Looking Back at 2016: My Top 10 Reads

I read so many good books this year. Here is my list of my favorite books this year.

It really surprised me. I loved this book.

 

 

 

 

I wasn’t sure if I would like this book, but it was so scary and tension filled. Read it!

 

 

 

 

Another really good apocalyptic story. Read it!

 

 

 

 

I read this for my book club. And it is so good. If you love Southern Lit, read it!

 

 

 

 

It’s more an essay than a book, but it’s a fabulous argument for why we all should be feminists.

 

 

 

Really a fascinating read about how a talented child will take over a family.

 

 

 

I listened to this one. It’s the first audio book I’ve listened to in a while. And I really enjoyed it. The narrator did a great job, plus I learned how to pronounce so many Brit words and places.

 

This is one of my favorite books of this year. I’ve hopped on the Elena Ferrante bandwagon and am planning to read the second one soon.

 

 

 

This is another one that I wasn’t really sure what it was about when I picked it up to read. But it is really good.

 

 

 

I love this series of books by Tana French so much. The latest in the series is so good, and it slyly comments on the genre of books with “Girl” in the title who are a bit angry. Read it!

 

 

So what do you think of my list? Have you read any of the books? What were your favorite books of 2016? Don’t forget to leave your link below so I can visit your blog. Happy Reading!

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten New-To-Me Authors

It’s time for Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. Do visit this fun blog and read all the other lists. It’s a lot of fun and you’ll be sure to add books to your TBR pile. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is: Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read For The First Time In 2016. I’ve listed the author and the books that introduced me to them. Also, if you click on their name I’ve linked to either their Goodreads page or their website.

So, in no particular order, here is my list of favorite new-to-me authors who I read for the first time ever this year.

Megan Abbott :          

Josh Malerman:                     

Elena Ferrante:                      

Ron Rash:                                  

Ruth Ware:                                 

Emily St John Mandel:             

Téa Obreht:                                   

V.E. Schwab:                                 

Madeline Hunter:                         

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:    

 

Who are your top ten new-to-you authors? What do you think of my list?  Let me know what you think  in the comments below. Be sure to leave a link to your Top Ten Tuesday list so I can visit your blog.

 

November Wrap-Up

November is finally over. For so many reasons this month has lasted forever. I think it’s due to the closeness of the end of the year. And because I want this truly awful year to be over. My reading life has suffered a bit as well. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life premiered on Netflix  over Thanksgiving weekend, so I spent much of the time I usually spend reading instead watching Gilmore Girls episodes and reading Gilmore Girls think pieces across the web to prepare for the new episodes. Someday I may write about my love of this particular show, but today is not that day. Today, I present my reading life for the past month.

Read:

Left-Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin*^

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie*

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff*^

Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver* ^

His Wicked Reputation by Madeline Hunter  [Library eBook]

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott  [Library eBook]

* Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2016 book

^ #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks Challenge book

Favorite Read in November: 

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie*

Started Reading (but didn’t finish) :

Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys*^

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey [Library eBook]

Quarterly Book Box:

This is a literature box that I subscribe to and so receive a box quarterly. I should have received this box in mid October, but they forgot to send me my box. This is the second time this has happened. Interestingly, they don’t forget to charge my credit card. In addition to the three books listed below, the box included a coffee cup with a quotation from The Mothers  and a sticker. Is it worth the price of the subscription? I’m not sure that it is, so I will write about my thoughts sometime in January.

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Mothers by Brit Bennett

Sula by Toni Morrison

Books to Read in December:

Most of this list includes books I am reading for the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2016. I only have three books to read to finish it this year, so I’m put them on the top of my list. And  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is the pick for my Skype book club.

Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys

Half-Resurrection Blues by Daniel José Older

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Across the Web:

I love Harry Potter and that world so much. I love it so much that I love to read analysis of the Harry Potter world. In light of the recent US election, a lot of writers are seeing similarities to HP and the world today. Here is a really nice analysis of one of the worst villains of the series:  Dolores Umbridge.

This article is a holdover from my interest in female driven thrillers like Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. Why are there so many? FYI, Paula Hawkins’, author of The Girl on the Train,  next book has been announced. Click here to read. 

So how was your November? Did you read as much as you wanted to? Did Gilmore Girls interrupt your life as it did mine? Let me know in the comments below and leave a link to your wrap up. Happy Reading in December!

Review of You Will Know Me

From Goodreads:

How far will you go to achieve a dream? That’s the question a celebrated coach poses to Katie and Eric Knox after he sees their daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful, compete. For the Knoxes there are no limits–until a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community and everything they have worked so hard for is suddenly at risk.

As rumors swirl among the other parents, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself irresistibly drawn to the crime itself. What she uncovers–about her daughter’s fears, her own marriage, and herself–forces Katie to consider whether there’s any price she isn’t willing to pay to achieve Devon’s dream. 

This is an uncomfortable examination of the toxic mix of a talented, ambitious child, Devon, and her devoted and ambitious parents, Katie and Eric, in the highly competitive world of gymnastics. It begins with the murder of a beloved young man, Ryan, who is a part of the gym community. He’s killed in a hit and run that is not, as it turns out, an accident. This is the  story of how this death exposes all of the secrets of the gym community and Katie’s family. Katie, Devon’s mother, is the first person narrator of the story. She is deeply upset by Ryan’s murder and how everyone in the community reacts including both her daughter and husband. We slowly discover from Katie’s perspective the how the community and her daughter’s place in it as the potential  Olympian is seen by everyone.

Since it is told from Katie’s perspective we discover how little she acknowledges what is really going on in her own home. How she doesn’t really know her daughter. She also is slow to acknowledge how ambitious she is herself. An ambition that everyone else in the novel seems to see and know, except Katie. When we see how she ignores her son in favor of Devon that it starts to become glaringly apparent to the reader. Good grief, the boy comes down with Scarlett Fever and she leaves him home alone or with the neighbor to search out information about Devon more than once.

But what is interesting to me as a mother of a daughter is the relationship she has with Devon. How she takes care of everything for the child, but at the same time doesn’t really know her. Katie thinks to herself at one point “That’s what parenthood was about, wasn’t it? Slowly understanding your child less and less until she wasn’t yours anymore but herself.” Which is true I think for most parents. Even “helicopter” parents such as Katie and Eric.

It’s clear early on who killed Ryan, but it’s the why and how and who knew that makes this story interesting. The story is like an onion. It’s the intensity of high level gymnastics for the entire family, and by extension, everyone at the gym that’s fascinating. I wish I could have read this during the Olympics early this year while I was watching the gymnast competitions,and even the swimming and diving competitions. The girls are so young who are competing as adults (is 16 an adult?). And the gymnast look so young, disturbingly so. But this story would have given me a bit of insight into the world of Olympic competition. Finally, I have to say after reading this story I’m glad none of my children were “talented.” I’m not sure I would have wanted to sacrifice everything  in order for my kid to be “the best.”

I really enjoyed this book. I gave it 4 Stars on Goodreads.

Have you read You Will Know Me? What did you think of it? What other Megan Abbott books would you recommend? Or books about talented children? Let me know in the comments below!

 

 

 

 

Friday 56, #13

It’s time for  Friday 56!  It’s a book meme hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice. Be sure to visit her blog if you would like to participate!

From Freda’s Voice The Rules:
*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader
(If you have to improvise, that’s ok.)
*Find any sentence, (or few, just don’t spoil it)
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post in the Linky on Friday 56. Add the post url, not your blog url.
*It’s that simple!

Here’s my contribution:

Devon had been gone less than two days, and the house felt haunted; the decaying manse of a family quarantined by fever.

Without car duty, practices, there was  suddenly so much time, and Katie ended up spending far too long with Drew’s sickbed meals, fashioning a banana to look like a person with raisin eyes. Cutting his sandwich into angel wings.

You really only know your place, her mother once said, when you’re left in it.

This is one of my current reads, and it is something! Would you read this based on this excerpt? Have you already read this? If so, what did you think of it? Let me know in the comments below!