2019 Book Awards

Back in January, I kicked off my year with a resolution to read 12 books. I also wanted to lose 15lbs, become instagram famous and move to Hawaii to "influence" while drinking pina coladas on the beach for a living, but resolutions are designed to be unrealistic. Anyway, it was roughly 11.5 more than  read in 2016, 2017, and 2018 combined, so it felt kind of lofty. But then this year Duke became really self-sufficient (which is so cool) and maybe because I gave myself a numerical goal, I read a lot more than I thought I would. This year, I read 39 books and that included some new favorites, along with some hilariously bad stinkers. You can find my monthly reviews here, but for a more year inclusive version, welcome to my first annual Book Awards. 



THE BEST
Fiction - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsen
Non-Fiction - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Stephen King
Audio Book - Joyland - Stephen King
Re-Read - The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck

Honorable Mentions (otherwise titled, highly recommended)
Joy in the Morning - Betty Smith
The Corner of the Oval - Beck Dorey-Stein


THE WORST
Most Laughably Bad - Separate Beds - LaVyrle Spencer
I'm still mad at my Oma for recommending this book to me. It was so hilariously bad, I laughed at so many parts that weren't meant to be funny. Its only redeeming quality was that it got me through a 24 hour flu in February. 
The Struggle I Powered Through - Secret Daughter - Shilpi Somaya Gowda
The One I Gave Up On Soonest - My Coney Island Baby - Billy O'Callaghan
Great concept, epically slow execution. 
A plot twist in literally the last sentence of the book. I have still not recovered from this book.



The books I gave up on 
A Visit From The Goon Squad - Boring. 
The Aviator's Wife - Juvenile writing. 
The 19th Wife - Never gained steam. 
Little Bee - I couldn't get into it, looked up the plot online, and ruined it for myself. 
My Coney Island Baby - Sounded good, but the pick-up was slow. 

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You can see the full list of books I read this year HERE.

See you in 2020 for another big books goal. And I'm always open for recommendations!

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