Time for my semi-annual review of the best novels I’ve read so far this year!
Please note: This post contains affiliate links to the books that you can purchase from Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you.
Mystery/Thriller
Somehow I made it this far in life without ever having read the bestselling author of all time. I’m glad I changed that, because Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile (as I expected) was so up my alley! I did figure out the solution pretty quickly. Although as the story went on, I began to come up with other possible culprits, motives, and methods. None were ever as clear to me as the correct one, though.
I found the character of Poirot amusing. And I liked the straightforward way this was told–even including a moment in the middle of the book to neatly go over all the facts as we had them to that point. There’s a paragraph from Poirot near the end that perfectly describes the clues and narrative structure:
“You think that I am just amusing myself with side issues? And it annoys you? But it is not that. Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition–and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do–clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth–the naked shining truth.”
The book succinctly puts forth all possible solutions based on the facts we have at hand and whittles them down until the only thing left is the truth. I really enjoyed that about it. Nothing was left hanging in the end.
I’ll definitely be reading more of these going forward.
I just couldn’t read Lisa Jewell’s None of This is True quickly enough! I go through so many thrillers these days, and most of them are pretty forgettable and ultimately disappointing. Rarely have I gone wrong with Lisa Jewell, though. She and Harlan Coben both manage to keep me turning those pages and leave me awestruck in the end. And they’re the ones I’m going to keep returning to.
The funny thing is, the majority of this book is just two women talking (with a few strange and ominous events sprinkled in here and there), building to something huge, but with little actually happening. And yet I couldn’t bring myself to look away. It was so much more about what was happening inside someone’s head than about murders (although those certainly came).
I’m not sure how I feel about the ambiguous ending. It all seemed to be wrapping up nicely. But then the last 40-60 pages kind of dragged on and introduced possible (but only possible) new reveals. I’m still mulling over those possible reveals in my head to try to decide what I think really happened. Maybe there isn’t a definite answer. I’m not totally sure it stuck the landing.
Harlan Coben has done it again with I Will Find You. I couldn’t put this down from the first page to the last page. And I’m already looking forward to seeing the inevitable Netflix series! Admittedly, there were some portions where I had to suspend disbelief. But it was so suspenseful and full of twists and turns that I didn’t mind that much.
Here’s the one thing I really hated–those obnoxious FBI agents! True, I know it eventually alluded to the fact that it was all a put-on and just their shtick to get people confessing. But it was not fun to read at all. “Did you hear that, Sarah?” “Sure did, Max.” “What do you think about that, Sarah?” “Doesn’t sound good, Max.” “Are we the cutest things ever, Sarah?” “You betcha, Max.” UGH! They were not cute. Not witty. Not at all. I just wanted them to shut up.
Fantasy
I almost skipped The Witch’s Daughter after buying it by accident because it was by Paula Brackston, whom I had previously decided never to read again. That would have been a huge mistake.
When I realized the mistake I had made in purchasing another book by this author, whose name I had forgotten, I was ready to give it away. But I figured I already had it and had paid for it, so I may as well give it a shot. I thought I would just put it down as soon as I got bored with it or it got lame. Well, it never did, and I found I didn’t want to put it down! All the problems I had with The Little Shop of Found Things did not exist in this book. I loved the characters as well as the story. The pacing was almost perfect–maybe a little slow in a couple of places, but not enough for me to stop reading or caring.
This jumps around a bit between different times, and I thought, surely when we get to one of these other times, I will stop caring about the plot then. Not so. I thought the story was fascinating in each time! I enjoyed the way a famous villain from history was worked seamlessly into the plot. It just fit so well, and there was so much detail surrounding it that made it mesh so perfectly. The location, the nature of the job and the people involved, plus the character of the book’s villain, all went so perfectly together. I even loved the romantic side plot. It was just so sweet, and so tragic (not a spoiler–you know right away that it is doomed to fail).
Brackston is back off of my blacklist now. And I will definitely be reading at least the sequel to this, and possibly more of her work after that.
I enjoyed Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood oh-so-much! It had the perfect faerie-tale vibe that reminded me of the flavor of gingerbread. I don’t really know what I meant by that statement, but it was coming out of my brain at 140 WPM and I decided to let it free-flow because why not? I think what I meant was that it had the same sweet, dark, and spicy vibe of the witch’s house in the Hansel and Gretel story, and also happens to be one of my favorite flavors. I am eagerly anticipating the other books in this series.
I also loved that this didn’t take a surprise smutty direction like so many other modern YA fantasies seem to do. In fact, I’m not even certain there’s any romance at all. (I think it may be headed that way, but this book was more about friendship than anything.) These characters had more important matters to concern themselves with.
I was enthralled by all the mystery and creepiness leading up to the Hinterland. And then once we got there, I simply loved the creativity and reading about all of the “refugees”. I loved the various eerie tales from the Hinterland, as well as the so-called “memory palace” we got to see. (That reminded me a bit of the movie When Marnie Was There, which I also love. I was picturing the house a lot like that one.)
I will say I was not the biggest fan of Alice. I think she has room to grow. But in most of this book she was pretty insufferable and reminded me too much of another MC with a chip on her shoulder I disliked–Alex from Ninth House. That’s why I am giving this four stars instead of five. I did enjoy most of the other characters quite a bit!
This has a great setup for a sequel, which I know already exists. So I look forward to reading that soon.
Random: I spent most of this book thinking the title was somehow inspired by that unsolved mystery of the girl who was put in a hollow tree. I finally looked it up and remembered that was actually a wych elm, not a “hazel wood”. And now I see there is a novel inspired by that by Tana French, which I will have to read.
Sci-Fi
Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It was not your typical YA post-apocalyptic story with tons of action and romance. Instead, this was a slow story about a family’s day-to-day survival and what they did to (barely) survive as they gradually starve. (I won’t spoil it by saying whether they or any of them starve to death. I’ll just say there is a certain amount of light at the end of the tunnel that makes it all worthwhile.) This is a story about love and loyalty among family and friends, told through a teenage girl’s journals. It was incredibly bittersweet and heartwarming. And you really grow to love all of the characters as they make sacrifices for each other day in and day out through an impossible situation.
I won’t pretend the science was at all realistic. But that’s okay. It really was not the point.
I’m so happy I read this.
YA
Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian’s Burn for Burn took me a little while to get into. But once I did, I could not put it down! This is not my typical genre, but I’m giving it a shot. Once I was able to get past my snobby mental block of ‘This is for teenagers and it is too far below your reading level’, it just turned into a serious guilty pleasure! Who doesn’t love a good underdog revenge story? And I loved watching the three main characters gradually become friends. It even had hints of some paranormal stuff going on, so that was fun.
I liked that the girls were all very distinct from one another. Too often that ends up not being the case in books with multiple perspectives.
I’m going to at least read the second book and probably the third if that one doesn’t let me down. So I look forward to seeing what happens next!
If you enjoyed this review and think we have similar taste in books, you may want to check out the books I read last year.
Leave a Reply