I’m not done reading for the year. I’ve read 95 books, and I’m going to have read 100 by the end, but I think this is close enough that I can share the best books. I’ll just have to read stupid books until the end. 
I was going to do a top ten, but I’d rather be difficult and do a top eleven.
Top Eleven Books I Read This Year (in no particular order)
1. Uglies/Pretties/Specials trilogy by Scott Westerfeld — This is a trilogy, but I’m counting it as a whole. There is actually a fourth book out now, called Extras, (way to go breaking the trilogy, dummy) but I haven’t read it yet. This is a young adult dystopian series, revolving around the idea that to be beautiful, everyone has to look a certain way, and to do this, there is a coming-of-age surgery of sorts to become one of the beautiful people. Each book takes on the perspective of the different groups of people in this society, mostly centered around the main character, Tally.
2. Cranberry Queen by Kathleen DeMarco — I don’t know what genre this is considered, and this isn’t a challenging read, by any means, but I honestly enjoyed this book immensely. In one word, I’d call it “charming”. The book starts with something sad happening to the main character, Diana, which leads her to run away from home to this small town in the cranberry orchards of New Jersey. The beginning is somewhat choppy, and to be honest, I just completely ignored it as a back story for the purpose of the good stuff to happen, and I think Diana is very loveable and real.
3. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon — This is sometimes marketed as young adult and sometimes as adult, but the main character is a young adult boy who has asperger’s syndrome/something on the autism spectrum. (There’s some question over this.) The book starts with the boy discovering the dead body of his neighbour’s dog and being blamed for it. He goes on a hunt to try to clear his name, and that’s when the authour takes you into his world– his interests and perspective.
4. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn — This is a psychological thriller. The main character, Camille, is a reporter who is given the job to cover a murder story in a small town in Missouri, which happens to be where she grew up. She has psychological issues and doesn’t want to return home, but she does and the authour explores her issues, her past and her dysfunctional family. Really, really well written.
5. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger — This is my absolute favourite book of all time. This is literary fiction and marketed sometimes as romance and sometimes as science fiction, though to be honest, I read the entire thing and never once thought of it as either one of those. It is told through alternating viewpoints of Henry, and his wife, Clare, and takes on a sequence of following Clare’s life, despite the fact that Henry suffers from a disorder that makes him constantly travel through time and randomly appear as different ages in her life. The characters are an interesting mix of pretentious and bohemia, and though the reviews I’ve read complain of the lack of character development, I completely disagree and find the characters to be refreshing, human, and absolutely perfect for the situation they’re in. Bittersweet ending.
6. The Schopenhauer Cure by Irvin D. Yalom — This is another all-time favourite, and literary fiction as well, and Yalom might just be my new hero. Julius is a therapist who is dying and thinking back on his life. His one regret is Phillip, the one patient he failed. He decides to contact him and discovers he is aspiring to be a counseling himself, under the teachings of the misanthropic philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer. Julius invites Phillip to join the group therapy he leads, and the book dives into the lives of the characters in the group, while simultaneously exploring the life of Arthur Schopenhauer.
7. Blue Angel by Francine Prose — Again, top book of all-time. Swenson is a middle-aged, married English professor in New England, who hasn’t written a novel in years. He teaches a creative writing class, and discovers a promising student who is writing a novel and desiring his help. Also literary fiction, this starts out as a somewhat typical taboo teacher/student relationship book, but the ending is a bit of a twist.
8. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls — It’s been awhile since I read a good southern slash abuse/neglect book, but this one is outstanding. It is a memoir, and it starts with Jeannette all grown up, riding in a taxi, seeing her mother outside rooting through a dumpster. We’re then taken into the past, into her dysfuctional childhood, which really is dysfunctional and unique. Despite the possible neglect and alcoholism, her parents are interesting and somewhat loveable people (I really liked her father).
9. First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple by Cameron West — Outstanding, amazing, category of its own. This is a memoir of Cameron West, who is now a psychologist, and his real-life discovery of having Dissociative Identity Disorder. It’s the best DID I’ve ever read, and I’d be interested to hear from someone with DID, who has read this.
10. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards — This literary book starts good, and then has a slow, tedious middle, and I almost dropped it completely, thinking the praise it got was completely undeserved, but I pursued and it was deserved and I’m glad I read it. In 1964, during a blizzard, a doctor, by the name of David Henry helps his wife deliver twins. One is a healthy boy and the other is a girl with Down’s Syndrome. It is typical, during that time, to send a Down’s Syndrome baby to a home, and David Henry sends his nurse to do the same with his own child. He lies to his wife and tells her the baby died during birth, and the story moves forward with the lives of both twins. The ending is terribly sad, but immensely satisfying. (Oddly reminiscent to both Time Traveler’s Wife and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I think I love terribly sad, dysfunctional endings.)
11. Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson — The tone of this book is similar to Cranberry Queen, but it doesn’t take on quite the charming route. The book opens with Arlene, who is living in Chicago, and vows never to return to her hometown in Alabama, because of the secrets of her past. Unfortunately, she has to, and has to face everything head on. Some parts of the book drove me nuts, in the way she went on and on about the same things, but all and all, I enjoyed it a lot.
Biggest Disappointments:
On the Road by Jack Kerouac — I wanted so badly to love this book. Beatnik travels the U.S. and tells lots of really cool stories, what’s not to love? But, it was dry and boring and blah.
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller — Again, I wanted to love this. It’s a Christian book, memoir-esque, and I’ve been told a billion times that it’s a refreshing perspective for a book, AND refreshing in the world of evangelical blah. Donald Miller was even compared to Anne Lamott, who is one of my favourites! But, it is my opinion that it is just more evangelical drivel-blah (new word) wrapped in the guise of social conscience.
The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult — I love Jodi Picoult, especially her newer stuff, so I expected to love this. But, holy cow, this book is terrible! It is her worst book, by far. I don’t know what in the world she was thinking. Comics?! UGH. I was willing just to skip them for the story, but the story was tedious and stupid!
The Girls by Lori Lansens — Boo! I wanted to like this, and a friend with the same tastes liked it, so I figured I would. And I wanted to like it even more because I ended up taking almost two weeks to read it, so I was hoping the ending would redeem itself, but it was so dry and so boring, and there was no real wrap up to the story at all. It just dropped off a cliff and left you going “uhh, what?”
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison — I just don’t get this book. Impressive psychologist, terrible writer. This is her memoir and I expected some great stuff, but instead it was just page after page of irrelevant self-puff, scattered with boring and patronising privilege and social/sexual chit-chat. There was no depth, and though I expected her to be detached because of the perspective– a doctor looking back on her own mental illness– I didn’t expect cold and vapid. And she lures you in, with a false sense of insight! This should be both an emotionally terrifying trip through hell and an account that resonates true with shared experiences and a glimmer of hope. It did nothing. I’m so mad that I didn’t like this. I’m going to try her other books, though, and I expect them to be better, darn it.