A Year in Books

Last year, my New Year's resolution was to read 52 books, one for every week. Of course, I’m not consistent enough to read a book every week, so I ended up reading at least four in a week and then none for the next month. Still, I exceeded my goal, reading 63 books in total. 

Some of the books I read were horrible, but others I obsessed over for months, and recommended every chance I got. Here are my top 5 books of this year that I recommend you read (in no particular order):

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

Leigh Bardugo is an excellent author, and has written several bestselling books, including the Shadow and Bone trilogy, Six of Crows duology, and most recently, the Alex Stern series. All of her character development and world-building are fantastic, and although the books are fantasy novels, they also address real-life issues and have diverse casts. 

The second book in the Alex Stern series, Hell Bent, came out this January, and I read it within a week of its release. It was an intricate follow-up, and I highly recommend it. If you’re going to read this series, though, you should start with the first book: The Ninth House. 

Alex Stern is a high school dropout, alleged schizophrenic, and drug addict when she gets an offer to attend Yale on a full scholarship and participate in an extremely exclusive secret society known as Lethe. As it turns out, the ghosts she had been seeing her whole life weren’t mere hallucinations, and Lethe is the governing body of a collective of powerful and dangerous societies that work in dark magic. With dark magic, of course, there is the expected danger, murder, and disappearances, as well as conflicts as Alex tries to wrap her head around the privilege she is nearly surrounded by. 

Overall: The Ninth House (and its sequel Hell Bent) are masterful works of fantasy that also delve into issues of privilege, power, and wealth among the Ivy League elite.

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Burbaker Bradley

Is The War That Saved My Life a book for elementary schoolers? Maybe. But even though I first read it in fourth grade, I reread it this year and decided that anyone who didn't read it when they were 10 should do so now.

Ada is a 10-year-old girl living in London at the start of World War Two, and as long as she can remember, she has lived in the same one-room apartment with her Mam and little brother Jamie. Her Mam works, and Jamie goes to school, but Ada has a clubfoot (a birth defect where one of her feet is twisted nearly upside down), and according to Mam, this is enough of a reason to keep her out of sight. When the children at Jamie’s school are evacuated because of the bombing threat, Ada decides that she and Jamie will go with them. And so, for the first time in her life, Ada enters the real world. She and Jamie move to a rural town, living with a woman named Susan, and for the first time, Ada experiences real life.

The War That Saved My Life is set during WWII in England, and so of course delves into some of the historical aspects of the time, but through the eyes of a child already bewildered by how much exists. Bradley’s story deals with abuse and trauma, but also healing and family as Jamie, Ada, and Susan learn how to live with one another.

Overall: The War That Saved My Life is a simple historical fiction that proves healing is possible.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is the first book in a series of somewhat-related stories set in the same universe. So far, I’ve only read this and the second (A Closed and Common Orbit, which is set after the first book and follows several important side characters), but I highly recommend both for any fans of space operas.

The story opens to the arrival of Rosemary Harper onto the patched-up tunneling ship The Wayfarer that travels the galaxy punching holes in space for other ships to travel through. The crew is made up of a mixed assortment of aliens, including a reptilian pilot, an AI control system named Lovey, and two very loud, human engineers. Although the book has a loose plot following a dangerous and highly-paying job the crew undertakes, the story is more about the characters themselves and their interactions. Their relationships are highly developed, and much of the book is taken up by planetside stops and day-to-day mishaps. By the end of the story, the crew of The Wayfarer has become a family, and every character has had their respective arc and development.

In addition to phenomenal characters, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (being a futuristic sci-fi story) includes a lot of world-building. The universe is watched over by a body known as the Galactic Commons, and the story delves into issues of authority, inclusion, war, and AI treatment. Each character has their own distinct personality and story, and as such different areas of the book focus on different topics important to them.

Overall: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (and its sequel A Closed and Common Orbit) are comforting stories of distinct and diverse characters forming a family in space.

Piranesi by Susanna Clark

If you want a vaguely terrifying, haunting book that feels like a fever dream, Piranesi is what you’re looking for. I got this book from a “blind date with a book”-style sale and was a bit worried that it wouldn’t be as good as I hoped, but once I finished it, I didn’t stop thinking about it for weeks. 

I will warn you, this book can be very confusing, but it is less than 300 pages long and narrated in a poetry-like prose that is quick to read. In the end, though, the payoff is worth it. The story deals with complex issues of reality and speculation that infect the narrative even if they’re seldom explicitly mentioned.

The main character of the story isn’t sure of his own name but he is called Piranesi. He lives in the House, an infinite series of halls filled with statues, streams, water, and little else. Outside of the House, there is nothing. Inside the House, there is only him, a scientist called the Other, and the birds. “Piranesi” loves the House, and lives to explore it. He catalogs the infinite halls, tracks the Tides that flow through the rooms as an ocean contained within the House moves, and works with the Other to uncover a Great and Secret Knowledge. As he explores, though, his reality slowly starts to change, and Piranesi begins to speculate about the worlds beyond his own Halls. 

Overall: Piranesi is a haunting, mythical, and poetic narrative that you’ll never be able to forget.

Witch King by Martha Wells

Martha Wells, the author of the Murderbot series (which I also highly recommend), is excellent at writing relatable, inhuman characters. In the Murderbot books, this is a sarcastic, self-aware robot that doesn’t want to be forced to interact with the humans around it. In Witch King, this is Kai, a grumpy, practically-immortal demon. 

The book follows two timelines - the present and the past. In the modern timeline, Kai wakes up after being drowned, steals the body of a man looking to imprison him, and returns to the world. This plot follows him, his best friend Ziede, and their partially adopted, partially kidnapped street child, Sanja, as they search for Ziede’s missing wife Tahran. The other timeline chronicles the first time Kai took a human’s body and ended up a part of the rebellion plot of a mortal prince. 

The book, like many of Wells's, has phenomenally developed characters and fantastic world-building. The story draws you in so you’re disappointed when it’s over, and the character development makes even the most inhuman characters seem extremely relatable. I found both the past and present storylines are equally engaging, which tends to be rare with similarly split books, and I really enjoyed how the story dealt with major issues of prejudice, tyranny, and the aftermath of rebellion. 

Overall: Witch King is an intricate fantasy with inhuman characters that are also startlingly real and human.

Bonus: