lostlenore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lostlenore) wrote2019-01-13 02:55 am
lostlenore) wrote2019-01-13 02:55 am
Entry tags:
Top 10 Books of 2018
Back in my apartment and caught up on my sleep deficit ayyy, so here's my (late) year-end books list. I met my goal of reading 50 books in 2018! I'm setting it down to 30 for 2019 because I'm going to be traveling a lot and 50 books this year was...rough. How the fuck did I ever do 100? I feel like I got even more picky this year, too. Lots of DNF's and lots of re-reads. As ever, if you have a fave book you want to shout out in the comments please do! I'm always looking for more new stuff, particularly in the Romance category)
1. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
I...loved it?? Uprooted was very much Not My Jam, so I was wary, but I loved this. In fact, I was all prepared to say something about how much I loved the very different, messy, competent, cunning women of this novel but I'm having a lot of trouble writing something that isn't a long string of gibberish.
2. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
The worldbuilding for this book is dense, the cast is huge, and the court scheming can be confusing, but please consider: I love Maia. I love him so much. He makes such an active, constant choice to be kind, to encourage kindness, even when it puts him in difficult positions. Watching him grow into his power while still keeping that core of kindness made me weepy. What a good book to have read this year.
3. Salt Magic Skin Magic by Lee Welch
A historical m/m romance with an absolutely fascinating magical system as its backbone! I really want the author to write more in this universe just to explore in more depth the idea of "factory magicians" in an Industrial Revolution setting, but there's also a delightfully creepy, Agatha Christie-esque angle to the whole story that I loved. It reminded me a bit in tone of KJC's Magpie Lord series, though it's considerably less gory. If you know your Celtic myths you might be able to guess Lord Thornby's Big Reveal early, but overall it was an absolute delight.
4. The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher
Quality f/f? In MY year-end list? It's more likely than you think! And it's in a Snow Queen retelling, which makes it even better. Kingfisher has done a few fairytale retellings, but this is the one that feels urgent to me? There are a couple different versions of the Snow Queen, but a large number of them focus too much on Kai, the ungrateful shithead Greta works so hard to save. This story flips things so that there's a much heavier focus on the women in the story, and Greta gets some much-needed interiority, and we get the pleasure of watching her learn and grow so that when she finally faces Kai the results are quite different and way, way more satisfying.
5. Hikaru no Go by Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata
Okay, so this isn't the first time I read this series, but I went looking for scans in October to fact-check something for a project and got sucked into a full re-read. Possibly I had more feelings about it this time around than my last re-read? I just, I love the Hikaru-Akira rivalry/obssession/devotion so intensely, the way that the power shifts back and forth between them throughout the series. The way their development intertwines and forces the other one forward is so great to read, and is really the gold standard to which I hold all manga rivalries. (Also I found a a collection of anniversary edition volumes at Book Off and the covers were absolutely stunning, I'm furious that I don't have the money/space to buy all of them)
6. Eleventh Hour by Elin Gregory
If you're hungry for a historical m/m novel ft. the Undercover Couple trope, boy have I got the book for you. Set in the early/mid-20's just after WWI and mired fathoms deep in the Great Game/international espionage world of gentleman spies and agent provocateurs, our fearless and chiseled hero is paired with a linguist and cryptographer who has a knack for dressing in drag. Together they pose as newlyweds to infiltrate a couples-only boarding house. Miles, our linguist, is a wonderful character, and views his alter ego Millie as part of his gender expression, instead of as theater or as a kink, which I found interesting. Altogether it's a fun novel, and I'll be watching for more from this author.
7. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
This book has it all: time travelling historians, historical romance, a send-up to Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, a cat who may or may not have broken space-time, fish out of water comedy, mystery, and a core of absurdist humor as deep as the Thames. The writing style skews a bit more British Historical than I was expecting, but it sets the mood of the novel very effectively, and it's a light, fun, funny read.
8. Less by Andrew Sean Greer
I didn't initially think I would be into this novel, since it's a) about a 50yo (gay) white guy b) who is a struggling writer and c) is more on the literary side of fiction than the genre side where I usually live. But. BUT. The prose is so. fucking. good. The narrating voice was so compelling I couldn't put it down, truly absurd and hilarious and at times aching. The author is all about poking fun at his protag, who can be a bit predictably frustrating but who grows and learns over the course of the novel and eventually finds his happy ending, because at the end of the day, the author's thesis can be summed up with the line, "just for the record: happiness is not bullshit."
9. The Reluctant Heiress/Magic Flutes by Eva Ibbotson
Look. Are Ibbotson's romance heroines basically all the same person? Yes. Are the plots predictable? Yes. Do they feel like settling into a pile of warm blankets on a snowy day with a mug of hot chocolate? Also yes. I've read two other romances by Ibbotson at this point, and I think the key to enjoying them is spacing them out, to avoid being fatigued by their sameness. Because coming into this book after so long, I really did enjoy it. It read like a love letter to the Vienna Ibbotson grew up in, and a love letter to music.
10. Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa
I'll just come right out and say it: before this year, I'd somehow managed to avoid reading the original FMA comic. I've watched all of Brotherhood, and a few episodes of the 2003 anime, but this was the first time I'd ever sat down and read the comic. And god, was it worth it. Fullmetal Alchemist is probably the best series to come out of Japan in the last decade, and reading the comic was like stripping away any extra padding the the shows might have added and diving straight into the heart of what makes this such a spectacular story. I'm constantly impressed with the way Arakawa balances the POV shifting, from one group of characters to the next in such a large cast. Each story line feels like it's brought together and resolved, no one dropped or forgotten about, and it gives the series, which can be so brutal and so (rightly) angry, a deeply affecting sense of community. It was a series I'm so glad I read, especially this year.
1. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
I...loved it?? Uprooted was very much Not My Jam, so I was wary, but I loved this. In fact, I was all prepared to say something about how much I loved the very different, messy, competent, cunning women of this novel but I'm having a lot of trouble writing something that isn't a long string of gibberish.
2. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
The worldbuilding for this book is dense, the cast is huge, and the court scheming can be confusing, but please consider: I love Maia. I love him so much. He makes such an active, constant choice to be kind, to encourage kindness, even when it puts him in difficult positions. Watching him grow into his power while still keeping that core of kindness made me weepy. What a good book to have read this year.
3. Salt Magic Skin Magic by Lee Welch
A historical m/m romance with an absolutely fascinating magical system as its backbone! I really want the author to write more in this universe just to explore in more depth the idea of "factory magicians" in an Industrial Revolution setting, but there's also a delightfully creepy, Agatha Christie-esque angle to the whole story that I loved. It reminded me a bit in tone of KJC's Magpie Lord series, though it's considerably less gory. If you know your Celtic myths you might be able to guess Lord Thornby's Big Reveal early, but overall it was an absolute delight.
4. The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher
Quality f/f? In MY year-end list? It's more likely than you think! And it's in a Snow Queen retelling, which makes it even better. Kingfisher has done a few fairytale retellings, but this is the one that feels urgent to me? There are a couple different versions of the Snow Queen, but a large number of them focus too much on Kai, the ungrateful shithead Greta works so hard to save. This story flips things so that there's a much heavier focus on the women in the story, and Greta gets some much-needed interiority, and we get the pleasure of watching her learn and grow so that when she finally faces Kai the results are quite different and way, way more satisfying.
5. Hikaru no Go by Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata
Okay, so this isn't the first time I read this series, but I went looking for scans in October to fact-check something for a project and got sucked into a full re-read. Possibly I had more feelings about it this time around than my last re-read? I just, I love the Hikaru-Akira rivalry/obssession/devotion so intensely, the way that the power shifts back and forth between them throughout the series. The way their development intertwines and forces the other one forward is so great to read, and is really the gold standard to which I hold all manga rivalries. (Also I found a a collection of anniversary edition volumes at Book Off and the covers were absolutely stunning, I'm furious that I don't have the money/space to buy all of them)
6. Eleventh Hour by Elin Gregory
If you're hungry for a historical m/m novel ft. the Undercover Couple trope, boy have I got the book for you. Set in the early/mid-20's just after WWI and mired fathoms deep in the Great Game/international espionage world of gentleman spies and agent provocateurs, our fearless and chiseled hero is paired with a linguist and cryptographer who has a knack for dressing in drag. Together they pose as newlyweds to infiltrate a couples-only boarding house. Miles, our linguist, is a wonderful character, and views his alter ego Millie as part of his gender expression, instead of as theater or as a kink, which I found interesting. Altogether it's a fun novel, and I'll be watching for more from this author.
7. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
This book has it all: time travelling historians, historical romance, a send-up to Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, a cat who may or may not have broken space-time, fish out of water comedy, mystery, and a core of absurdist humor as deep as the Thames. The writing style skews a bit more British Historical than I was expecting, but it sets the mood of the novel very effectively, and it's a light, fun, funny read.
8. Less by Andrew Sean Greer
I didn't initially think I would be into this novel, since it's a) about a 50yo (gay) white guy b) who is a struggling writer and c) is more on the literary side of fiction than the genre side where I usually live. But. BUT. The prose is so. fucking. good. The narrating voice was so compelling I couldn't put it down, truly absurd and hilarious and at times aching. The author is all about poking fun at his protag, who can be a bit predictably frustrating but who grows and learns over the course of the novel and eventually finds his happy ending, because at the end of the day, the author's thesis can be summed up with the line, "just for the record: happiness is not bullshit."
9. The Reluctant Heiress/Magic Flutes by Eva Ibbotson
Look. Are Ibbotson's romance heroines basically all the same person? Yes. Are the plots predictable? Yes. Do they feel like settling into a pile of warm blankets on a snowy day with a mug of hot chocolate? Also yes. I've read two other romances by Ibbotson at this point, and I think the key to enjoying them is spacing them out, to avoid being fatigued by their sameness. Because coming into this book after so long, I really did enjoy it. It read like a love letter to the Vienna Ibbotson grew up in, and a love letter to music.
10. Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa
I'll just come right out and say it: before this year, I'd somehow managed to avoid reading the original FMA comic. I've watched all of Brotherhood, and a few episodes of the 2003 anime, but this was the first time I'd ever sat down and read the comic. And god, was it worth it. Fullmetal Alchemist is probably the best series to come out of Japan in the last decade, and reading the comic was like stripping away any extra padding the the shows might have added and diving straight into the heart of what makes this such a spectacular story. I'm constantly impressed with the way Arakawa balances the POV shifting, from one group of characters to the next in such a large cast. Each story line feels like it's brought together and resolved, no one dropped or forgotten about, and it gives the series, which can be so brutal and so (rightly) angry, a deeply affecting sense of community. It was a series I'm so glad I read, especially this year.