As we wrap up 2019, I was feeling a bit bummed about my reading this year but then, I popped over to Goodreads and saw a bunch of 5 stars I had forgotten about. So that's great news. Big year for fiction for me. (Also the book I wrote came out this year! So that's a BFD, when I think about 2019 bookwise.)
The Most Fun We Ever Had by Clare Lombardo - this was so good. SO GOOD and so long. A present day story with flashbacks to a couple's long life together raising four daughters.
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah - I loved The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah and so I was looking forward to this one which is about a girl who's parents move her deep into Alaska in the seventies. I am always impressed when an author has such different stories in her.
Where the Crawdad's Sing by Delia Owens - this was the book I saw all over Instagram this year. I listened to it in TWO DAYS. Loved it. Oh, I loved it. The main character is a young girl who has been left to fend for herself in rural North Carolina.
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid - a fun, easy read about a rock group from the 1970s.
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert - I am a forever Elizabeth Gilbert fan and this was a great fiction read from her about a showgirl in the 1920s.
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai - another sweeping story. I think that this one, about the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, was my favorite book I read this year.
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel - oh my heart. It's about a family and parenthood. We read it for bookclub and I couldn't put it down.
Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow - one of the two non-fiction that made my list this year and that's probably because it read like fiction. I listened to the audiobook (read by Farrow) and it was bonkers and so good. I am sure it will become a movie in five years.
The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs - a memoir from a dying mama. A must if you enjoyed When Breath Becomes Air.
Ahhhhhhh. I want to cry as I finish typing up this list. (And, yes, I said the same thing last year...it's still true.) I am so grateful that there are storytellers. Here's to another year of books.
