I have been thinking about how I wanted to do this. Every year I have a surge of posts in December. The final wrap up, thoughts, goals for next year, and of course this. The best and worst reads for me for the year. I think I will do the same thing I did last year. My five worst and my ten best. I have to take a little and think about what books are going on the list. There are a few obvious ones.
I will start with my five worst books of the year, get those out of the way and then move on to the ten best that I have. They are, of course, in no particular order, just how I happened to come across them.
1. Hummingbirds by Daniel Lipari - This book was just a waste of time. I understand what they were trying to do when they made the little book series, but seriously it did not do a good job of it. There are so many types of hummingbird in the world (mostly the southern hemisphere) that even a fully trade sized 150-odd page book would not have been enough space to fill it. I just found the book to be a perfect waste of time and space.
2. My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara - Another weird childrens' book that was not at all what I thought it was going to be. I had checked it out in the school library a few times and must not have been remembering the right story when I asked for it for....Easter 2018? Christmas 2017? I don't remember off hand. Any way this lovely story I was expecting about a horse and his boy turned out to be garbage about a spoiled kid who didn't do anything his was told to do by his parents and they still gave him what he wanted. His dad thought it would teach him responsibility, but it really just taught him that even if he misbehaved he could still be rewarded. Bad bad bad.
3. Slaughter by James Beltz - It wasn't even that it was bad, it was just boring. The fight scenes read like he was watching a Liam Neeson film while writing and literally just wrote down what he was looking at. Over done to death. Not my cup of tea and likely not an author I am going to read again.
4. Shen of the Sea by Arthur Bowie Chrisman - I'm sorry, even if he just compiled them, I don't understand seeing an English name on a book of Chinese fairy stories (even for children). The stories were passable, but clearly made for less intelligent children. I didn't much care for them and will definitely NOT be rereading this one.
5. Butterflies by Diana Ajjan - I didn't like this one either. It was another of the small books like the hummingbird one. Though it did somehow manage to cover more than the hummingbird book, it still didn't cover enough. I am glad I got them for $0.25 each.
Now for the top ten (in no order) books I read in 2018~ This does not include any manga that I've read, I rate nearly all of them 5/5 stars so it's sort of unfair. Anyway, for the list:
1. Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman - Definitely top of the favorite list. I loved the way each story was it's own little world and concise in them. My favorite (obviously) was the Sherlock Holmes short but they were all good in their own right. I may either buy or borrow this to read it again.
2. Of Dice & Men by David M. Ewalt - I play Pathfinder with my friends, which is the slightly dumbed down version of Dungeons & Dragons (not nice, but accurate) and I found this on sale on Book Outlet and needed it. I love how he interspersed the history of the game from it's very concept and GreyHawk with himself playing the game at various conventions. Worth the re-read if I ever relocate my copy.
3. A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro - I love Sherlock Holmes, and no not just the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock by the BBC, I love the original stories as well. So when I heard about this being a series coming out about the descendants of Holmes (famously asexual) and Watson (possibly gay, he frequented what amounted to a 1890s gay bar), I just had to read it. I love how she made Jamie very intelligent and not just Holmes's sidekick. He actually was smart in his own way and helped her figure out clues. I will be continuing this series definitely!! I hear a new volume is coming out in 2019 and I will get my hands on it.
4. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli - How could I not love this? How could anybody not love this? It's a very good book about being proud of who you are and the way you were made and not letting anybody else dictate how you should live your life. I did figure out really easily who Blue was, but I also (see above) am a fan of Sherlock Holmes, so I read a lot about solving mysteries. I will leave it unknown for those of you who want to read the book and haven't watched the film yet.
5. Still Alice by Lisa Genova - This book is about a woman who is diagnosed with EOA or Early-Onset Alzheimer's, a form of dementia that strikes people around age fifty. She doesn't want to believe she has it at first until she starts to lose some of her memories and language skills. One of the biggest symptoms of EOA is the sudden loss of words. She eventually comes to terms with this and learns (sort of) that she will be in good hands with her care givers. I work in a secure dementia ward and it was interesting to see the parallels of someone actually with dementia as well as it could be related as there is no way we would ever truly know what is happening in the mind of someone with the disease.
6. Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini - This follows a young girl who accidentally finds herself in an alternate universe version of Salem after wishing hard to just get away. She finds out that instead of science, magic prospered and that the world view didn't shift very much out of the olde English version of Salem. She ends up going up against that universe's version of herself and trying to stop her from doing some pretty bad things. It was very well written and I was nearly on the edge of my seat wondering if Lily would be mistaken for Lilith every time someone new came around. I could have done without the romance part of it, but I understand why it was there. It's just weird for an asexual to read about romance. This one goes on the list of potential rereads.
7. From Holmes to Sherlock by Mattias Boström - One of the two nonfiction that ended up here, this book is sort of a biography of Arthur Conan Doyle and sort of a biography of Sherlock Holmes. It talks about the life of the author and how he came up with the idea of Holmes, his vexations with the detective and how Sherlock Holmes has lived on decades after the death of the original author. I love Sherlock Holmes. I have multiple copies of the books, some in languages I cannot read, comics, magazines about him, figurines, even some plaques and pillows that people wouldn't guess were fandom related (they are bees because he started an apiary after he retired. It took me a bit to read it because it was so big, but I loved every minute of it. Boström is a great author. I liked the stories.
8. The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland - A linguist gets roped into making a time machine and breaking a lot of obscure laws in the process, nearly tearing apart time and space as we know it in the process. It was a fun and wild ride that some how had naked Vikings ransacking a Walmart. Oh if only I could have seen that. This is definitely a book I would love to see turned into a movie. Though I bet they would cut out the Vikings part. Oh well. People really should read this one and just try to imagine what it would be like if we actually had that technology at our finger tips. I think if I could go back to a different strand and do anything....I would prevent the burning of the Library at Alexandria.
9. Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett - Girl in online relationship with boy. Girl moves in with father in same city as boy. Girl meets boy and has no idea?! This one was definitely different. I don't really read YA contemporaries, and I have no clue why I picked it up and thought I would like it, but I did. I get why she didn't associate Porter with Alex. They have two entirely different personalities, and I'm pretty sure I know which one is the fake one. I loved the story and the way it was told. I think Porter figured out that she was the girl from the chat room right away, her personality in both is the same. That said, it was worth the read to figure out this sort of thing.
10. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz - Susan Ryeland is an editor for Cloverleaf books responsible for editing the books by famed mystery writer Alan Conway. They get his book in the post and she reads it. How was she supposed to know what would happen after she did. We read a brief introduction by her and then we actually get to read Conway's book. I figured out who the killer was both times, but not why it was done. They gave us the how right off. I mean, they investigate the crime(s). I enjoyed this one very much and plan to read more by Horowitz when the new year starts.
That is my top best and worst books of 2018. I am fairly surprised that this year yielded 0 1-star books. I'm hoping for a great run next year, maybe even nothing but 3+ star ratings! Until then, see you next time!!
I will start with my five worst books of the year, get those out of the way and then move on to the ten best that I have. They are, of course, in no particular order, just how I happened to come across them.
1. Hummingbirds by Daniel Lipari - This book was just a waste of time. I understand what they were trying to do when they made the little book series, but seriously it did not do a good job of it. There are so many types of hummingbird in the world (mostly the southern hemisphere) that even a fully trade sized 150-odd page book would not have been enough space to fill it. I just found the book to be a perfect waste of time and space.
2. My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara - Another weird childrens' book that was not at all what I thought it was going to be. I had checked it out in the school library a few times and must not have been remembering the right story when I asked for it for....Easter 2018? Christmas 2017? I don't remember off hand. Any way this lovely story I was expecting about a horse and his boy turned out to be garbage about a spoiled kid who didn't do anything his was told to do by his parents and they still gave him what he wanted. His dad thought it would teach him responsibility, but it really just taught him that even if he misbehaved he could still be rewarded. Bad bad bad.
3. Slaughter by James Beltz - It wasn't even that it was bad, it was just boring. The fight scenes read like he was watching a Liam Neeson film while writing and literally just wrote down what he was looking at. Over done to death. Not my cup of tea and likely not an author I am going to read again.
4. Shen of the Sea by Arthur Bowie Chrisman - I'm sorry, even if he just compiled them, I don't understand seeing an English name on a book of Chinese fairy stories (even for children). The stories were passable, but clearly made for less intelligent children. I didn't much care for them and will definitely NOT be rereading this one.
5. Butterflies by Diana Ajjan - I didn't like this one either. It was another of the small books like the hummingbird one. Though it did somehow manage to cover more than the hummingbird book, it still didn't cover enough. I am glad I got them for $0.25 each.
Now for the top ten (in no order) books I read in 2018~ This does not include any manga that I've read, I rate nearly all of them 5/5 stars so it's sort of unfair. Anyway, for the list:
1. Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman - Definitely top of the favorite list. I loved the way each story was it's own little world and concise in them. My favorite (obviously) was the Sherlock Holmes short but they were all good in their own right. I may either buy or borrow this to read it again.
2. Of Dice & Men by David M. Ewalt - I play Pathfinder with my friends, which is the slightly dumbed down version of Dungeons & Dragons (not nice, but accurate) and I found this on sale on Book Outlet and needed it. I love how he interspersed the history of the game from it's very concept and GreyHawk with himself playing the game at various conventions. Worth the re-read if I ever relocate my copy.
3. A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro - I love Sherlock Holmes, and no not just the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock by the BBC, I love the original stories as well. So when I heard about this being a series coming out about the descendants of Holmes (famously asexual) and Watson (possibly gay, he frequented what amounted to a 1890s gay bar), I just had to read it. I love how she made Jamie very intelligent and not just Holmes's sidekick. He actually was smart in his own way and helped her figure out clues. I will be continuing this series definitely!! I hear a new volume is coming out in 2019 and I will get my hands on it.
4. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli - How could I not love this? How could anybody not love this? It's a very good book about being proud of who you are and the way you were made and not letting anybody else dictate how you should live your life. I did figure out really easily who Blue was, but I also (see above) am a fan of Sherlock Holmes, so I read a lot about solving mysteries. I will leave it unknown for those of you who want to read the book and haven't watched the film yet.
5. Still Alice by Lisa Genova - This book is about a woman who is diagnosed with EOA or Early-Onset Alzheimer's, a form of dementia that strikes people around age fifty. She doesn't want to believe she has it at first until she starts to lose some of her memories and language skills. One of the biggest symptoms of EOA is the sudden loss of words. She eventually comes to terms with this and learns (sort of) that she will be in good hands with her care givers. I work in a secure dementia ward and it was interesting to see the parallels of someone actually with dementia as well as it could be related as there is no way we would ever truly know what is happening in the mind of someone with the disease.
6. Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini - This follows a young girl who accidentally finds herself in an alternate universe version of Salem after wishing hard to just get away. She finds out that instead of science, magic prospered and that the world view didn't shift very much out of the olde English version of Salem. She ends up going up against that universe's version of herself and trying to stop her from doing some pretty bad things. It was very well written and I was nearly on the edge of my seat wondering if Lily would be mistaken for Lilith every time someone new came around. I could have done without the romance part of it, but I understand why it was there. It's just weird for an asexual to read about romance. This one goes on the list of potential rereads.
7. From Holmes to Sherlock by Mattias Boström - One of the two nonfiction that ended up here, this book is sort of a biography of Arthur Conan Doyle and sort of a biography of Sherlock Holmes. It talks about the life of the author and how he came up with the idea of Holmes, his vexations with the detective and how Sherlock Holmes has lived on decades after the death of the original author. I love Sherlock Holmes. I have multiple copies of the books, some in languages I cannot read, comics, magazines about him, figurines, even some plaques and pillows that people wouldn't guess were fandom related (they are bees because he started an apiary after he retired. It took me a bit to read it because it was so big, but I loved every minute of it. Boström is a great author. I liked the stories.
8. The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland - A linguist gets roped into making a time machine and breaking a lot of obscure laws in the process, nearly tearing apart time and space as we know it in the process. It was a fun and wild ride that some how had naked Vikings ransacking a Walmart. Oh if only I could have seen that. This is definitely a book I would love to see turned into a movie. Though I bet they would cut out the Vikings part. Oh well. People really should read this one and just try to imagine what it would be like if we actually had that technology at our finger tips. I think if I could go back to a different strand and do anything....I would prevent the burning of the Library at Alexandria.
9. Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett - Girl in online relationship with boy. Girl moves in with father in same city as boy. Girl meets boy and has no idea?! This one was definitely different. I don't really read YA contemporaries, and I have no clue why I picked it up and thought I would like it, but I did. I get why she didn't associate Porter with Alex. They have two entirely different personalities, and I'm pretty sure I know which one is the fake one. I loved the story and the way it was told. I think Porter figured out that she was the girl from the chat room right away, her personality in both is the same. That said, it was worth the read to figure out this sort of thing.
10. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz - Susan Ryeland is an editor for Cloverleaf books responsible for editing the books by famed mystery writer Alan Conway. They get his book in the post and she reads it. How was she supposed to know what would happen after she did. We read a brief introduction by her and then we actually get to read Conway's book. I figured out who the killer was both times, but not why it was done. They gave us the how right off. I mean, they investigate the crime(s). I enjoyed this one very much and plan to read more by Horowitz when the new year starts.
That is my top best and worst books of 2018. I am fairly surprised that this year yielded 0 1-star books. I'm hoping for a great run next year, maybe even nothing but 3+ star ratings! Until then, see you next time!!
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