2019 brought a change to my reading habits. I read over twenty graphic novels this year – and that doesn’t even include the graphic novels and comic books I read to my daughter. That means, almost a third of the books I read this year were graphic novels. In the past, I only read two or three graphic novels in a year, so this is a significant shift. I also read a book of poetry this year – a first among my Goodreads challenges. I’m still struggling to make nonfiction a habit, but one nonfiction title made it into my five star reads. I have a handful of nonfiction titles on my OverDrive wish list, so perhaps 2020 will bring more nonfiction my way.
Out of 65 books read this year – and over 21,000 pages – I gave a five star rating (based on the Goodreads scale) to 16 titles. If you’re curious to see what books made the list in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 click the links. In no particular order, here are my favorite books read in 2019:
- Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas
- Beartown and Us Against You by Fredrik Backman
- A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
- Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor
- The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
- The Paper Girls series by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang
- Be Prepared by Vera Brosgol
- A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi
- Shortest Way Home by Pete Buttigieg
- The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
- Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley
Of course, there were plenty of other great books I read this year.
Honorable Mentions:
- Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson – a book of poetry detailing her adolescence, comments on her most famous novel Speak, and thoughts on sexual assault and the #metoo movement. Timely and relevant.
- The Space Boy series by Stephen McCranie – a series of graphic novels following a girl who used to live in space, but now has to navigate high school on Earth. A mysterious boy captures her attention.
- Illegal by Eion Colfer – a graphic novel about a dangerous journey towards a better life, starting in a poor African village enroute to Europe. A young boy and his brother walk through the Sahara Desert, float on a raft in the Mediterranean Sea, and join hundreds of other migrants on a crowded ship. Terrifying and thought-provoking.
- Kingsbane by Claire Legrand – the sequel to Furyborn, Legrand’s Empirium series is a fast-paced fantasy about a Blood Queen and a Sun Queen. One will save the kingdom and one will destroy it, but who is who?
- Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus – a mystery book from the author of One of Us is Lying (a book on my five star list last year). In this one, girls have a habit of disappearing from a small town. When Ellery shows up to town with a true crime obsession, she’s eager to put her detective skills to the test.
Thanks to other book bloggers’ “best of” and “year-end” posts, I’ve already added several books to my TBR and wish list. I hope my list will be helpful for someone out in the blogosphere too. Happy reading in 2020!