Ripper” by Russell Edwards. Neither of them were overly convincing. However, I read a book recommended by my high school English teacher that was from the same era, only about a different mass serial killer. What was it about the late 1800s that made everyone so crazy? I’m not sure, but “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson was one wild ride. The parts that were specifically about the World’s Fair in Chicago weren’t overly interesting, but getting inside the mind of HH Holmes was fascinating. I didn’t even know he existed before reading this book. If you are interested in True Crime and historical nonfiction, this one will be a page turner.
A Book Everyone Loves that I Hated: I will probably get massacred for this one, but I could not stand “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline. The main character was intolerable, as were many of the other characters, and it really just wasn’t all there for me. The strangest part is, even though I got a good portion of the references, every time something was referred back to the 80s I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. I’m not sure what it was, but it got very dull very quickly. The world-building was also incredibly sloppy only covered up by cool, sci-fi words that really didn’t mean a whole lot. There were whole chunks of extra information that could have been cut out without making it any more difficult to understand, and I would have had to turn a lot fewer pages. I’m not sure what put me off so much about this book, but I will say that the movie is better. Burn me at the stake if you will, but I said what I said.
A Book I Had to Read for School: Ending high school at the beginning of the year and starting college at the end means that I read a lot of books for school. Most of them were nonfiction theology books for college that I won’t get in to, but in high school English class we read “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood. I gave the book a 3-star rating on Goodreads and I stand by that rating. I hated it in the way that I hated 1984; nothing happened….ever. A common thread with Dystopian novels before the 2000s is that there was no hope whatsoever in anybody. The main protagonist never does anything to change the world they live in, even though they see all the problems it holds. I’m a basic girl, I like a good ending. I like to know the world isn’t so dark and bleak as it seems. But maybe that’s just me. Maybe I’ve been spoiled with a spark of hope in “Hunger Games” and books of that sort. Even though I wasn’t overly fond of the content, Atwood’s writing is amazing and her style is very similar to “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, which I loved.
A Book Everyone Hates but I Liked: I was going to have this superlative be “but I Actually Loved” before I realized I didn’t actually love this book. I didn’t mind it. “Throne of Glass” by Sarah J. Maas is wildly controversial in the “Book Community”. General audiences love it, “holier than though” booktubers hate it. What can I say, I see a book about female assassins and killing competitions, I read it! My librarian friend and one of my best friends also recommended I read this book, so I did. There is a full lengthed review under the “Three Star Reviews” tag elsewhere on this blog, but I will just say that it isn’t as terrible as a lot of people make it out to be, but it isn’t the new standard for literature either.
Something Different than My Usual Read: Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a good Arthurian legend retelling. It is one of my favorite things to read about, right alongside Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood retellings. However, “The Crystal Cave” by Mary Stewart is unlike any Arthurian book I’ve read. It reads more like a Tolkien novel than most others of its kind. It was fascinating and different and a wonderful retelling. It doesn’t give you the same “I’ve seen it all before” kind of vibe as a lot of books like it have. It was unique and I really enjoyed it.
A Book by An Author I’ve Already Read: I read “The Cruel Prince” by Holly Black as my first book when I joined the Book Club at my local library. I loved it. When “Tithe” came out, I thought I was going to love it just as much. But I didn’t. I didn’t dislike it, but it wasn’t as magical as Cruel Prince. Holly Black wrote “Tithe” first, so I can appreciate seeing how much she has grown in her writing. She has truly developed her own, unique voice and fashioned a wonderful way of world-building and character development that crosses somewhere between high and low fantasy. If you’ve already read “TIthe” and didn’t really like it, don’t let it discourage you from reading more of Holly Black’s work! She has learned and grown so much, you’ll be amazed.
A Children’s Book: Don’t read the “Hocus Pocus” novelization. Just don’t do it.
I Saw the Movie First: This one is a tough one because the movie and the book are so incredibly different. “Howl’s Moving Castle” by Diana Wynn Jones is a masterpiece of a children’s book. I am currently working on a full lengthed review for it, but I really adore the book. The characters are cute and absolutely the most dramatic characters I’ve ever read in my entire life. Everything about it is just darling. I had different expectations for it, as I had seen the movie long before reading it, but I wasn’t disappointed. They are similar enough for it to go by the same name, but somewhere right in the middle, everything seems to diverge. It is worth the read.
So I obviously read more than just the few books shown above, but these were some that stood out to me the most, whether for the worse or for the better. I hope this short list gives you a glimpse into my year and who I am as a reader, as well as gives you some books to add (or take off) your TBR list.
Ta-ta for now, and I hope you have a wonderful day and a year full of great books to read!
Caroline Noelle
John 14.1
