Favourite Reads of 2019: An Ode to Words

DEAR FAVOURITE READS OF 2019,

There aren't many ways to truly thank a book for it's contribution to your soul. Yes, you can thank the author for writing it, tweet and Instagram about it, and recommend the heck out of it to every person walking by, but is it enough!? Never. It is never enough. So this is just another way I'm falling short of truly expressing my gratitude to the great books I read this year. Here's to you, you beautifully bounded captors of my heart, here's to you a million times over.

In no particular order, here are my top 14 books of the year. These are books I either gave 4 or 5 stars to (but stars, schmars, right? THESE BOOKS GOT ME RIGHT IN THE HEART AREA):


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**(Note: Click on book covers to be directed to its Goodreads page)**

It was impossible to go anywhere near the online book community this year without someone mentioning, talking about reading, or wanting to read, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. She was everywhere except in my hands. I was on a waitlist you see, as we all maddeningly are at some point. Waiting on books, wishing for books, selling organs for the most coveted. The day came when she FINALLY became available to borrow, and then I wish I could tell you what happened next because I can't. I couldn't even if I wanted to. This was a blackout read for me. 'Blackout' in the sense that I read like my life depended on it, and literally nothing else mattered but the words in front of me. Luckily I didn't blackout and forget, oh no sir, I have the contents of this book right in the compartment of my heart that it stole and claimed for its own. Jenkins Reid writes like she knows her characters personally, like everything that happened was an actual tale told by actual people to her actual ears. I was a wreck by the end, an absolute puddle of welcomed misery. The book hangover was REAL with this one.

I finally, finally finished volumes #3-9 of the Saga series this year and HOLY HELL how I wish that I held firm to my restraint and only read 1 volume every few months because it's over for now and volume 10 is TAKING FOREVER to come out and I just don't know how people exercise patience. I'M FREAKING OUT OVER HERE!! If you haven't started on this series yet...what are you even doing? Stop reading this IMMEDIATELY and go pick up volume #1, go go, shoo!

Ever since I read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, he has become an auto-read/buy for me. I mention that with some shame because I didn't even know he released a book in 2019 until I saw a Booktuber talking about it, ugh. Recursion ended up being fairly similar to Dark Matter in terms of time-space continuums but that's exactly what I love about his books. This one was long and somewhat repetitive, but OH MAN let me tell you how this man could have written 25 more chapters and I would have stopped the world to sit down and read it ALL. I won't say any more, because there are way too many people out there spoiling the heck of this one.

The Huntress reminded me that I use to seriously enjoy reading historical fiction, and why I stopped can solely be blamed on my introduction to YA fiction (I'm looking you Twilight series). I had gotten to a point in my life where adult fiction (historical included) mirrored too clearly the harsh realities in my own life. I needed an escape and YA fantasy became my bounded hero. BUT I'M BACK! and Kate Quinn is an immensely gifted writer, with just the exact hand that I needed to be led back to this genre. The Huntress was foundationally historical but woven in was a psychological and thrilling storyline that was so deliciously good. I didn't care too much for one of the perspectives and tended to glaze over that one to get back to the juicy bits, but I understood it's importance and the role that it ultimately played. Another auto-read author was born for me with Kate Quinn.

And here I am, saving the best for last *happy sigh. I will eventually write a review for all (4) books, but I'm waiting until I read the latest, and 5th, installment (Come Tumbling Down, release date January 7, 2020). Much like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, I kept hearing about and seeing the Wayward Children series everywhere. I heard great things and I heard bad things and because I (WAS!) a self-proclaimed subscriber of "if one person says it's bad it must be bad", I steered clear of this series for well over a year. Well, LESSON LEARNED! If curiosity didn't eventually lead me to say "hmm, let's just see if my library has these ebooks available", and if my library didn't INDEED have them available, I never would have read book 1 and I NEVER WOULD HAVE BARED WITNESS TO THE FANTASTICALLY EPIC SPECTACULAR WONDEFUL-NESS that is this series. I will stop here...but just know that I don't WANT to...

Let me know below which books were your favourites this year!