Here’s my promised list of my favorite reads from 2017. My 2017 goal was to read 100 books, and I hit 119 over the course of the year.
And did I go broke? No. I bought ONE book out of 119 to support an old acquaintance who published her first book. I borrowed two books from friends. All the rest were library books. You can read more here, Thirty Seven More to Go, about how the internet and the library have revolutionized my reading habits.
Anyway, so many of these books were so so so so good. I couldn’t narrow it down to just a top ten.
Will a top 20 suffice?
- Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson. This one is my favorite. It’s the funniest thing I have ever read. You think you’re crazy? Your crazy might be able to compete with Jenny Lawson’s crazy, but there’s no way you can recount personal anecdotes about your own life as hilariously as she does.
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. This one is my second favorite. Even though it’s YAL, it’s an important book about racism and police brutality. The writing appears deceptively simple but stuns with complexity, revealing Thomas’s show stopping story telling prowess.
- Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. I hate that this lovely book falls into third. It’s hilarious and endearing. It’s like the best kind of mash-up of The Rosie Project and A Man Called Ove.
- Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. Do you remember that movie Stardust with Claire Danes and Michelle Pfeiffer? I adored it when I saw it in the movie theater. I had no idea Neil Gaiman wrote the book (He also wrote Coraline.), let alone who he was at the time. He’s now one of my favorite fantasy authors ever. This book is a must read for fantasy fans.
- We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Sinister. Disturbing. Epistolary, which I normally despise thanks to TWO forced readings of Pamela in college, but I didn’t let that get in the way of inhaling this accidental reread about a school massacre. (And since it is an accidental reread, I do feel guilty about putting it in my top five. But what evs. It’s my top five dammit. I can do what I want.)
Here’s the point where I stop ranking and describing and start listing. Because I could go on and on and on about all of these books, and ain’t nobody got time for that. But in particular, me. I don’t have time for that!!!
- Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan.
- The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena.
- A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman.
- Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me by Mindy Kaling.
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
- The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware.
- Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly-Whitemore.
- Beartown by Fredrik Backman.
- American Gods by Neil Gaiman.
- A Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic Series Book 3) by V.E. Schwab.
- The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
- Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan.
- The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau.
- The Good Girl by Mary Kubica.
- Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng.
Most of the books I read last year were very enjoyable, and I would recommend 85 percent of them.
For a full list of books read or quit during 2017, you can check out this post, The Books I Read in 2017.
If you have any questions about any of the books or would like to discuss them because you’ve read them too, please feel free to drop a comment on Facebook or below.
