Skip to main content

Angie's Best Books of 2016

Let's just lay our cards on the table, shall we, and agree that, on the whole, 2016 was an abysmal year.
And I'd just like to personally invite it not to let the door hit it on the way out.
This is me being as charitable as I can possibly be at this point. 

That said, I want to send a glorious shout out to the wonderful books that have come out this past year, and to all the authors (and readers) who have not given in to the anxiety, depression, anger, and fear that I know so many of us have felt throughout the past twelve months (or more). It is the last day of the year, and I have poured all of my gratitude (and hope for a better one to come) into my annual list of my favorite reads of the year. Just 17 this year. Fewer than the past few years, which indicates a healthy dose of necessary rereading in this year that has been what it was, as well as the fact that I just didn't get to as many new releases.

Photo by @aamith

(in the order in which I read them)

The Hating Game by Sally Hunter

FYI, that's 6 contemporaries, 5 historicals, 5 fantasies, and 1 scifi.
Essentially, the primary genres seem to have evened out a bit this year. 

Best New Discovery of 2016

It was uncontrollable love at first sight with V.E. Schwab's Darker Shades series. I mean to say, I haven't read fantasy of this caliber in some time. Every beautiful layer of her writing is to my taste. It makes me smile, it makes me wince, it makes me head over heels, achingly in love with each of the characters. In short, I won't be fit for polite company until the third and final book in the trilogy comes out in February.

Biggest Character Crush of 2016
Kell Maresh
fall-for-the-game.tumblr.com
I fell in love with Kell on page one, with his magical red coat, his quiet intensity, his fierce love for his brother, and his desperate quest. He is a hero. And I continue to reassure myself that everything will be okay. 

Book I Reread the Most in 2016
The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

Because it was the one I had the hardest time letting go of. And so I elected simply not to by rereading it as needed. Because its lines were the ones that ran through my head the most this year. I haven't cried over a book like that in some time. I may have even attempted to work through my emotions by creating a Portable Quotable Raven Boys for Beth. We do what we have to do to survive, right?
"Is it safe?" Gansey asked. "Safe as life," Adam replied.

Best Books I read in 2016 that were Published in a Different Year


Artistic License by Elle Pierson

Happy New Year!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

You Might Also Like

Bibliocrack Review | Don't You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane

There's really very little to say, isn't there? I hope you are well, wherever you are. I hope that your loved ones are. I hope that you're finding small ways to stay afloat, to remain connected to something, someone, someplace (real or fictional) that sustains you. Dark and difficult times, indeed. I've rather been holding on to this review. I felt so much, so quickly, so irrevocably for this book that it rapidly became hard to talk about to anyone who hadn't read it. And so I hope I can do it justice, just barely enough justice that, if you haven't, you'll run right out and do so. Now is the perfect time. I feel strongly that this book is what you need in your life at this moment. And so. You might want to prepare yourselves. I'm about to wax rhapsodic. But first, and introductory excerpt: At the end of that session, Fay said, What if it's not what happened with this boy you regret, it's you? It's the  you  who you left behind. It's ...
6 comments
Read more

Angie's 2026 Must Be Mine

As ever, begin as you mean to go on. And so here are my most anticipated titles of 2026: And no covers on these yet, but I'm just as excited for each one: The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 9 by Beth Brower Finest Kind of Fate by J.J. Mulder My Kind of Guy by Sarina Bowen Ravenous by Kresley Cole Mastermind by Sarah MacLean Game of Rogues by Julie Anne Long Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison Villain Edit by Rosie Danan What titles are on your list?
2 comments
Read more

Review | Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

It really is a pretty cover. And dragons. I love them so.  It's been far too long since I've read a book in which dragons played any kind of primary character role. They do here, and they are probably my favorite aspect of this book. But more on that later. It's probably worth noting that I, like the rest of the world, was aware of Fourth Wing and the collective losing of BookTok's mind over it. I mean, it was kind of thrilling to hear that you couldn't find a copy anywhere—in the sense that I love it when books are being consumed and loved. And when that happens in such a way that it takes publishing by surprise (for lack of a better way to phrase it) so much so that they have to scramble to print more. So I did the sensible thing and bought the ebook. And then I proceeded to do the not-so-sensible-but-extremely-Angie thing and not read it. There was a cross-country move tucked in there somewhere between the buying and the reading, but more on that at a later date...
8 comments
Read more