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I'd ummed and aahed about doing Jamie's epic End of Year Survey again this year, and even started a post... but the truth is, I'm knackered and I just can't be bothered. The post-Christmas pre-New Year rush at work has been crazy - far busier than before Christmas! - and I've spent every day dusting and sweeping and cleaning the shop from top to bottom ready for the new owners to take over. Our last day was yesterday, we're doing the last round of mopping and vacuuming this morning (after treating ourselves to a Full English at the lovely coffee house over the road, which we've always said we'd try but never had time!), and then... that's it. Well, we're signing papers in town in a couple of days' time and the official completion date is 6th January, but as far as being at the shop goes... that's it. So, yeah, the point is, KNACKERED. A round-up of my favourite books of the year seemed easier than a huge survey, much as I love huge book-related surveys!
These, then, are my ten 'best of...' candidates for 2013. They're not in any particular order - reading order, mostly - except for Kevin which had to be at the top because it blew most other books ever out of the water...
We Need to Talk About Kevin
by Lionel Shriver
Ohhhh, this book. It was absorbing and gripping and felt so utterly real. My poor mother had to listen to me ranting all the way to work and back every day, about the US gun culture and school shootings and family dynamics and parental responsibility and emotional damage. My sympathies shifted backwards and forwards and I was questioning my own morals and responses and feelings every step of the way. A few people have voiced their issues with combining this sentiment with this book - but I unashamedly LOVED EVERY PAGE. Best book of the year - in fact, one of the best I've ever read full stop.
Warm Bodies
by Isaac Marion
This was one of those books where I knew by the end of the first PAGE that we were going to get along just fine. If you'd have said to me, "It's like Romeo and Juliet, only with zombies and a human girl, and it's really funny, and also there are brains", I'd probably have looked at you very strangely... BUT THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT IT IS. I loved the cheeky Shakespeare allusions, I loved R's deadpan narration, I loved the clever world-building... Laura found me a copy of Marion's prequel, The New Hunger, during our blogger meet-up in Leeds, so I'll be reading that in 2014!
The Moonstone
by Wilkie Collins
I've been meaning to read Wilkie Collins for SO LONG, and finally, 2013 was the year! I was a bit unsure about taking part in Ellie's readalong in case I was... y'know, crap at it... but the blogger peer pressure was too great to resist and I caved and signed up just before it started. And thank heavens I did, because it was a brilliant read, filled with memorable characters and madcap shenanigans and exotic mystery. I already have a copy of The Woman in White (courtesy of Laura), so maybe that will appear on my list of favourite books this time next year?
by Stephen King (my double review)
Wooooow. This was a very, very scary book, saved from being nightmare-inducing by the narrative presence of a very, very sweet psychically gifted small child called Danny, who I already knew survived thanks to the timely publication of the sequel, Doctor Sleep. It's actually not at all freaky to start with, but King builds the terror gradually so that it creeps up on you before you realise what's happening. I was seriously disappointed by Kubrick's film, despite the awesomeness that is Jack Nicholson, but the book was intriguing and memorable and utterly impossible to put down.
Vivien's Heavenly Ice Cream Shop
by Abby Clements (my review)
I wasn't that impressed by Meet Me Under the Mistletoe, Clements' debut novel, and I've heard mixed things about her latest too, but I LOVED this summery middle offering. Katie very kindly sent it to me after she read it on the beach for one of the summer readathons, and I started it almost immediately. It was the perfect antidote to the madness of working at the shop towards the end of the summer holidays! I read it with a smile on my face and a very definite craving for ice cream, and it's now firmly ensconced on my comfort reading shelf (with Katie's Penguin postcard tucked safely inside) for next time I need a happy-fix. :)
by Mike Mullin (my review)
I was actually very pleasantly surprised by this one. When it arrived it looked suspiciously... amateurish?... Simple cover, cheap paper, you know what I mean. But it turned out to be an absolutely superb enviro-dystopian top-end-YA novel about what it might be like if the Yellowstone supervolcano finally erupted. Every aspect of a brutal new world is touched on - politics, medicine, families, food, violence, farming, power - via the experiences of teenager Alex, alone at his house when the eruption occurs, who sets off cross-country to try to reach the rest of his family at his uncle's farm a couple of hours' drive away. The next book in the trilogy, Ashen Winter, is up near the top of my wishlist, so hopefully I'll read on with Alex's adventures in 2014!
by Rainbow Rowell (my review)
Yup, at the very start of last month I finally jumped on the Rainbow bandwagon - and I FRICKIN' LOVED IT. If Nora Ephron was still with us, she'd be casting the movie adaptation as we speak, I'm sure. Chris Hemsworth would play Lincoln, Jennifer Lawrence would be Beth... it'd be beautiful. I laughed out loud so many times (definitely a rarity with 'funny' novels), and did that ZOMGSOCUTE inner squeal at all the adorably romantic moments. Needless to say, Fangirl and Eleanor and Park are slap bang at the top of my must-read list for 2014...
The Hunger Games / Catching Fire
by Suzanne Collins
I was so horrified when I was writing this post and realised that I last read The Hunger Games in MARCH 2011. How the hell did I not read on before now?! Still recovering from the Overwhelming Feels, perhaps. Anyway, this year I reread The Hunger Games, FINALLY watched my long-neglected DVD, and hopped straight on to Catching Fire in the hope that I'd be able to see the movie at the cinema. Sadly life intervened and I missed it, but I've preordered it already! The first book was just as fantastic as I remembered - and possibly even better paced this time, because I wasn't breathlessly awaiting the next twist - and I absolutely LOVED Catching Fire. I thought it was packed with powerful moments, the new arena was absolute genius, and do I NEED to mention my Haymitch crush again? No, probably not... On to Mockingjay in early 2014, definitely!
by Allie Brosh
I've been a huge fan of the Hyperbole and a Half website for a while now, and even sent a bunch of people over to Brosh's posts on depression when I was struggling earlier this year because she explains things so perfectly. That's the amazing thing about her posts - she captures life and emotions and experiences with such precision, and yet also makes you laugh like a maniac every step of the way! My favourite is probably This Is Why I'll Never Be an Adult, which is so like me it's spooky. Throw all this together into a multi-coloured book of hilarity, and how could I NOT love it?
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
by Holly Black
I'm taking a bit of a gamble with this one, because I haven't actually finished it yet... but so far it's superb so I'm sticking it on here and hoping for the best! It's a really interesting take on vampire lore - whereby people who get bitten go 'Cold' and either succumb to their thirst and change, or go into quarantine for 88 days until the infection leaves their system - and the lustful tension between (thus-far human) Tana and (all vampire) Gavriel is electrifying. Happily Tana is definitely a Katniss, a survivor with tough instincts and a kind heart, and she makes a great guide to Coldtown, where vampires and wannabes mingle in a decadent mixture of blood, death and desire. I hope the end's as good as the rest!
That's my Top Ten (well, eleven, but sssssh) books of 2013, which seems a fitting last post of the year...
HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL!
HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL!
