FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2019

In 2019, I read a total of 100 books. Some of them were good; some of them were bad. One of them was Fifty Shades Darker, which was terrible (full review to come). Most of them, however, elicited nothing more than a ‘meh’ from me. They weren’t awful, but they weren’t awesome, either: they were middling, unmemorable, unobtrusive and unimpressive. I tallied up all the ratings I gave this year, and 41 of the books I read in 2019 received only 3 stars; that means that nearly half of the books I read were average at best. This was a pretty depressing proportion when it came to drafting up my list of favourites for this year’s blog post, but I think I’ve pulled together a list that accurately represents the authors and the styles that consistently work for me, which will hopefully help me finetune my next decade of reading. Without further ado, here are my favourite books that I read in 2019. 

8.  Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell

I don’t think I can make a favourites list for 2019 without at least mentioning Wayward Son. This book was probably one of my most anticipated releases of all time (Harry Potter notwithstanding) owing to the fact that Fangirl and Carry On, its counterpart and predecessor respectively, are two of my all-time favourite books. Carry On is a fantasy novel about a young mage named Simon Snow and his arch-nemesis, Tyrannus “Baz” Basilton Grimm-Pitch, in their final year at Watford School of Magicks. Wayward Son is the long-awaited sequel about what happens to the hero after he’s finished saving the world. Simon is in a depressive funk after losing both his magic and his purpose, so his boyfriend and best friend, Baz and Penelope, decide to take him on a road trip through the American West. He needs a change of scenery, they declare; but what they don’t anticipate is that a change of scenery is the least they’re going to encounter. 

Although this book wasn’t perfect, Simon and Baz hold such a special place in my heart that I had no choice but to include it on this list. It was so fun and exciting to spend more time with these characters and in this world, but I did miss Watford an awful lot; part of what I love so dearly about Carry On is the world of Watford, particularly the integration of Rowell’s unique magic system into the story. We still got that magic outside of Watford, but I was feeling rather reminiscent for the Watfordian context while reading, and I’m glad that it seems like we’ll be returning to Watford in book three (although the cliffhanger ending was a real son of a bitch). Of course, Simon and Baz were the aspect of the book I was most looking forward too, but I have mixed feelings about it. Is it possible to both love and hate something simultaneously? Because I both love and hate the tension in Simon and Baz’s relationship. I’m a hopeless romantic. We did the angst thing in Carry On; now that they’re together, I was looking forward to some happy boyfriend behaviour, and Rainbow Rowell did NOT deliver. Their relationship is really on the rocks, and it stressed me the hell out. Overall, I don’t think this book is as strong or as charming as Carry On,  but it was still really enjoyable, and I loved getting to spend time with Simon and Baz again. Rainbow Rowell has a knack for characters and character work that makes you feel all warm and cozy on the inside, and I am gagging to get my hands on book three and enjoy even more Simon and Baz. 

7. Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

The problem I have with Leigh Bardugo is that although I have read six of her eight full-length novels, I only enjoyed two of them — but the two I enjoyed were my favourite books of last year. Happily, Ninth House was a similarly rousing success. The novel’s protagonist is Alex Stern, a young woman who has been offered a full ride to Yale, on the condition that she joins a group named Lethe, which is tasked with monitoring the occult activities of Yale’s secret societies. Laced with magic and supernatural intrigue, the story takes a dark turn when a young woman is murdered on campus — and Alex suspects that the societies are involved. 

I heard mixed reviews of Ninth House before going into it. I heard that it was underwhelming, that it was excessively graphic and violent, that it was disturbing, horrifying, and disgusting — so I wasn’t expecting to actually kind of love it. One of my favourite things about this book is how feminist it is, without presenting itself as an actively-feminist book. Not that there’s anything wrong with actively-feminist literature, but I think the subtlety Bardugo employed in Ninth House worked well with the dark, broody tone of the novel, allowing the paranormal/supernatural elements of the story to control the narrative. I also really enjoyed the characters, especially the protagonist, Alex. Many of the unflattering reviews of this book complain that Darlington, one of the side characters, carried the weight of the story, which I find confusing; am I the only person who noticed how interesting and complex Alex is? Her backstory is fascinating and unfolds excruciatingly but tantalisingly slowly throughout the novel, her relationships with the other characters ring with truth and authenticity, and her general demeanour and attitude were a great combination of badass and absolutely, utterly normal. She’s got badass energy, but she also feels realistically human and fallible, which makes her easy to connect with and like. Now, I think it’s important to mention that Ninth House will definitely not be for everyone — to be honest, I was extremely surprised that I ended up enjoying it as much as I did, because it is a very dark and fucked-up book. If you are considering reading it, do proceed with caution and make sure to check out the content/trigger warnings which can be found on Goodreads; this definitely isn’t a book for the faint of heart. That being said, Ninth House was a great book that I am stoked to have enjoyed as much as I did, and I can’t wait to read book two. 

6. Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater

Perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the year was the fact that I enjoyed Call Down the Hawk as much as I did. In 2018, Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle was high on my list of favourites of the year, but one of the few criticisms I did have was that Ronan and his dream sequences were my least favourite aspect of the series. Naturally, when Stiefvater announced a second series about these characters and set in this world, I was thrilled — until I learned that Ronan and his dream sequences were going to be the centre around which this new series revolved. Still, I have great faith in Maggie, so I decided to give Call Down the Hawk a chance, and hot damn, am I glad that I did. It’s hard to give a synopsis of this book, but it mainly follows Ronan Lynch, a vicious young man with the ability to bring objects out of his dreams; Hennessey, another dreamer whose dreams are being plagued by a dark, evil entity that is slowly killing her, dream by precious dream; Jordan, a talented art forger and one of the many copies of herself that Hennessey has brought back from her dreams; and Carmen Farooq-Lane, who has joined an organisation that is hunting and killing dreamers in order to prevent the end of the world. 

I really enjoyed this book, and I am hugely surprised by this fact. In The Raven Cycle, I found Ronan abrasive and unlikeable, but now that he’s dating Adam, my heart does not have enough room for the amount of love I feel for him. Having a boyfriend hasn’t made Ronan any less sharp-edged in terms of his exterior attitude, but for me, it softened his edges a bit, made him more endearing and empathetic, easier to connect to and love. Ronan and Adam are so cute together, and I’m really hoping to see lots more of their relationship in future books, because it made me really happy. (Also, Adam got into Harvard?! I’m so proud of my son!) The plot of this book is also really great, although ‘plot’ maybe too strong a word; certainly the novel had a narrative, but it was so much more focused on developing old characters and introducing new ones that I often lost track of where the plot was going. Fortunately, the character development was so good that the novel’s slight plotless-ness didn’t bother me at all. Spending more time with Ronan’s brothers, Declan and Matthew, was a treat that also ended up pushing the story forward in fascinating and completely unexpected directions, and Hennessey and Jordan were an unexpectedly enjoyable addition to the world. I missed Gansey and Blue, and was disappointed (although not surprised) that we didn’t get to spend much time with Adam, but overall, I was impressed to find that Ronan doesn’t need his raven boys to tell an interesting and emotionally rewarding story; he can do it all on his own. 

5. Dig by A. S. King [full review]

I’ve already reviewed Dig in full, so I’ll keep this summary short. It’s a hard book to synopsise, but essentially, it’s about an extended family in Pennsylvania whose matriarch, Marla Hemmings, refuses to share any of the money in her and her husband’s seven-figure bank account so that her children and grandchildren will learn to thrive on their own. That’s the basis of the plot, but there’s so much more that the book is about: it’s about racism, about family, about selfishness and greed, but more than that, it’s about surviving by any means necessary. It’s certainly one of King’s most abstract novels to date, but this by no means made it worse than her other published works; in fact, it simply made it all the more fascinating. 

To be frank, Dig is weird. It’s weird and strange and confusing and not always especially coherent, but that’s the A. S. King trademark, and it’s the thing I have loved about all of her novels so far, Dig included. This book is fantastic, beautifully written and completely impossible to understand. I had no idea what was going on the whole time, but I also understood it intimately and innately, as if the meaning was being pulled straight out of my subconscious, but the part of my subconscious that only makes sense in a dream. When I’m trying to guess what A. S. King books ‘mean’, I never feel like I’m getting it right. But that’s what makes her books so special: they are so open to interpretation. The author’s influence doesn’t dominate the meaning of the book, so although I know that King’s young adult writing won’t be for everyone, I do also think that it’s flexible in terms of who can enjoy it and what they can take away from it. One criticism I do have is that I found it hard to connect with any of the characters, partly because the page-time was divided between so many of them, and partly because they sometimes became so lost in metaphor that it became difficult to reconcile them as a person as opposed to an abstract idea. Still, in my eyes, King can do no wrong, and if you’re a fan of magical realism or books that don’t make reading an easy time, I would highly recommend that you give Dig a try.  

4. The Year We Fell From Space by Amy Sarig King

The fact that A. S. King has made this list twice (albeit under a different version of her name) is no surprise: she’s such a talent that she deserves to take up two spots. The Year We Fell From Space is the first of King’s middle grade novels that I have read, and I love it dearly. It’s about a young girl named Liberty whose parents are getting a divorce, and what takes place in the year that follows their decision to separate. It’s a really sweet and comprehensible story about divorce and mental health, and I think it has value for both its target audience and older readers, too. 

The Year We Fell From Space is definitely King’s most coherent book, which makes sense, since it’s middle grade. I’ve never read an A. S. King book with a plot that was so easy to understand — that is, a plot that doesn’t rely heavily on magical realism — and it was so enjoyable to be able to understand this book without having to do heaps of legwork to make sense of it. I also think that this is a really important read, and that it’s going to help a lot of kids who are going through a divorce or who are starting to learn about mental health for the first time, whether because they are having problems or because someone they love is struggling. I’ve never read, or really even heard of, a book for young readers about depression, and I think this one is going to be a valuable resource for many people. The detailed information that King provides about the hereditary nature of depression, the different types of depression (e.g. chronic vs situational), and the symptoms of depression are all given in a comprehensive and empathetic way; no child who reads this book is going to feel ashamed of the fact that they may suffer from this mental illness. I also really love the characters, especially Liberty, her little sister Gilly, and their mother. Liberty is a lovely main character with whom it was a joy to spend time. Gilly is so sweet and charming and funny, and their mum is such a badass — I really admired her repertoire of outdoor skills and knowledge. Overall, this book was a smashing success; unsurprisingly, King has written another spectacular novel that tackles difficult issues in a unique and interesting way. This is easily one of my favourite books she’s ever written.  

3. Nevermoor and Wundersmith by Jessica Townsend

This is technically two books, but I am reviewing them together. Harry Potter meets The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in the Nevermoor series, Jessica Townsend’s gloriously inventive debut about a young girl named Morrigan Crow who is whisked away from her loveless home into the new and fantastical world of Nevermoor. In Nevermoor, Morrigan must compete in a series of difficult trials in order to earn entrance into the elite Wundrous Society. Think the Triwizard Tournament, but less deadly (but with about the same number of dragons). In Wundersmith, she begins her first year as a member of the Society and begins the process of understanding her unique and dangerous talent: the ability to accumulate and control Wunder (which is kind of like an energy source, or something? I don’t really get it, but I like it nonetheless). 

I have literally no criticisms of this series. It’s fresh, it’s fun, it’s fast-paced, and it has the Harry Potter-ish charm of being enjoyable for both its target demographic and those who outgrew said demographic over a decade ago. One of my favourite aspects of this book is that the characters are so vibrant and vividly rendered. When it comes to quirky characters, I’m more than a little fussy; if the quirkiness is too forced, I immediately disengage, but the eccentricity of the characters in the Nevermoor series is done just right. Each personality is distinct, unique, and utterly weird, and every character is unforgettable, from their outlandish names to their oddball idiosyncrasies and characteristics. Another thing I thoroughly enjoyed is the world. Debut fantasy novels fall under significant pressure to establish the setting and the context in which the story takes place, including establishing the general time period of the story and how much technology the people have. Nevermoor, I feel, does a marvelous job of this, bringing to life an exciting, coloursal, whimsical, steampunk-ish world, somewhat Victorian in terms of time period but without the stuffiness attributed to other Victorian writing. The reader is provided a clear image of what the world is supposed to look like and how the characters operate within it. Overall, Nevermoor was an astonishingly entertaining debut novel, and Wundersmith was an equally fantastic sequel. I can go either way on enjoying middle grade that I didn’t first read as a middle grader myself, but Nevermoor and Wundersmith were a definite success.

2. Heartstopper by Alice Oseman

Again, this is technically two books that I am reviewing together. As an English degree graduate, I feel somewhat of an obligation to elect deep, thought-provoking literary fiction to the top spots on these yearly lists, but then I read books like Heartstopper, and my conviction goes completely out the window. Heartstopper is Alice Oseman’s ongoing webcomic which has been adapted into two graphic novels so far, with the third due for release in February next year. It follows Charlie Spring and Nick Nelson, two boys who meet at their all-boys high school and slowly fall in love. It is EXTREMELY CUTE and made me EXTREMELY HAPPY. The art style is adorable, the characters are unbelievably endearing, and overall, I am completely and utterly obsessed.

When I started reading volume 1 of Heartstopper, I was expecting to enjoy it, but I usually struggle to connect with graphic novels because they’re so short and quick that it feels like I don’t have time to get invested. Therefore, I was surprised to find myself falling head over heels for Nick and Charlie and devouring their story like it was my first full meal in weeks. The thing about Heartstopper is that the best thing about it is how absolutely adorable it is. This series is so precious. The art style is a huge contributor to that; yes, the romance between Nick and Charlie is incredibly moving and sweet, but the art styles really enhances the cuteness of the thing. The way that this series stole my heart snuck up on me. One minute I was enjoying it, having a good time squealing over how cute it is, and then suddenly, overnight, I was completely in love and had to get my hands on my own copy pronto. Hearttstopper is unbelievably charming and sweet. It’s a simple story, which is why it’s so amazing that it managed to endear itself to me so completely; it’s a cut-and-dry love story, but there’s something about it that tugs at your heartstrings in a really special way. A book doesn’t have to be extremely complex in order for you to engage/connect with it; sometimes, a beautiful love story between two loveable characters is all that is needed to capture your readers’ hearts and send them tumbling, head over heels, in love. 

1. Educated by Tara Westover [full review]

I read this book in February, and knew the moment I finished it that no other book I read this year was going to be able to top it. This incredible memoir is one of the most engrossing books I have ever read. It’s the story of Tara Westover, a young woman who grew up in a Mormon survivalist family and whose unconventional upbringing is the subject of her powerful and moving memoir that I have recommended to countless friends, family, and customers in the last year. As I wrote in my full review, Educated is more than just a memoir; it is a deeply self-exploratory piece of writing, and its author is an extraordinary woman whose empathy and introspection add a compellingly personable level to her already fascinating story. 

I think the most remarkable thing about Educated, and the thing that struck me the most, was the fact that Westover wasn’t just recounting her story; she clearly used the process of writing this memoir to analyse and accept the circumstances of her childhood, to find clarity and closure in her trauma. From receiving a non-committal homeschool education until she was 17 years old to receiving an MPhil and a PhD in intellectual history from Cambridge and Harvard respectively, Westover goes on a powerful journey both literally as she describes the events of her life, and intellectually/spiritually as she enters the wider world and discovers that her family’s radical interpretation of Mormonism is a far cry from the actual doctrine of the religion. She writes beautifully and poetically, with incredible discipline and an absorbing grasp of metaphor and descriptive language, about the extreme conditions of her childhood and the great deal of suffering she underwent in order to emancipate herself from her family’s stranglehold on her ideology and develop her own voice and sense of self. I would truly recommend this memoir to anyone with even a mild amount of interest: I promise that you will not be disappointed by this moving and engrossing book. 

Sorry this is so late! x