Happy Holidays everyone, and welcome to my sixth annual Reading Retrospective! Every year, I compile a list of stand-out reads. They weren't necessarily published in 2018, this is just the year I happened to read them.
I read a bit of everything, so my lists have a tendency to feel pretty random, skipping back and forth between genres and themes. Usually, on any given year, I tend to gravitate to something in particular. This year, I found myself craving a lot of fantasy and tales about the afterlife.
Like all writers, I have to choose between making time to read and making time to write, so this year, I managed to get in 63 new reads, which is pretty average for me.
Of them, my favorites were:
The Ghost’s Child by Sonya Hartnett - This was the deceptively simple tale of an old woman who comes home to
find a mysterious young boy waiting for her, and she begins to tell him the
story of her life. I am not usually a crier, but the ending gutted me.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik - A fantasy-adventure about a young girl who is offered as tribute to a scary
old wizard known as “the Dragon.” To her surprise, she becomes his apprentice,
and ends up fighting against the threat of magical beings threatening their
kingdom. This book kept me riveted from start to finish. I’ve said before that
it’s the mark of a good book when I follow my friends and family around,
reading passages aloud to them. This fits the bill.
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly - A young boy living in England during World War II is dealing with the
death of his mother and his father’s subsequent remarriage. He wanders into a
strange, fairy-tale world called Elsewhere. A thrilling, beautifully-written
coming-of-age story. Another one I couldn’t put down.
Nightwoods by Charles Frazier - The story of a young woman named Luce living rough in North Carolina mountain country in the 1960s. When Luce's sister dies, Luce finds herself trying to raise her orphaned niece and nephew. Haunting
and beautifully written. (Frazier also wrote Cold Mountain, another favorite
of mine.)
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain - I had intended to read this book for years, but with Bourdain’s passing
in June, I ran out and got a copy. In addition to being a lifelong foodie, I spent
a few years in the food service industry, but even if I had not, Bourdain speaks
of it in a way that manages to be both brutally matter-of-fact and oddly
poetic. You’ll never look at line cooks the same way again.
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward - This is simply an outstanding book. I feel like summarizing this book
sort of cheapens it, but here goes: a family living in Mississippi deals with
race issues, the prison system, death, and the sins of the past. I devoured it
in a single afternoon and I knew as soon as I’d finished that this one was a
life-changer.
Everlost by Neal Shusterman - A wildly original tale about dead kids and the afterlife they inhabit,
filled with memorable characters, and an ingenious use of historical elements
like the World Trade Center Towers and the Hindenburg.
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver - Don’t let the girly cover or the YA label fool you. This is some heavy
stuff. It’s the story of a teenage girl who dies on Valentine’s Day and gets to
relive the last day of her life seven times—gets to? Maybe it’s a punishment,
or maybe it’s a shot at redemption. Oliver perfectly captures the dynamics of the
high school hierarchy, especially among teenage girls, whether they're friends, enemies or frenemies.
Twist Me by Anna Zaires - Real talk: I’ve already read this book three or four times. It’s that good. The
transgressive love story of a rich, handsome, but dangerous man who kidnaps a
young woman, holds her hostage on a deserted island, and makes her both love and
desire him. Written in prose so clean and precise it practically snaps on the
page. It’s the first of a trilogy, and I checked out the second book but couldn’t
get into it. I ain't even mad. I will just keep on revisiting the beginnings of
Julian and Nora's dark and, yes, twisted connection over and over to my heart’s (and, er, other parts’) content.
Thank you for reading! I hope you find something here that piques your
interest. Please feel free to leave a comment below.
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