Best Books of 2016

2016 might be a few weeks in the past but today we are going to take a stroll back through 2016 so I can recap the best books of 2016 – or more specifically, my favorite books of 2016.

I’ll preface this post by saying that I am not factoring in any health/fitness/business books I read, only those I read for leisure. Secondly, I tend to prefer utter and total fluff. The world is serious and can be really upsetting and frankly a bit despairing so when I read I like to leave that world and enter one that is either entirely fictitious or one filled with silliness and nonsense.

In the words of Danielle – I don’t like to be sad on purpose. I also really enjoy that she describes her “fluff” books as cupcake books.  It’s also from her I stole the idea for this post, so let’s get on with it.

Disclosure: The book links below are affiliate links, if you should make a purchase through one of the links I will earn a couple nickels, which I will use to support my amazon habit.

The Paper Magician Trilogy

I read The Paper Magician, The Glass Magician and The Master Magician one Sunday last January – yes all three in one day as they are short easy reads, but they still stand out as some of my favorite of the year. I notoriously enjoy books with witches/wizards/mythical creatures (mostly because their problems are things I really don’t need to worry about) and this was no exception. Any easy read with a nice element of romance, it fits the bill for fluff wonderfully.

Written In My Own Heart’s Blood

I’m a fan of the Outlander series but have found the later books hard to get through but enjoyed Written In My Own Heart’s Blood. I’m the type of person who best enjoys a writer who leaves a lot of the details to my imagination, and that is not Diana Gabaldon. She is a very descriptive writer who leaves little to the imagination which makes her books a bit of a challenge for me. I enjoyed this book more so than some the previous three or four – but only because I skipped entire sections. This book is set up through the viewpoint of a number of characters and frankly, I don’t care about some of them as I don’t feel they are relevant to the full story and skipped them. And I don’t feel I missed a thing. So now after writing all that I’m wondering if I should even include it in the list, but I’ll leave it here.

I’ll add that this dislike of  overly descriptive writing is a problem for me in general. I found The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series to be the same, and that is exactly why I’m still stuck in book two of the Game of Thrones series even though I adore the show.

The Heroes of Olympus Series

Knowing I enjoy both fluff and mythical/magical based books it should come as no surprise that I really enjoy YA series. I have never read the Percy Jackson series but has watched the two movies and then found this series at Value Village back in the summer and picked them up. I started reading The Lost Hero on my way to Ottawa and was quickly hooked and enjoyed the entire series. It has everything I love – problems I don’t have to worry about, Greek and Roman Mythology, magical powers and a little teenage romance through in for good measure.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

As a huge Harry Potter fan I was of course ready to pick Harry Potter and the Cursed Child up the second I heard it was coming out, and while the script style of the book isn’t my favorite, I didn’t find it difficult to look past that and fall back into the magical world of Harry Potter. Old and new characters alike and a new story that I thoroughly enjoyed. And I hope in 10-15 years the original cast comes together to bring this to film.

Sweep Series

This was a surprise in my reading this year. I picked up Sweep Volume 2-4 at the second-hand bookstore and waited a long time to but Volume 1 as I really didn’t know if I’d like it. I should have known better, a YA series about witches – of course I was going to like it. Each volume was made up of three books, and they were quick enjoyable reads. I did have a few, “throw the book across the room” moments, but really – what’s a good series without a few of those. Haha.

Where’d You Go, Burnadette?

I’d heard so much about Where’d You Go, Bernadette? and frankly, I enjoy a cute book cover so was happy to grab this at the bookstore one weekend. It was described as laugh out loud funny and a satirical novel and as a girl with a very dry and sarcastic sense of humor I tend to enjoy satire. Interestingly I didn’t find this book overly funny, it was clever and extremely well done which is what put it on this list, but I didn’t find it funny. Maybe it was my state of mind that made me feel it an interesting look inside the mind of someone with an anxiety disorder more than a funny novel but I truly enjoyed it. Had I not gone into it thinking I would be laughing out loud I think I would have enjoyed it even more. Either way, I’m looking forward to reading Maria’s new book Today Will Be Different after I finish wading through my stack of unread books.

The Rosie Project

After hearing about The Rosie Project being a great read all year-long, I was excited to pick it up at Value Village in the summer, but it took me to December to get around to reading it. It was a bit of a departure from my typical reading choices but in the end I really enjoyed it. It was different and yet still “fluffy” enough for me to enjoy my time reading it.

Now I’m going to finish off with a couple of books that I really did not enjoy, because well – I need to get them off my chest.

The Heart of the Matter

Why I keep picking up Emily Giffin books I don’t know. The Heart of The Matter being the fourth now and haven’t enjoyed any of them. Why is it that all of her books seem to involve adultery? I get it, the real world is full of affairs and marital dissatisfaction, and it reads as what I expect to be a realistic recount of how these things can come about, but honestly. Give me witches and demi-gods any day over this. But that’s my fault knowing my preferences and still choosing to read these books.

You know about insanity right? The act of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Well I’m going to be testing the theory one more time as I still have one more Emily Giffin book on my unread book shelf to go through before I write her off completely.

Boy, Snow, Bird

Boy, Snow, Bird is another book that sat on my shelf for months and months before I got around to reading it. I was expecting more of a modern-day Snow White story based on the cover and was left a bit disappointed. Instead I found the story a bit all over the place, and the ending downright odd. Like the last 6-10 pages were so out of context with the rest of the second half of the book I was left wondering what I had just read.

Last week I read a list of books all women should read in 2017 and this was on it and I was terrible confused. It was written beautifully, but I found the story ending especially so very odd.

And that’s a wrap on 2016 for me! If you are on Good Reads feel free to connect with me there to keep up with what I’m reading all year-long.

Did you read any good books in 2016? Or have any recommendations for things I should read in 2017? Right now I’m reading The Golden Compass but am not sure I’ll continue with the series once I’ve finished it.