My favourite book of 2020?

This was a shitshow of a year, let’s be honest. But I read some absolutely amazing books! In total I had 21 five star reads (out of a total of 78 books) which isn’t too shabby! I spent some time trying to pick my favourite of the year but I really just couldn’t. These four all stood out above the rest but I couldn’t pick between them all. So instead, you get all of them, along with why I loved them and a link to my full review of them if you wanna delve more into my thoughts. Also, these are in no particular order. Well they are, but it’s just date order from which one I read first in the year to last. But I honestly cannot pick between them. So let’s get into the list!

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon book cover

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

This book took me so long to get through, and given that it comes in at over 800 pages I don’t think anyone blames me. But oh. My. God. Did I LOVE this book!!! I have a blog review of it here, but I also ended up making a standalone video for this book (which you can watch here). That’s how much I loved it!

We follow multiple pov from different countries across this world as they discover more about dragons and about the other nations in their world. My favourite pov has to be Ead who is located in a royal court as a spy for a religious group as also as a protectorate of the Queen, but I loved reading from everyone’s perspective.

With dragons, Sapphic love, fighting and feminism (and Shannon’s gorgeous writing), well what more could you be looking for?!

The Deep by Rivers Solomon book cover

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

This book is one I kept seeing recommended through the end of 2019/beginning of 2020 and it sounded so utterly fascinating that eventually I just had to pick it up .

We follow Yetu, who holds all of the long term memories for her race of mermaids who live in Atlantic Ocean, descendants of enslaved Africans who had been tossed overboard on their passage to the United States. These traumatic memories would be too much for the populace to bare, so instead they allocate a historian to remember. This is Yetu. But these memories are traumatic for her too, and in trying to escape the pain they cause her, she flees to the surface.

This is an incredible book that I flew through and never wanted to put down. Check out my full review here.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Café by Toshikazu Kawaguchi book cover

Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi and translated by Geoffrey Trousselot

The second book in the renowned series, we all knew I would be picking this one up in 2020 after having loved the first book in 2019 (my review of book 1). And unsurprisingly I adored this book.

The main setting of this book is a coffee shop where there’s rumours you can travel back in time. But you have to drink the coffee before it gets cold, or you’ll never come back. Following on from the first book, we follow some new characters, but also some familiar faces from the coffee shop as we learn more about the café and it’s history. (full review)

Trousselot does a beautiful job as this book is absolutely gorgeous in its prose and I’m so excited for them to translate book 3!

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff book cover

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

The wonderful Kari from Kari-ng for Books sent me this as a gift and I am so so grateful, she’s gifted me the entire series and I’m so excited to get to the rest of the trilogy!

Following Mia as she enters the Red Church, an unusual school for an unusual student. Already skilled in various disciplines from her time with a tutor, she is now up against the best. Only some of them will survive, and she’s determined one of them will be her. She must avenge her family.

This is an incredibly dark book filled with so much intrigue and magic that you’re gripped the whole way through. Every page is saturated with knowledge and I adored the footnotes from our narrator! Full review here.

And these were my four favourites of 2020, I really couldn’t pick between them in the slightest but I adored them all. One thing I did notice was that they are all fantasy books, I’m really delving back into my fantasy roots at the moment after having a few years of reading more widely round the genres and to be honest? I’m loving it! I’m hoping there are some absolutely amazing 5* fantasy reads waiting for me in 2021!

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff – a review

The wonderful Kari from Kari-ng for Books gifted me a copy of Nevernight and it sat on my shelves a while. But after putting it on my (failed) A-Z tbr for August, I felt motivated to pick it up. And damn am I glad I did!! This book packs a damn punch and I’m so excited to get to the rest of the books in the series!!

There are two things I want to say from the start. One is: this is an adult book, and it has swearing in it. This review will do too. Two is: Jay Kristoff has done some problematic things, it’s something that I’m aware of but that I need to research more as I currently don’t know enough about it. But I felt you should know.

Now. Onto the book.

FUCK this book is amazing!!! What I find most interesting about my experience reading this book is that it was a really slow one, a maximum of around 50 pages a day and that was taking me at least an hour to read (I usually read 100 pages an hour). Often when a book is that slow it really de-motivates me. But in this case? Shit I was so into this story! I couldn’t get enough! I wasn’t even mad that it was slow going because I was just enjoying the story so much!!

I adore every aspect of this book, the worldbuilding, the characters, the twists and the turns. The way that punches aren’t pulled and the magic of the world is revealed, the way that Kristoff makes you care so deeply for so many of these characters despite them being hugely flawed individuals? Fucking hell it’s amazing. Mia Corvere and Mr Kindly are some of my favourite characters now, and I can’t wait to read more from them!

This is a school/training environment within this book, and I found myself really enjoying that. It’s not something I’ve read in a while so I’m really glad that I know I can still enjoy it! There is a large influx of characters who aren’t really introduced in any depth, but there are also a lot of deaths so it doesn’t feel like it matters too much. You get to know them as much as Mia did before they disappeared out of her life.

The narrator is another beautiful aspect to this book. It’s done so well that in some parts you forget that they’re there at all and in others they’re key to your understanding. I also adored all of the footnotes present. I know some people skimmed over them in order to stay within the story but for me they added so much background and depth! It is quite a deep world, and I feel like the choice to read those footnotes or not could help those who don’t like high fantasy with intense worldbuilding as much to still enjoy the book. They’re extra bits you can read if you like, and can skip if you don’t care about the background of the world.

There are some sexy scenes in this book, and I expected to just be… fine? with them. But I really liked them! I liked that they walked the line very carefully and that it isn’t the main focus of the book but more of an extra look into the background of the characters lives. They also intertwine into the story in a realistic way, which I really liked. They weren’t completely separate from the plot but they also weren’t integral to it.

Towards the end of the book there is a little bit of interesting formatting. Nothing on the level of Illuminae (which Kristoff was a co-author of) but just a wee sprinkling, and it fit so perfectly with the plot. It was a beautiful artistic choice and I loved it!

If you like high fantasy books and are up for a bit of fucking, a bit of murder, and a damn good time, then this is 100% a book to pick up. I need to get my hands on the rest of the trilogy and I can’t wait to read them and fall in love!!! This is a world that has definitely went on my favourites and that I need to re-read in the future!!

My best books of 2019!

 

I read a lot less 5* reads in 2019 compared to 2018, but I still had a decent selection to pick from for this list and I love all of these books!

I’m going to start off with my absolute favourite of the year, which seems backwards, but I can’t rank all of my other favourites so I may as well get the #1 spot up first!

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot, is an absolutely gorgeous book.

There’s a small coffee shop in a basement which has a secret, people know about it but they can’t believe that it’s true. The staff in the shop will only tell the customers who they believe need the experience. And it’s not as positive as many believe before they sit down. But their lives are forever changed, big impacts are made. This book is beautifully written and I only picked it up randomly for NetGalley, I’m so so glad that I did. I recommend this above everything else on this list, which is a big statement seeing as these are all 5* reads for me. However, I feel like this book will appeal to many different audiences and so I really do encourage you to at least look at the GoodReads page and read the synopsis (link here) and consider picking it up. If you’re interested, then you can find my full review here.

Now onto the rest of my favourite books! There are 10 books for the rest of this list and they are in the order which I read them throughout 2019 (to avoid putting them in any other sort of order, because I really can’t decide).

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon (The Bone Season #2) 

I read this on the train going back down to Portsmouth for my heart operation after my Christmas break, it’s around 8 hours of travelling so I had a lot of time to sit with the book and I really enjoyed it. Although the ending annoyed me so much and I had to stay composed because I was on a train!! Another amazing book from Samantha Shannon. Read my full review of the book here.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale #1)

I’m massively late to this party, of course, but I finally picked up this book in a secondhand shop and read it early on in 2019. It was amazing. I loved the commentary on female autonomy and sadly it did really hit a chord with me, despite being written “so many” years ago. If you’re interested my full review is here.

Orphan Monster Spy by Matt Killeen (Orphan Monster Spy #1)

I got this the day before I started by BookTube channel, and it took me until now to read it. There’s a bit of a theme here but if I’m getting through my backlog I won’t complain! This YA WWII based book follows a young Jewish girl who can pass as an Aryan and becomes a spy in a Nazi girls school. Check out my full review here.

Book of Lies by Teri Terry

I really love everything I’ve read so far from Teri Terry, she is truly one of my favourite authors. This book follows a girl who isn’t loved by her family, they don’t care about her at all. But then she finds out a bit secret, something that she wasn’t supposed to know. Magical and mystical, this is such an interesting book. My review is here.

The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman (The Devouring Gray #1)

This is the first book that I ever requested from a publisher and it’s the first one that was sent to me! So of course this book will always have a special place for me, but on top of that it’s a fantastic YA book with sprinkles of magic and just enough weirdness to keep you completely hooked. I can’t wait to read book #2! Check out my full review here.

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman (Arc of the Scythe #2)

Have you read this series yet? Why not? If you like dystopian or just a great YA directed book then this is 100% a series you should pick up! There is no more natural death in the world, it’s been cured. So scythes must kull the population in order to prevent it getting out of control. But of course there are a lot of issues with this plan, it was never going to work. Check out my full review of Scythe here(which is book #1) and my review for Thunderhead here.

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (Illuminae Files #1)

Another book I’ve finally read! This multi-media sci-fi YA is gripping and so interesting and I finally understand why people raved about it so much for years! I definitely need to get my hands on the rest of the trilogy and I can’t wait to carry on with this story and see where it goes. See my full review here.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

I actually DNF’d this at my first attempted reading this year, but at a push from so many people online I picked it up to give it another go. I’m so rediculously glad that I did as this book is magical and wonderous and such a great read! If you’ve seen the film you’ll still love the book as there were only a few changes and I’m very glad I listened to everyone who told me to pick this back up! My full review is here.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

I read this all in one day, sat by a paddling pool my aunt had set up on the hottest day of the year in the UK at 40 Celsius, that’s 104 Fahrenheit for those of you in the US. I was dying! Yet despite that, I was glued to my seat, gripped within this story. A fictional tale inspired by the suffering of so many from slavery in the US. My full review of this novel can be found here.

The Aliens are Coming by Ben Miller

This was the first book I read after finishing my MSc dissertation. I’m so glad I picked up a science-y non-fiction as this was perfect for me in the mindset that I was in and it was also really fun (Ben Miller is a UK comedian if you didn’t know) as well as teaching me more about the search for other life forms. Check out my review here.

And that’s it! Those are all of my favourite books of 2019! I did read a few more books which I gave 5*s throughout the year (Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein and Night by Elie Wiesel). I would have ranked them lower than these books, however, and given that there are already 11 books on this list I decided to cut them out. What was your favourite (or your favourites) of 2019? Have you read any of the books that are on my list? Let me know!!

 

I’ve finally read it!

It took me long enough to buy it (eventually I got it with a Waterstones gift card my beautiful flatmate gave me for my 22nd) and then it took me a long while to actually read it. But I’ve read it! And I loved it! I can see why so many people enjoy it, I love the unique art style and layout of a novel and I also was incredibly invested in the characters.

The world is well developed, it’s set in our future and is based on three ships trying to escape from another and save the thousands of civilians on board as the other ship wants to destroy them. We follow two main characters, a teenage boy and girl who just before boarding these ships broke up with each other. And now they need to work together.

The character development is done beautifully, with so many events having a massive impact on their ever-shrinking world. I also loved the artwork within, which really fits with the theme, and the unique formatting is also done incredibly well, although there was one section that I read in the wrong order cause I didn’t realise!!

If you’re into sci-fi and like YA books I think this one is great! It’s definitely a YA work though, I wasn’t sure until I sent a pic of some pages to my bf (who really doesn’t like YA books) and he declined to borrow my copy based on that. But if you like YA, either all the time or sometimes, I definitely think you should give this beauty a shot!