Best Books of 2012

Hi everyone - this is Amy and I am here to talk about one of my all time favorite subjects other than scrapbooking - BOOKS! One of my favorite things about the end of each year is that I begin to see the year end favorite books lists that newspapers, bloggers and other books/reading sites produce! As a huge reader, that is very exciting to me! I always learn of new books that I haven’t heard of AND its fun to see what books that I have liked (or not liked) have made the various Best lists! I thought I’d share some of my personal favorites, my best books from 2012 as well a few that I haven’t read but have heard great things about!

My personal Top 10 Books of 2012:

1. Tell The Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

This is definitely my favorite book of 2012. It is a coming of age story about a 14 year old girl who is devastated after the death of her uncle of AIDS in the 1980s. This is a beautifully written novel about about compassion, family, love, friendship and growing into yourself. I highly recommend it to anyone!

2. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

This novel has gotten enormous buzz this year - its a gripping, suspenseful story about a young wife who goes missing and her husband who may or may not be responsible for it. It’s full of twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Very dark and twisted but such a wild ride! I think this is one that actually lives up to the hype!

3. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

As an introvert, I was so taken with this nonfiction work that celebrates the underrated introvert! For me, this book helped explain a lot of how I experience the world and why certain things do and do not work for me. Being an introvert can be very tricky in today’s society and I found this book so reassuring! I think this is a good book for introverts AND extroverts alike - to help all of us work better together!

4. Broken Harbour by Tana French

Tana French never disappoints me! This is the latest in her Dublin Murder Squad series (although they can certainly be read in any order, I’d recommend you start with the first and work your way to this one) and it is another fantastic read! French is able to put literary fiction, psychological thrillers and police procedurals together in a way that is unlike anything I’ve ever read! Although the whodunit pieces of her novels are always compelling, I think its the why and how of her novels where she really stands out. She gives you more than just a mystery or a good police whodunit. The way she gets into the minds of the characters and the way that she explores humanity at its best and worst is where she truly excels!

5. 11/22/63 by Stephen King

Even if you’re not a Stephen King fan, you should consider picking this book up … it’s him at his best! It’s so much more that what I think people have come to expect of King - there are supernatural aspects, historical pieces, plus some philosophy & science fiction all packaged alongside a really nice love story. It has it ALL.

6. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Many people haven’t heard of this wonderful little book but I wish more people had because its fantastic! This is a nice, easy to read novel that is light, fun and interesting. I found it refreshing and charming in every way! I didn’t want to put it down and I can’t wait for Rowell’s next novel!

7. Divergent by Veronica Roth

This is the first in a young adult trilogy that I felt was really interesting and well done. This is a well written and engaging dystopian novel that is definitely worth checking out! I really like the world that Roth created in this novel - the factions & the political implications of the world were interesting and thought provoking.

8. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

This is a beautifully written and deceptively simple novel with a premise that seems a bit different than the usual literary fiction. This novel is thought provoking and makes you examine your own thoughts and feelings about family, marriage, life & death, and how our actions impact others.

9. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

This is one of those novels that reads so effortlessly - it appears to be a light sort of novel but is really a more complex, in depth novel when you scratch below the surface. This is a novel about so many things - forgiveness, choices, family, and even redemption. Yet, it is a quiet sort of novel. No huge crises or tensions to make you think WOW. It’s more of a journey through the lives of a group of people who weave in and out of the novel. They are definitely connected but they are also separate journeys, many in parallel, that each teach another nuance of the overall story. Jess Walter weaves these stories together so effortlessly and makes the entire novel so readable. Yet, its never simple or easy. Just fluid and effortless.

10. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

This is another young adult novel that really blew me away this year! The story isn’t all roses and sunshine which I really liked. It felt more realistic and had moments of both dark and light (very much like real life). I feel weird saying that I enjoyed a book about kids with cancer but I did. I think it was a great read that kept me interested.

Here are a few books that I keep hearing great things about this year but haven’t read myself:

1. The Round House by Louise Erdrich

From Goodreads: “One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe’s life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared. While his father, who is a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. The Round House is a brilliant and entertaining novel, a masterpiece of literary fiction. ”

2. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

Goodreads describes this book as a “a landmark work of narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century’s great, unequal cities.” I have heard amazing things about this story of a makeshift settlement in Mumbai.

3. Home by Toni Morrison

I find Toni Morrison a bit intimidating myself but I am hearing this novel is wonderful so I may give it a chance. Goodreads describes this as a novel where Morrison “extends her profound take on our history with this twentieth-century tale of redemption: a taut and tortured story about one man’s desperate search for himself in a world disfigured by war”.

4. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Goodreads describes this one as “a powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.” This one is another with quite a bit of buzz this year and it was the first pick of Oprah’s Book Club 2.0.

5. American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar

This one sounds really interesting to me - a coming of age novel about a young boy that falls in love while studying the Quran, and battles with the complicated, contradicting emotions that arise.

Now that I’ve told you a bit about my favorite 2012 novels … and told you about a few more that I’m hearing good things about, what are YOUR favorite books of 2012? Have you read any of these already? What did you think of those you’ve read? Let’s talk BOOKS in the comments! Tell me what you liked, didn’t like in books this year - whether they were published in 2012 or not! I can’t wait to hear more about what you’ve been reading!