It's that time of year again :-) I know we still have three days left of the year, but I'm going to call it now.
I haven't been quite as lucky with my book picks this year, for some strange reason, so the 5-star books (non-rereads anyway) have been sparser than usual, and there's been no
one book that has blown me away.... which actually made it harder to pick a top 10, because once I was through the 5 star books, there were SO MANY 4 star books left to chose from! #firstworldproblems, I know ;)
In no particular order...
The Girl With All the Gifts - M.R. Carey Fascinating book that once again made me review my "I don't like zombie-novel" stance. Apparently I just don't like 'traditional' zombie novels. This was extremely clever and had me eagerly turning pages.
Britt-Marie Was Here - Fredrik Backman After having been somewhat disappointed by the first book I read by Fredrik Backman ("A Man Called Ove"), I absolutely LOVED this one! I laughed, I cried and I fell in love. Wonderful comfort read.
Caszandra - Andrea Höst The third book in the Touchstone Trilogy, but I read the first one (Stray) in 2015, so that one doesn't count. Possibly the best new series I read this year.
Wrong Way Round - Lorna Hendry No top ten list of mine is complete without at least one travelogue, apparently ;) This year it was a toss between this one and David Cohen's "One Year Off", but at the end of the day, I liked this one a tiiiny bit more... besides, I always love reading about Australia.
The Book of Life - Deborah Harkness The very suitable end to the All Souls trilogy. I felt positively book-hungover when I finished this one, and most of all wanted to turn to the very first one and read them through all over again :-) If there was a contender to "best book of the year", I think it would be this one. They just worked for me.
Time and Time Again - Ben Elton VERY different from the other books I've read by Ben Elton, and probably his best. But then, I love time travel stories, even when they sometimes take some suspension of disbelief. This had definite shades of Stephen King's "11/22/63" but with enough of a twist to not seem derivative. I loved it.
Wish Upon a Star - Trisha Ashley Don't let the cover fool you - this is not a Christmas story, it is just a very cozy comfort-read where the last few chapters happen to take place over Christmas. But what an awesome comfort-read! I have a feeling this will be a regular reread.
Delicious! - Ruth Reichl Not
quite as much a foodie book as I had expected, but I still loved it, and wish we could have read more about the magazine.
The Woman in Cabin 10 - Ruth Ware My favourite kind of thriller - no leaps of logic, no supernatural events, no (or little) gore and a good explanation for everything! Together with "The Couple Next Door" by Shari Lapena these were the best thrillers I've read all year.
You Were Here - Cori McCarthy NOT your run-of-the mill YA. Partly because it was written in part prose, part graphic novel and part art poetry. I didn't think it would work, but it totally did, and ended up being one of the most 'true' coming-of-age stories I've read in a long time.
Honorable Mention: Take It as a Compliment - Maria Stoian. I found this graphic memoir deeply disturbing, so couldn't in good faith call it one of the
best books I read in 2016... but it's without a doubt one of the most
important books I read. This should be made mandatory reading in high schools.
