The last few years I've spent a lot of time reading classics and memoirs. But this past year I've seemed to pick up more newly released books. I also became a member of the social media networking site GoodReads so I seen a lot of books my friends were reading and recommended. Every time I read and finished a new book, I logged it into GoodReads to keep track of how much I read this year(39 books!).
With so many unforgettable characters and stories, it was hard to chose my favorites of the year. But the way I chose my favorites is by the stories and characters that I'll never forget and by which books that I absolutly could not put down until I finished them.
So here is my list of favorite books I read in 2017:
Photo courtesy of Amazon
“There are days when I feel so lightly connected to the earth that the threads that tether me to the planet are gossamer thin, spun sugar. A strong gust of wind could dislodge me completely, and I’d lift off and blow away, like one of those seeds in a dandelion clock. The threads tighten slightly from Monday to Friday.” A modern day Jane Eyre
I just loved Eleanor! She is a loner and avoids social interactions and lives in isolation. She speaks out without thinking, to whatever pops in her mind. She has never received hugs, or held hands and has never felt loved, she never received anything when she was sad to cheer her up. Never received balloons and received a balloon from Raymond with Sponge Bob on it and it was so special to her. She never heard of Sponge Bob.
She had an awful childhood with a scar on her face and bruises would show up all over her body. She had an emotional traumatic past. She was bought up in foster homes and then gets herself her own apartment from a social worker.
Eleanor is now thirty years old and works in a office. She drinks a lot of vodka and spends time on the weekends talking to her Mummy on the telephone. She drinks her vodka so she can forget her traumatic past, all what she remembers is a fire. She then goes through counseling and things come together and she remembers everything that
happened in her traumatic past
She then meets Raymond and things start to change for her, she finally meets a friend. She is in love with a famous musician. That is how quirky she is, she actually wants a relationship with him. Her relationship with Raymond builds and it works for her. She then goes through counseling and things come together and she remembers everything that happened in her traumatic past. She is changing and turns out being very brave. She is so humorous. I just loved Eleanor.
My Thoughts
This book really made me feel so many emotions!! I laughed, I cried, tears running down my face. I cheered for Eleanor near the end. I loved this book. It really made me feel! I just loved Eleanor.
It was a slow burn but the book started building suspense when I read about her scar on her face and had to find out why. Then it got me turning the pages to find out what happened. I was so surprised when I found out what happened. It was so sad and heartbreaking what she went through. While I was reading this I thought it was a whole different genre in what I usually read, it wasn't a thriller but it was the mystery of what happened that turned this into a page turner. Once all the pieces came together, I fell in love with this book. I can understand why it was a little slow, you needed to really get to know Eleanor. Once I started loving Eleanor that is when it started getting really good. I then couldn't put it down. Eleanor will make you laugh, she will make you cry, and she will have you cheering her on. If you love a book that will make you feel, this is the one for you!! I loved it.
“Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.”
Shaker Heights, Ohio is an affluent town with rules and regulations like no other. Mrs. Richardson lives by them, having been raised by them and she has raised her four children (Lexie, Trip, Moody and Izzy) to abide by them as well. She rents a little apartment in Shaker Heights to Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl, who are less fortunate. Mia is a free spirited artist, who lives life to the fullest. These women have one thing in common and one thing only: they love their children immensely and they accept each other's as their own.
Neither live perfect lives, sometimes in fact they make grave mistakes, yet their love for their children never falters.
These mothers relationships with each other, their family and everyone in town is threatened when a custody battle ensues between a friend of the Richardsons, Mrs. and Mr. McCullough, who are in the middle of adopting a Chinese American baby and a friend of Mia's, Bebe, who is the birth mother. This battle wrecks havoc on the town and causes incredible strife between the families.
These mothers relationships with each other, their family and everyone in town is threatened when a custody battle ensues between a friend of the Richardsons, Mrs. and Mr. McCullough, who are in the middle of adopting a Chinese American baby and a friend of Mia's, Bebe, who is the birth mother. This battle wrecks havoc on the town and causes incredible strife between the families.
My Thoughts
Little Fires Everywhere is a novel that far surpasses any other that I have ever read. I don't know how Celeste Ng did it. It is a brilliantly written novel with intricate, rich and wholly vivid characters whose lives are so fully intertwined you can't help but read on in bewildered awe of how Celeste Ng created these characters. My nerve endings were fully engaged on high alert from the first sentence.
This novel is captivating and crazy compelling. These characters burn an indelible image onto your soul. The character of Izzy, Mrs. Richardson's daughter had me from the beginning (kind of like Hannah from Ms. Ng's Everything I Never Told You - which I also loved). Izzy has a strength and over came odds that most children in her position wouldn't. Her triumphs made my heart soar.
Somehow Ms. Ng made me change my mind about some of the characters throughout the course of this novel. In the beginning, I felt one way about two of the characters and then by the end, I did a complete switcheroo, and my feelings about them were FIERCE.
Little Fires everywhere brought forth laughter and lots of tears. It is that kind of novel. I can't recommend it highly enough. It is captivating, compelling and full of heart and soul. Celeste Ng's ability to intertwine the characters and story lines was wondrous, brilliant and beautiful. I loved every second of this book.
“I liked learning things. How numbers worked together to explain the stars. How molecules made the world. All the ugly and wonderful things people had done in the last two thousand years.”
The story is about a girl called Wavy and it is a tale that spans around fifteen years. Through the perspectives of Wavy's cousin, brother, teachers and friends, as well as Wavy herself, the story of her childhood emerges as one filled with physical and emotional abuse. Her mother is a drug addict, her father is violent, and her mother's issues with eating and germs manifest in Wavy's behaviour, which, in turn, earns frustration from her teachers and fellow pupils.
Then a motorcycle accident brings Kellen into her life. Kellen is a big guy with his own history of abuse at the hands of his father. Called a "fat slob" and generally thought of as a waste of space his whole life, there is an instant connection between these two outsiders.
Then a motorcycle accident brings Kellen into her life. Kellen is a big guy with his own history of abuse at the hands of his father. Called a "fat slob" and generally thought of as a waste of space his whole life, there is an instant connection between these two outsiders.
His motivations in his relationship with Wavy are loneliness and compassion, and he is not driven by sexual agenda. In fact, Wavy seems somehow removed from the regular notion of sexuality, existing on a plane where she is not an adult or child, male or female, but simply Wavy. Just herself.
My Thoughts
This book destroyed me. I have never read anything like it. If you know the basic premise - that this is a so-called "love story" between an adult man and a female child - you might be thinking Lolita! But no, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things is a completely different beast.
Ugly and wonderful really are great descriptors for this story. The best thing about it is the completely unsentimental storytelling that, with its constant switching between perspectives, as well as alternating first and third person, beautifully presents a dark tale of childhood, family and abuse.
It's so... not manipulative. The author narrates a series of events, using gorgeous writing, but it's a fantastic example of how showing works so much better than telling. We are never told how to feel. We are allowed to be disgusted, sad and angry on our own terms, and we are allowed to draw our own conclusions about the relationship this book portrays.
Ugly and wonderful really are great descriptors for this story. The best thing about it is the completely unsentimental storytelling that, with its constant switching between perspectives, as well as alternating first and third person, beautifully presents a dark tale of childhood, family and abuse.
It's so... not manipulative. The author narrates a series of events, using gorgeous writing, but it's a fantastic example of how showing works so much better than telling. We are never told how to feel. We are allowed to be disgusted, sad and angry on our own terms, and we are allowed to draw our own conclusions about the relationship this book portrays.
anytime soon.
I'm sure it will provoke many conflicting reactions, but there remains one overwhelming certainty: it's hard to not react passionately to it. Whether you view Wavy and Kellen as two unfortunate victims of their personal circumstances, or as a child being abused by an adult who should know better, their story is a compelling one.
Sad and disturbing. I don't think I'll ever get these characters off my mind.
Sad and disturbing. I don't think I'll ever get these characters off my mind.
“A lie. I'd almost forgotten how they feel on my tongue, slick and sickening.”
Isa Wilde is a married mother of baby Freya, when she receives a text: “I Need You.” She knows exactly what it means. She hasn’t heard from Kate in over 15 years, yet she has been terrified this moment would come. She needs to go to Kate, but she can’t tell her husband Owen the truth. She must lie to him. And so it begins. Again. Thea and Fatima, old friends from school, also received the same text from Kate and all three go to her.
Kate, Thea, Fatima and Isa become fast friends at Salten House. Every spare second outside of school was spent at Kate’s house in Salten, with Kate’s father Ambrose and her stepbrother Luc. They excluded everyone else from their clique. Kate, Thea, Fatima and Isa had a game that they liked to play. They called it “The Lying Game” - which they only played against older girls, powerful girls and teachers, of course. They were despised, thought to be liars.
The rules of the game?:
Rule 1: Tell a lie.
Rule 2: Stick to your story
Rule 3. Don't get caught.
Rule 4. Never lie to each other.
Rule 5. Know when to stop lying.
After a while, somehow, things end up going awry. Ambrose, Kate’s father goes missing. And then the girls get separated, life goes on. Yet they never forgot each other and always knew that their past, their secrets and their lies bound them together.
My Thoughts
My favorite genre is mystery and thrillers, I read a lot in that genre but this book really stood out for my. I love Ruth Ware's Agatha Christieesque style of writing.
This is one of those thrillers that is more like a flower unfolding than a tense who did it. In fact, I was pretty sure who did do it early on, but for me, that wasn't the point. It's the character studies above all that form the focus of the novel. Amongst them, Salten itself, that bleak place on the periphery where all things are possible. Interwoven here are the sun bright, happy memories of the past and the sinking dark of the present day. And so the stage is set for the big questions, not just what really happened to Ambrose all those years ago, but who knows about it, and more importantly, how much you really owe to your school friends, especially if you no longer trust them.
J.D. Vance grew up in the town of Middletown, Ohio. However, his grandparents were originally from Jackson, Kentucky, a coal mining town in the Appalachian area of the state, and had migrated to Middletown in 1947 so that his grandfather could take a job in the Armco steel mill. Their move was part of a large wave of migration from the same region to the same area and for the same reason. He says that he lived in Middletown, but his heart was always in Jackson, an area that he often visited with his grandparents when he was a youngster, and that he considered himself to be a hillbilly.
At first the migrants fared much better than they had in the areas they had left. They worked hard, of course, but their jobs required no education and little technical skill and their union insured that they were paid well and that their fringe benefits were substantial.
But then came globalization, automation, conglomeration, de-unionization, and things went south for the whole Midwest, literally in some cases, and a region that once led the world in industrial production became known as the Rust Belt.
My Thoughts
It hit me pretty hard at times. I mean, I wouldn't consider myself a hillbilly, but i did grow up in South-Central Kentucky, and I'm honestly not too far removed from some of the family members depicted in the book. Im very fortunate, but, some of the people and scenes depicted here feel like stories I've heard from my own family. And it's crazy because it wasn't until I grew up and moved out that I got to hear about all the craziness in my extended family.
Vance's stories of his upbringing are jaw-dropping and feel more like fiction at times. We quickly learn his childhood was anything but ideal as he walks us though various phases that shaped who he is today. While these stories were both terrifying and heartbreaking to read, it was his later message of not being a product of your environment that resonated with me. He admits he was fortunate to have people in his life to give him a chance, but he did everything he could to push against the life he found himself in.
I also appreciated the humble tone throughout the book. It could have easily read as a guy who had a rough life, but he overcame it and graduated from college, went to Iraq, and graduated from law school at Yale (not in that order). He could have said, "Look at me! I did it! And you can, too!" Instead, it's more like, "I had people in my life who gave me a chance. I carved a different path, but I felt like a fraud most of the time, and I still had a hard time dealing with my past. It wasn't easy. I also want to talk about how to fix the problem that impacts thousands of others, but I don't have the answers. The government can't fix everything." (That's a lot of paraphrasing by the way.)
Hillbilly Elegy is a very eye-opening, important, emotional book to read- but I'm so glad I took the time to read it. It helped me understand some things in my own family culture, and it gave me a new perspective to help relate to others I know with similar stories.
“Secrets, secrets, secrets. People are filled to the brim with them if you look closely.”
It’s nearly impossible to write a summary of the events of this book without giving too much away, so I am just going to keep it as this: A man, his wife, and his secretary get caught up in a tangled web.
It feels like this author just said, “Know what? I’m doin’ it”, and then went for it.
Seriously. She WENT for it.
It’s been a while since I’ve been legitimately shocked as a reader, and I don’t care how much this ending can be reduced down to utter nonsense, I’m embracing the hell out of it and you can’t stop me.
Because the fact is, when I swiped those last few virtual pages, my tired eyes narrowed, my offended guts twisted, my face took on a just-sucked-lemon contortion, and my lips curled into a tight little opening that spewed a whispered What just happened? declaration. And there is was.
Sarah Pinborough’s writing is strong, and she paints a picture well without having to tell us the colors she’s using. There were no holes in this plot, no loose ends left untied. Everything made sense, even when it somehow didn’t. The perspectives shifted between characters, and the narratives sometimes switched from first and third person at random. It’s as though this story unveils itself from every angle possible, and yet still it goes and throws me off my feet.
I know some readers couldn't get past some of the farfetched scenarios in this one, and I get it. I really do. I'm not one who readily ingests an over-the-top idea if there's not enough conviction behind it. In fact, I typically hate when I'm forced to suspend too much belief for an idea to "work". But this story was clever enough to become an exception.
I can’t tell you details of the plot because I am your friend and I won’t ruin it for you. But I can tell you this: Soften your critical eye (if possible) when going into this one, so you can just enjoy the journey. Because it really is a rollercoaster ride.
Seriously. She WENT for it.
It’s been a while since I’ve been legitimately shocked as a reader, and I don’t care how much this ending can be reduced down to utter nonsense, I’m embracing the hell out of it and you can’t stop me.
Because the fact is, when I swiped those last few virtual pages, my tired eyes narrowed, my offended guts twisted, my face took on a just-sucked-lemon contortion, and my lips curled into a tight little opening that spewed a whispered What just happened? declaration. And there is was.
Sarah Pinborough’s writing is strong, and she paints a picture well without having to tell us the colors she’s using. There were no holes in this plot, no loose ends left untied. Everything made sense, even when it somehow didn’t. The perspectives shifted between characters, and the narratives sometimes switched from first and third person at random. It’s as though this story unveils itself from every angle possible, and yet still it goes and throws me off my feet.
I know some readers couldn't get past some of the farfetched scenarios in this one, and I get it. I really do. I'm not one who readily ingests an over-the-top idea if there's not enough conviction behind it. In fact, I typically hate when I'm forced to suspend too much belief for an idea to "work". But this story was clever enough to become an exception.
I can’t tell you details of the plot because I am your friend and I won’t ruin it for you. But I can tell you this: Soften your critical eye (if possible) when going into this one, so you can just enjoy the journey. Because it really is a rollercoaster ride.
That concludes my list of favorite books of 2017.
Let me know if you agree with my thoughts on these and send me some recommendations on your favorite books of the year.
Let me know if you agree with my thoughts on these and send me some recommendations on your favorite books of the year.
Don't forget to add me on GoodReads! I love to see what everyone else is reading.
*This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are my own as well as all photos and products.
©2013 Makeup by Summer
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