Top 10 Books from 2016
Jan. 8th, 2017 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lostlenoreHELLO FRIENDS It's been a while! I'm trying to get back in the swing of posting things, so here's a quick list of some books I read and loved in 2016.
I finally caved and started actually using my Goodreads account--it turned out to be a perfect mesh of my competitiveness and love of lists--to track all the books I've been reading this year.
I made it to 61!
Yeah, I'm a little proud. Next year's goal will be higher now that I don't have to worry about the added burden of school. Maybe I'll make it to 100! Anyway, I'll spare y'all a full list, but there are a few I can't shut up about on twitter that I wanted to yell about for more than 140 characters. I've tried to rein it in to my top 10 favorites, though none of these are in any sort of order.
1. Feet of Clay (Discworld #19) by Terry Pratchett
An underrated Night Watch book, and my favorite (though Jingo is a close second). It has one of my favorite mysteries at its core--who DARES poison Vetinari???-- and I'm a sucker for this kind of puzzle-piece, clue by clue whodunnit, where each of Vimes' theories are crazier than the last. It also has the wonderfully gut-wrenching story of the Golems threaded throughout the action, and I'm not ashamed to admit Dorfl's speech at the end made me cry. The marriage of Sir Terry's humor, politics, and mystery skills in this novel are great, and re-reading this series made me miss him all over again.
2. Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
I think I described this book to someone as all the bits I loved out of Ella Enchanted and Howl's Moving Castle, combined. If nothing else the magical system in this series is delightful, but it's Patricia C Wrede, so of course there's also awesome ladies solving mysteries and knocking sense into their Odious Marquis. It helps that I'm an absolute sucker for epistolary novels, and this is told entirely in a series of letters. I wasn't sure what to make of the romances on my first read, but by the time the novel ended I was invested in both couples. A lovely series, go read it.
3. Patsy Walker (AKA Hellcat) Vol 1: Hooked on a Feline by Kate Leth
I picked this up later in the year, once everything had really, truly, gone to hell. It turned out to be just what I needed--funny, breezy, and comforting in the way that it's so obviously centered on the female experience. The art is never exploitative; instead it's sugary-sweet, bright and fun to look at. The characters have troubles, but the story never veers into grimdark comics territory. The ensemble cast is fairly small, which in Marvel comics is a blessing. I don't feel like I need to have been reading comics since 1950 to understand what's happening, and the characters that do appear are diverse without feeling like tokens. God, it's just so refreshing to have a predominately female cast written and drawn from a female perspective? Is this what dudes feel like all the time consuming media? It's great and I never want it to stop?
4. Think of England by KJ Charles
I want to marry Daniel Da Silva???? What a fantastic character. What a fantastic book. I've been reccing this to everyone looking for a fun romance read, because I absolutely loved it. And how could I not? It's got Murder! Mystery! Intrigue! Quality m/m romance! Spies! Kissing for Great Justice! PLUS the spooky atmosphere of an Agatha Christie murder, in an isolated country house party teeming with Dark Secrets. Honestly, I feel like I've spoiled myself for all other period m/m works, this one was just too good.
5. Silver Diamond (series) by Shiho Sugiura
Yes, this is a manga series, hush. I know. It's also got such a strong, fantastical, and deeply weird aesthetic that I keep coming back to it. The protagonist has the ability to grow flowers from his hands with ~~magic~~ in a high fantasy desert wasteland, which is such an unusual departure from most BL comic premises that I had to read it and ended up marathoning three volumes in a single night. There's so many tropes in this series that I love, but it hits the found family button especially hard, in a way that had me rooting for all the characters to pull through. Unfortunately there don't seem to be a lot of fans for it, so if you've read it feel free to drop in & yell with me! (or do that anyway!) Oh, and did I mention the art is stunning? Florals everywhere, obviously, but with a sci-fi bend. For the pages that do have color, the color palette is gooooreous, all soft greens and golds. Check it out, you won't be disappointed.
6. The Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
Not going to lie folks, I was really ambivalent about Six of Crows. I almost didn't pick up the sequel, but I loved Wylan and wanted to see how he developed and WOW I'M SO GLAD I DID. There was so much setup in Six of Crows and here I felt allllll the payoff. The characters (except Matthais but whatever) each got great development, and I walked away completely in love with Inej. There were some standout lines, (Inej's monologue at the church!!) and a series of fun smaller cons that led up to the big, climactic con. This directly fed into my enjoyment, because I didn't have to follow the plan for the Big Con, but was able to see the puzzle pieces laid out in smaller cons and appreciate how they fit together in the Grand Reveal. 10/10 would push through the first book again to get to this one.
7. The Lives of Christopher Chant (Chrestomanci Vol 2) by Diana Wynne Jones
100% I requested this series for Yultide after reading this story again. I haven't read it since I was in elementary school, which was WAY too young. It was wonderful to re-read it now as an adult, and it found it incredibly soothing, in the way that GBBO, and PG Woodehouse are soothing. There's a lot of gentle fussing, exquisite clothing, mundane magical systems, and a dash of mortal peril. There was something Holmesian about the reveal of the 'mystery' at the end, though it wasn't nearly as complex, so I had most of it worked out. Very easy and satisfying, like comfort food, and a warm place to take a break and curl up in for a while.
8. The Killing Moon (Dreamblood #1) by NK Jemisin
I think I recced this series in one of the Fan Rec Fridays, but it still holds. I've read this book several times now, and I still lose my mind over the world building every single time. The calls to Egyptian mythology are such a welcome departure from the constant Western-centric high fantasy I'm used to reading. Plus, this author had a way of writing religion and divinity that I adore in its complexity, and I was so happy to find that it wasn't a one-off in the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms series.
9. The Captive Prince (Vol 2) by CS Pacat
LISTEN. I know there's been a lot of Discourse over this series, and I have absolutely zero desire to to get into it. Similar to Crooked Kingdom, this was the book where the storytelling got tighter and sharper, and we were finally shown the stakes of the game. I really disliked book one, but stuck it out in hopes of more political intrigue from Laurent, and I wasn't disappointed here. I wanted twisting plot vs plot, spy vs spy and I got it! You guys know how I feel about spies. (and royalty, but mostly spies.) What can I say? I was good for me.
10. A Seditious Affair by KJ Charles
tHIS FUCKING BOOK. There's a reason KJ Charles is on this list twice and it's because I fell down a romance novel hole somewhere around November 9th, and my ideal romance novel involves a lot of Dukes. (Or Duchesses. I'm not picky.) KJ Charles writes great Dukes. So good, in fact, that I haven't been able to shut up about this series for a month and I need to drag other people into this hole with be so we cant talk about how Julius Norreys deserves better than Harry Vane, the magic of David Cyprian, and how much I unexpectedly loved Silas/Dominic??? I initially skipped this book, which is the second in the series, and as I'm typing this I've now read it three times over. I was leery about jumping into a non-fandom work with a bdsm label but 1) I forgot published fiction sex scenes are entirely different than fandom ones 2) it's more about D/s dynamics and powerplay anyways. Unlike the other two books in the series, I believe these two characters want each other, and I can see the ways in which they're a good fit for each other. I rooted for them in a way I didn't for the other couples (with the exception, weirdly enough, of Ash/Francis???). Their back-and-forth is sharp, and loaded with all sorts of literary references in a way that has me eating it up with a spoon.
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Date: 2017-01-08 11:45 pm (UTC)(haven't read think of england but now i desperately want to omg)
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Date: 2017-01-09 12:15 am (UTC)OMG YES READ IT. Definitely her best work, Daniel is like all my favorite parts of Silas & Dominic combined. And even though there's only like 10 fics on a03 they're all quality.