My Year In Books

2015 has been a magnificent year for reading. Because it was my last year of high school, I had promised my parents that I would go on a reading hiatus and dedicate all my spare time (i.e. reading time) to preparing for finals. So naturally, I “forgot” about that promise by April, and read more books in one year than I ever had before. Oops. (I have no regrets.)

I’ve decided that a blog only featuring my favourite reads of 2015 will just be too difficult to compile. It won’t incorporate the emotional trauma I experienced as a result of Sarah J. Maas’s writing, or my appreciation for some novels that might not have been good enough to make my top five. The result is a bit of a master-post of my reading experiences this year, so I hope you enjoy it!

Number of books I planned to read this year: 55

Number of books I should have read this year: Maybe 5. Or 6 at a push. (And those should have been my English and AP English set works.)

Number of books I actually read this year: 63

View my 2015 Goodreads shelf.

Books I loved:

• Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
• Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
• A History of Loneliness by John Boyne
• The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
• The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle
• Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman
• Lumiere by Jacqueline Garlick
• The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
• A Widow for One Year by John Irving
• The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
• Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
• Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
• Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella
• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
• To Hear the Ocean Sigh by Bryant A. Loney
• Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
• Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas
• Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas
• Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
• Cinder by Marissa Meyer
• Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
• The Rest Of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
• Uprooted by Naomi Novik
• Asking For It by Louise O’Neill
• Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver
• Church of Marvels by Leslie Parry
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
• The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
• The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan
• The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
• Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

My top book of 2015:

The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle is probably one of my favourite books of all time. I’ve read a lot of wonderful books this year, and usually I find it difficult to pick the one I enjoyed the most. But The Accident Season is just leagues ahead of them all (and as much as it pains me to say that, it’s true). It’s incredible. Everybody needs to read it.

My review | Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Book Depository

Special award:

Anything and everything Sarah J. Maas writes has an extreme affect on me. These are a couple of (admittedly inaccurate) statistics representing the amount of emotional trauma she put me through this year.

Number of times I cried over the Throne of Glass series: +\- 90

Number of times I cried during Queen of Shadows alone: 56

Number of times I cried about Queen of Shadows spoilers: 12

Number of times I had trouble breathing during ACOTAR: Count the stars. Then multiply that number by eighteen.

Number of times my sister or parents have yelled at me for freaking out about how long I have to wait for the sequels to QOS and ACOTAR: +/-22

Number of times I’ve managed to include something about Sarah J. Maas’s books in everyday conversation: Immeasurable

A note on the increasing inclusion of diverse characters in YA:

Diversity in YA is so exciting. (Although, really, it should be the opposite. Diversity should be the norm by now.) I’ve loved reading books that don’t include the typical white, heterosexual hero that runs around with his run-of-the-mill white friends. Everything, Everything and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda are two novels in particular that I highly recommend because of their strong, wonderful, and diverse protagonists. But at the same time, there are still so many more improvements that need to be made in this area. I’m hoping to see a lot more diversity in 2016 – meaningful diversity, where authors make the effort to represent different races, sexualities and disabilities accurately.

My 2015 reading regret:

My preoccupation with school and my resulting emotional instability meant that I didn’t get to read nearly as many fantasy novels as I’d hoped to. I NEED MORE DRAGONS IN MY LIFE.

 

You can read about my top five books of 2015 in this Writers Write post (which I wrote rather reluctantly because I hate choosing favourites, and which took me about three hours to type up because I just couldn’t decide what to include).