As 2018 ground to a close, I started to reconsider how the blogger commemorates the end of an old year, and the beginning of a new one: mainly through the release of “best books of” and “most anticipated books of” lists. I was wondering how I should qualify which books I could list as my favorites of the year: should I choose out of all the books I read during 2018 or just out of the ones that were released in 2018 that I happened to read. Another question for me was how could I reasonably recommend my “favourite” books of the year when with the speed at which I read and the amount of books I read each year, I could barely remember the plots of most books I’d read, I only had a generic emotional response connected to each book.
It was a conundrum for me, did I really want to end the tradition on our blog just because I was struggling to understand the concept of these years end posts? After weeks of silent debating by myself, and figuring out answers to these questions that satisfied me, I decided I would still release a list of books that were the ones that had left the biggest impact on me looking back on them now at the end of the year.
So, here we go in no particular order:
- The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
- Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
- The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
- A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab
- Kingdom of Ash by S.J. Maas
- Muumipappa ja meri by Tove Jansson
Anna’s top pics/most worthy of a mention from 2018:
In total I managed to read 21 books, which I am very glad about since I had a hard time finding joy in books at times this year. I was in a sort of rut and couldn’t find a book that would keep me so hooked that, I would constantly be craving just a small moment of free time when I would brew some tea and get lost in the words of a great read. That’s why the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas as a whole has been my most notable, favorite, life changing read this past year. It brought back not only my love for reading but my love for fantasy. I was, and still am, obsessed through and through.
And just as Laura said, I’m picking my favorite out of the four parts by reflecting on the generic feeling I get. The first was great but the second blew my mind so therefore A Court of Mist and Fury is my first.
Second I would like to mention a Finnish novel that actually won the Finlandia prize in 2016. Akvarelleja Engelin kaupungista by Jukka Viikilä taught my about the time of C.L. Engel and the building of our capitol Helsinki. I loved the journal entry style and depictions of Turku, where I now live, hit home with me.
The third book I’m going to raise to the podium here is the Swimmer Among the Stars by Kanish Tharoor, a book of short stories that I picked it in Paris from Shakespeare & Co. (I admit, the setting for reading this book did enhance my experience. But none the less I was inspired by these colorful stories.
Fourth and fifth were similar and I can’t really set them apart in my mind but both inspired me greatly and I remember them with a spark of happiness. You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero and #GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso have helped shape my attitude and the way I perceive things (as did Homo Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari too by the way) and they were a big part of my nonfiction phase of 2018.
We hope you find amazing reads in 2019!
Laura and Anna
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