It’s that time of year again! Out of all 122 books that I read in 2018, only five of them are my favourites, which is a bit of a depressing proportion, but these books in particular are all so amazing and have set the bar so high for my reading in 2019, so I'm not upset about it. Without further ado, listed below are the best books that I read in 2018. This is always my favourite blog post to write.
5. Shades of Magic trilogy by V. E. Schwab
I had no plan to include this series, but it’s grown on me so much that it felt wrong to publish this list without talking about it. It’s a fantasy trilogy that takes place in four parallel versions of London, each with a different amount of magic. There’s Grey London, which has no magic left; Red London, where magic flourishes and whose people prosper under the Maresh Empire; White London, an anarchic world where magic is chaotic and difficult to control; and Black London, where magic consumed and killed all its inhabitants and that has been magically sealed off for years. No one has the ability to travel between Londons except for powerful magicians called Antari, of which there are only a few remaining – one of whom is the protagonist, Kell Maresh, adopted princeling of Red London’s Maresh empire. While on royal business in Grey London, he encounters Delilah Bard, an aspiring pirate who sets the ball rolling by robbing Kell of a dangerous magical artifact that survived the purge of Black London.One of the things I liked most about this series was the setting/magic system. The parallel Londons concept is very unique and I enjoyed learning about how they were all structured around one another, and how that affected the amount and kind of magic that each London had. It is definitely a fantasy story, but it is grounded in enough realism that it isn’t dense and difficult to follow along, and I really appreciated that. The other thing that drew me to this series is the characters, which is the general theme of this list. There are main characters: Kell and Lila, whom I’ve already mentioned, as well as Rhy Maresh, prince to the Maresh throne and Kell’s younger brother by all but blood; Holland Vosijk, an Antari who is enslaved by the king and queen of White London; and Alucard Emery, a disgraced noble and privateer from Red London. My favourite thing was the character development and the way the narratives of all the characters intersected in the final book. Kell is my grumpy boy, Lila is an absolute take-no-prisoners bad bitch, Rhy is probably the bravest and most loyal person I have ever read about, Alucard is a charming little shit whose quest to redeem himself to Rhy is so sweet, and I initially didn’t care for Holland and ended up adoring him, so, you know. Love that for me. I did find a lot of the dialogue pretty unrealistic, but it didn’t change the fact that this was an emotional and enjoyable series with a fascinating story world, flawed but loveable characters, and a magnificent finale – in terms of how much was at stake and how much was lost, A Conjuring of Light reminded me of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which is a big compliment from me.
4. Sadie by Courtney Summers
Sadie is the only book I can think of where you may as well not read it if you aren’t going to listen to the audiobook. Why? Because Sadie is half-narrative, half-podcast. Heavily inspired by Serial, the narrative follows the titular main character, Sadie, as she tracks down the man she believes responsible for the death of her little sister, Mattie; the podcast, aired a year later, also follows Sadie, as its host, West McCray, investigates her disappearance from her hometown several weeks after Mattie’s death. His fictional podcast was recreated for the audiobook with a full cast of characters and an original soundtrack, and the production value was incredible – if you like Serial, you’re going to love this book. I was so invested that I listened to the entire eight-hour audiobook in one sitting.
The thing I liked most about this book is the content it tackled. I don’t want to say too much about that content, as knowing some of the more explicit themes ended up spoiling some of the intrigue for me, but I will say this: this book confronts a perverse and disgusting side of humanity, and it was that more than anything that left me shaken once I finished reading. A lifetime isn’t long enough to get over the kind of things Sadie has experienced, and the vengeance plot was ridiculously compelling, sensational without sensationalising the sensitive subject matter. The ending was ambiguous and thus frustrating as all hell, but it spoke to the dark tone of the narrative, shedding light on a side of crime that is often overlooked in fiction. It’s disturbing, but it’s utterly addictive, and I urge everyone to read it: even though it’s a tragic story, the way it’s told is incredibly entertaining and has stayed with me since I finished reading.
3. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
I have never been more thankful to have picked up a book on a whim, because The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is one of the most interesting books I have ever read in my life. It’s the fictional biography of a Cuban actress named Evelyn Hugo, who was a movie star in the 1950s and is most famous for having been married seven times. After a lifetime of privacy and secrecy, she decides she is ready for her tell-all to be written, and chooses unknown reporter Monique Grant to write it for her. Monique has no idea why Evelyn chose her of all people, but the actress refuses to speak with anyone else, so Monique diligently arrives at Evelyn’s apartment every day and listens as the older woman recounts her tumultuous, scandalous life.
This book has a little bit of everything that makes a story great. A thrilling, engaging, emotional plot, a main character who is very complex and flawed, and a sense of intrigue that is paced well throughout the story, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a beautifully written novel with which I am absolutely obsessed. The main draw for most people, including me, is the titular character, Evelyn Hugo. Like I said, this is a very interesting book, because Evelyn has a very interesting life. As a young woman looking for work in Hollywood in the 1950s, she was never afraid to take risks and make compromises to get what she wanted, even if that meant sacrificing her sexuality and her ethnic heritage to be more digestible to the public. To Monique, she reflects on the choices she made, often revealing the astonishing truths behind why she made them, and she confronts them all with refreshing honesty, which I really liked – some of her decisions might categorise her as a “bad person”, but Evelyn doesn’t have time to regret how those choices might have affected others while she was busy fighting for the life she felt she deserved. It was empowering to read about a woman who never sacrificed her own needs for the convenience of others, and although it made her morally grey, it also made her authentic. I thought the fictional biography idea was absolute genius, because seeing Evelyn through the eyes of Monique, someone who only knows of Evelyn what she has chosen to share about her life, gives the reader a dual perspective; we are seeing Evelyn as she truly is as she tells her life story, but we are also seeing how that story contradicts the image of Evelyn which with the public is familiar, the mysterious, sexy starlet with seven different husbands. I found that contrast illuminating, and the book as a whole was impossible for me to put down. If you’re on the hunt for a ruthlessly ambitious and gorgeously authentic main character, Evelyn Hugo is the woman for you.
2. The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater [full review]
This technically counts as four books, but I’m reviewing them all together. This was not a series I was expecting to read, let alone love. This urban fantasy series follows a seventeen-year-old girl named Blue Sargent, the only non-psychic in a family of psychics, and the four prep school boys she befriends. Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, Noah Czerny, and Richard Campbell Gansey III are on a mission to recover the body of an ancient king named Owen Glendower, as it has been prophesied that Glendower will grant a favour to whomever finds him first. Blue begins to fall for one of the boys, but she has a secret: all her life, every psychic she has met has told her that if she kisses her true love, he will die.
I love this series so much. It’s set in modern America, which I appreciate because I didn’t have to read the detailed history of a made-up fantasy world, and the plot is interesting, albeit not super action-packed – the best word to describe the pacing is ‘sleepy’. There’s five main characters, so I won’t go into much detail about what makes them so special and unique, but they are all very well-rounded, each with their own distinctive personality and narrative voice, and they all have something interesting to offer to the story in terms of their backgrounds/upbringings, their abilities, their emotions, and their interpersonal relationships with each other and with the group as a whole. Blue and her raven boys are an endearing and entertaining group to read about, with a kind of kinship that reminds me very much of Harry Potter’s Golden Trio. The other thing that made this series stand out to me is the atmosphere that Maggie Stiefvater created. This series is the definition of atmospheric writing. The whimsical quality of Maggie’s writing and the fantasy elements of the story – psychics and tarotology, ghosts and ancient kings, ley lines and dreams brought to life – work perfectly together, conjuring a deeply immersive reading experience that is mystical and magical and so, so funny. I don’t usually love fantasy, but this was the perfect kind for me, and I’m so glad that I gave it a chance this year.
1. Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
This technically counts as two books, but again, I’m reviewing them together. Six of Crows and its sequel, Crooked Kingdom, were two of the first books I read in 2018, which is unfortunate, because they set the bar so high that no other book was able to compete. I wasn’t expecting to ever read this duology. Even though it gets nothing but rave reviews, it had never really piqued my interest, but it was recommended to me while I was trialling Audible in January, and I figured, fuck it. I don’t have to pay for it, so why not give it a try? Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom follow a group of teenage gang members, criminals, and runaways who band together to go on a heist to break someone out of prison. Leigh Bardugo is a phenomenal talent; her world-building is intricately layered and richly detailed in mythos, tradition, and culture, and her writing is spectacular, her dialogue Sorkin-esque with snark and speed and heart. It is the six main characters, however, that have won me over so completely.
The characters in this book are SO well-developed. There are six of them, and they each come from different walks of life: Kaz Brekker inspired the “started from the bottom, now we’re here” meme, an orphan off the streets who now runs a criminal gang called the Dregs and whom is known for being utterly ruthless and impossible to trick or manipulate; Inej Ghafa is an acrobat and an ex-sex slave whose freedom Kaz bought on the condition that she does reconnaissance work for the Dregs; Nina Zenik is a ‘Grisha Heartrender’, a powerful magician with the ability to damage people’s internal organs, and also the sexiest woman alive; Matthias Helvar is a soldier from the Norse-inspired land of Fjerda whose army hunts down and kills Grisha; Jesper Fahey is a sharpshooter with a gambling problem who works for the Dregs; and Wylan van Eck is the underdog, son of the merchant who hires the six teens to break a high-profile Grisha out of a maximum security ice prison in Fjerda. Over the course of the two books in the series, the six form an unbreakable bond with each other, but they also formed an unbreakable bond with me. The character development is excellent, and the romance is fucking amazing – yes, the heist plot is awesome, and the high stakes make it exhilarating to read, but it’s the friendships and romances that blossom among the gang that make this book so popular, because they are so nuanced and interesting and tragic that you can’t help but invest in them. Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom made an astonishing emotional impact on me and haven’t been far from my mind since I read them at the very start of 2018, and that’s why they’re number one on this list.
Thanks for reading! x
