I’d like to start out this post by saying that this year was actually a pretty great reading year – I didn’t read THAT MANY books that I completely disliked or couldn’t finish. But, of course, there were some – and some that I was very much not expecting to be so disappointed by. This post is highlighting those books – the ones I expected to love but was let down by in one way or another. I have to make the disclaimer that I DO NOT THINK these are bad books, and I COMPLETELY respect those who enjoyed or even loved the books below. Sometimes reading tastes don’t align, and that’s okay! I’d actually love to know if you disagree with any of my opinions below – if you enjoyed one of the books, what was it that worked for you?
Title: The Sun is Also a Star Author: Nicola Yoon Genre: Contemporary My Rating: 2 stars
This book, although not my lowest-rated book of the year, I consider to be my biggest disappointment because I whole-heartedly thought I’d love it. The story follows two strangers, Daniel and Natasha, who meet in New York City and develop an unlikely relationship over the span of a single day. My problems with the book included the pacing (SO slow, with choppy chapters) and the love story (completely unrealistic in my opinion). Although I typically don’t mind character-focused, slice-of-life type stories, this one just did not work for me – I was left bored and unsatisfied!
Title: Not All Migrate Author: Krystynna Byers Genre: Contemporary My Rating: 1 star
I had received this book as an eARC on Netgalley, and I was really disappointed to not connect with the story and have to leave my dissatisfied review. This book follows a man who has lost his wife and two daughters in a car accident and is informed that his wife had an unknown drug in her system at the time of the crash. He sets out to find out what the drug was and who supplied it to her, but ends up addicted himself (not a spoiler – the addiction part is essentially the entire book). The premise was completely unbelievable to me and the writing of the book was so graphic and strange that it took everything in me to complete the book at all. I said in my inital review that although this book could be entertaining to someone, I’m just not sure who that someone is – definitely not me or anyone looking for a traditional thriller.
Title: Appalachian Book of the Dead Author: Dale Neal Genre: Contemporary (?) My Rating: DNF’d/1 star
This year, I only DNF’d two books – this unfortunately was one of them. I don’t even know how to describe the genre or the plot of this book, it was that unusual. I’ve seen it described as a “metaphysical thriller,” but I’m not really sure what that means. The book was very slow-paced and ominous, but there was no clear plot that I could distinguish by the time I quit reading about halfway through. I had received a physical ARC of this book from the publisher, but even that could not motivate me to finish this strange story.
Title: The Lost Man Author: Jane Harper Genre: Thriller My Rating: DNF’d/1 star
This was the second of two books I couldn’t finish this year. I had picked it up as part of my Goodreads Choice Award Thriller Nominees reading challenge, but after attempting to read it both physically and as an audiobook, decided it wasn’t worth suffering through. The plot follows two men searching for answers after the mysterious death of their third brother, but the writing is extremely slow-paced and focuses heavily on the atmosphere of the Australian desert that the story is set in. I found absolutely nothing that intrigued me from the start of the book, and after reading in other reviews that the pace never picks up, decided I could put the book down with the decision that it was not the thriller for me. I know Jane Harper is a very popular writer, so I’m sure this book as well as her others appeal to many readers, but I don’t foresee myself racing to pick up her books again anytime soon.
Title: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Author: Stephen R. Covey Genre: Nonfiction My Rating: 2 stars
This book is highly regarded as a nonfiction classic, an authority on the topic of forming habits and becoming successful in a business sense as well as in one’s personal life. I was excited to soak up all of the knowledge, but very quickly found it to be outdated, preachy, and long-winded. I have read a number of other nonfiction books that seemed to say the same things that this book did, but in much more concise and impactful ways.
Title: The Unhoneymooners Author: Christina Lauren Genre: Contemporary Romance My Rating: 2 stars
This was a VERY popular contemporary romance book this year, and I had no reason not to believe that I’d love it as much as everyone else. What came out of it was the realization that I prefer this “rom-com” type story in movie form MUCH more than in book form – I think it just took way too much of my time for a story that is so overly cheesy and lacks any real substance. I can totally respect that other people might connect with this type of light-hearted story, but now I know better before jumping into them myself.
Title: My Lovely Wife Author: Samantha Downing Genre: Thriller My Rating: 2 stars
Another very hyped book this year, My Lovely Wife is a thriller that follows a couple that murders women as a way to spice up their marriage. Again, I had no reason to think that I wouldn’t love it, but after completion I have concluded that I don’t enjoy stories from a serial killer’s perspective. I didn’t find anything suspenseful or surprising about the story and was expecting more from the amazing thriller this was supposed to be.
Title: Someone We Know Author: Shari Lapena Genre: Thriller My Rating: 2 stars
This was the third Shari Lapena thriller that I’ve read, and unfortunately my least favorite. The story follows several members within a neighborhood where one woman turns up dead and everyone starts pointing fingers and discovering secrets that everyone else is hiding. I had a number of problems with the tropes used, including cheating/lying between every married couple involved, and the fact that every single person had a motive to be the killer made the ending unsurprising and unsatisfying.
Title: One Nation Under Taught Author: Dr. Vince M. Bertram Genre: Nonfiction My Rating: 2 stars
This book, which I read way back in January, had me really excited – as an engineer myself, I can totally see the need for more graduates of STEM fields and think that a book designed to educte on that topic is a great idea. However, this book ended up being a 200-page advertisement for Project Lead the Way, one program that – although I see its merit – claims to have all of the answers and be ready to solve all of America’s education problems, and it just rubbed me the wrong way.
I was super excited to read this book, a dystopian novel about two separate but nearly identical experiments being done on boys and girls to study how being raised completely isolated from the opposite sex would impact their development and potential for success. A great premise, but unfortunately I was disappointed by the execution of the book because of its slow pace, limited surprising elements, and too-late action.
With that, I’m actually glad to be done writing this post – I don’t enjoy talking badly about books or revisiting all of the books that left me with disappointed feelings – I’d much rather talk about favorites! So my next post will highlight my top 10 FAVORITE books that I read in 2019. Feel free to comment and let me know (or leave a link to your own post) either your favorite or most disappointing books that you read this year!
Earlier this week I posted about 15 new releases I want to read in 2020 – but I definitely have a long list of backlist titles I want to get to, as well. New releases can be fun, especially when they’re super hyped online, but backlist titles also hold a lot of merit and I think it’s important to keep up with a mix of old and new titles. Below are 20 books released BEFORE 2020 that I want to make a priority to get to next year!
Contemporaries
Boomer1 – Daniel Torday – 2018
Undead Girl Gang – Lily Anderson – 2018
Love, Stargirl – Jerry Spinelli – 2007
Dress Codes for Small Towns – Courtney C. Stevens – 2017
How to Walk Away – Katherine Center – 2018
Beartown – Fredrik Backman – 2017
November 9 – Colleen Hoover – 2015
Eliza and Her Monsters – Francesca Zappia – 2017
The Nowhere Girls – Amy Reed – 2017
Birthday – Meredith Russo – 2019
Red White, and Royal Blue – Casey McQuiston – 2019
Autoboyography – Christina Lauren – 2017
Nonfictions
Men Explain Things to Me – Rebecca Solnit – 2014
The Radium Girls – Kate Moore – 2017
The 4-Hour Workweek – Timothy Ferriss – 2007
Historical Fiction
City of Girls – Elizabeth Gilbert – 2019
Science Fiction
Middlegame – Seanan McGuire – 2019
Thrillers
Neverworld Wake – Marisha Pessl – 2018
The Cabin at the End of the World – Paul Tremblay – 2018
Sawkill Girls – Claire Legrand – 2018
Have you read any of these books? Have I been missing out having not read them yet, or could I skip them to make way for 2020 new releases?
Here’s a fun (read: discouraging) activity: go through your entire owned TBR list and count just how many books you thought you would have read by now but haven’t. I don’t consider my book collection huge by any means, but I was astounded to find that I have 56 books currently sitting on my shelves that I had every intention of reading this year. Although I will be carrying them into 2020, I’m declaring now that any books on this list that I haven’t read by the end of 2020 will be donated. In my opinion, there’s no reason to hoard stacks and stacks of books that remain unread year after year, so in order to keep my number of unread books low, I made the list below.
See the below list for all of the books I currently own and have not read – and plan to read within the next year. This list does not contain the 12 books I plan to read in December (read that post here), but it does contain all of the others.
Classics (8)
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
Hatchet – Gary Paulson
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Metamorphasis – Franz Kafka
The Road – Cormac McCarthy
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Go Set a Watchman – Harper Lee
Contemporaries (9)
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
It Ends With Us – Colleen Hoover
Peak – Roland Smith
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants – Ann Brashares
The Second Summer of the Sisterhood – Ann Brashares
Girls in Pants – Ann Brashares
Forever in Blue – Ann Brashares
Truly Madly Guilty – Liane Moriarty
Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom
Dystopias (1)
The Limit – Kristen Landon
Fantasies (1)
Carry On – Rainbow Rowell
Historical Fictions (3)
Phantoms in the Snow – Kathleen Benner Duble
The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens
Mystery/Thrillers (10)
All the Missing Girls – Megan Miranda
Good as Gone – Amy Gentry
Pictures in the Dark – Gillian Cross
The Casual Vacancy – J.K. Rowling
The Crossing Places – Elly Griffiths
The Cuckoo’s Calling – Robert Galbraith
The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
The Lying Game – Ruth Ware
The Silent Wife – A.S.A. Harrison
Nonfictions (6)
Attached – Amir Levine and Rachel Heller
Blue Like Jazz – Donald Miller
Good to Great – Jim Collins
The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands – Dr. Laura Schlessinger
The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell
Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
Poetry (1)
Where the Sidewalk Ends – Shel Silverstein
Science Fiction (1)
Do You Dream of Terra-Two? – Temi Oh
Sports (16)
A Coach’s Life – Dean Smith
Beyond Basketball – Mike Krzyzewski
Cubs Essential – Lew Freedman
Gold Dust – Chris Lynch
Hate Mail From Cheerleaders – Rick Reilly
Million Dollar Throw – Mike Lupica
One Yard Short – Les Steckel and Rob Suggs
Our Boys – Joe Drape
QB1 – Mike Lupica
Quiet Strength – Tony Dungy
The 33-Year-Old Rookie – Chris Coste
The Boy Who Saved Baseball – John H. Ritter
The Jordan Rules – Sam Smith
The Power of Negative Thinking – Bob Knight
Toughness – Jay Bilas
Travel Team – Mike Lupica
I would love input as to which of these books I should prioritize and read right away in 2020. Let me know if you have read any of them and your thoughts! If not, what are the top books you own and want to get to at some point in 2020?
Hello December! I wish I could express just how excited I am for this month – Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, and this year it will be even more special because I am expecting a baby ANY day now! I can’t wait to see how much better this little Christmas baby makes the holiday season, which for me is already so full of love and family and joy.
BUT… in the back of my mind I still know that I have SO MANY BOOKS that I want to get in before the end of the year. I know that between the holiday craziness and a newborn baby I will DEFINITELY not get to most of the books that I want to, but I’ve picked 12 that I WANT to and feasibly think I CAN read before the end of the month – and as an extra little challenge, I named this post 12 Books before Christmas so that I can hopefully spend the last full week of the year completely enjoying my family without stressing or thinking about any reading goals I have yet to complete š
There’s not much of a rhyme or reason to this TBR, but I have included the 12 books I want to read below with the short blurbs on why!
Title: Station Eleven Author: Emily St. John Mandel Genre: Dystopia
Why I Want to Read It: These first two books on my list are a little bit of a cheat – I’ve actually finished them both already. (It’s the 4th of the month, and every day counts!!) This is a book that I had seen hyped all over the internet, claiming to be a creepy, sort of hard-hitting post-apocolyptic dystopia novel about a traveling Shakespeare troupe navigating a world whose population has been wiped out by 99.99%. I’ll save my full thoughts for my December wrap-up, but unfortunately this one did not live up to the hype for me!
Title: Artemis Author: Andy Weir Genre: Science Fiction
Why I Want to Read It: Again, I already have read it – but this had recently been added to my shelves as a thrift store find. I loved both the book and the movie of The Martian by Andy Weir, so I thought this book by him might be worth a try. Again, full thoughts to come, but I was so extremely pleased to find that I loved this one just as much!
Title: An Unwanted Guest Author: Shari Lapena Genre: Thriller
Why I Want to Read It: I have read all three other books by Shari Lapena, including her 2019 release Someone We Know, and to be honest my opinion on her is still up in the air. I believe the three other books I have rated 2, 3, and 4 stars – so I’m hoping this one will help me solidify my thoughts on whether I connect with Shari Lapena’s writing or not!
Title: The Dilemma Author: B.A. Paris Genre: Thriller
Why I Want to Read It: Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris is one of my all-time favorite thrillers – I absolutely loved the writing, the story, and the way I was left thinking about it for hours/days/months after finishing it. I was lucky enough to receive an eARC of this book, set to be released in January, and I’m pumped to read more of her writing in this new thriller that I really don’t know anything about.
Title: The Bridge of Little Jeremy Author: Indrajit Garai Genre: Contemporary
Why I Want to Read It: I was sent a physical copy of this book by a representative of the author in return for a review, based on my feelings about Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. I expect this book to similarly be very character-focused and potentially hard-hitting, which I’m excited to get into and share my thoughts about this previously unknown-to-me book and author.
Title: Until We Meet Again Author: Michael Korenblit and Kathleen Janger Genre: Historical Fiction
Why I Want to Read It: This one’s an interesting one – this book actually belongs to my husband, who recommended I read it several months ago. I haven’t gotten around to it yet because it seems to be quite out of my comfort zone, but I’d really like to fit it in by the end of the year so that I can relay my thoughts back to him š
Title: The Death of Mrs. Westaway Author: Ruth Ware Genre: Thriller
Why I Want to Read It: This year Ruth Ware became one of my favorite thriller authors after reading only one book – The Turn of the Key – and I now want to get to ALL of her backlist titles. I’ve been told that they aren’t as good as her most recent release, but I’d like to make that decision for myself – starting with this one!
Why I Want to Read It: I read The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis early on this year and gave it 4 stars – I really connected with the hard-hitting story, complex characters, and McGinnis’s style of writing. Since this seems to have more of that hard-hitting subject matter, I have high hopes that I’ll enjoy this book just as much.
Title: Everything I Never Told You Author: Celeste Ng Genre: Contemporary
Why I Want to Read It: You might see a theme here, but I read Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere this year and – spoiler alert – it’s ending up in my Top 10 of 2019 (post to come!). This is her only other full-length novel to date, and I can’t wait to dive in (pun intended, see the cover) to this one and hopefully love it as well. A bonus is that it’s pretty short and should be easy to squeeze in!
Title: Night Film Author: Marisha Pessl Genre: Thriller
Why I Want to Read It: Marisha Pessl is an author that I have not yet explored yet but think that I will really love, based on reviews of her books Night Film and Neverworld Wake. This one I just happened to stumble upon in a thrift store, so I picked it up and would love to prioritize it this month!
Title: My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry Author: Fredrik Backman Genre: Contemporary
Why I Want to Read It: One more time – I’ve read one book so far by Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove. That book really surprised me in how much it impacted me by the end, and I hear that that’s what all of his books do. I hope to get to Backman’s entire backlist eventually, but this one by the end of the year will be good enough progress towards that goal for me.
Why I Want to Read It: Gillian Flynn has been hit-or-miss for me with her last two books; I absolutely adored the book and movie of Gone Girl, but then was extremely disappointed in how much I disliked Dark Places. This one will be the tie-breaker – is Gillian Flynn one of my favs, or was Gone Girl an anomoly for me?
Just writing about these books has made me excited all over again to read them – I’d love to hear if you’ve read any of these books before and what you thought of them. If not, what are you planning on reading in December? I realize now that I have absolutely no seasonal reads, and I’m treating this month more like a catch-up month for my physical TBR – are you planning on reading holiday-themed books for the month instead?
Hope everyone has/is having a wonderful holiday season!
If you’re new to my blog or didn’t see my GR Choice Award post from the end of October, I decided this year to take a page out of Booktuber Booksandlala‘s book and read all of the finalists in the Mystery/Thriller category in order to place a fully unbiased vote. Because this is a somewhat daunting task – reading 10 books within the two weeks after the finalists are announced – I decided to make some predictions and get a head start by listing and reading some of the most-hyped thrillers that I’ve seen this year. I’m happy to report that 6 of my predictions actually did end up in the Top 10, and of those I had already read 5 – leaving only 5 more to read within the last two weeks!
The Finalists
Below are the Top 10 Finalists in the Mystery & Thriller category of the Goodreads Choice Awards. I’ve listed them in order of number of rankings on Goodreads, which in my prediction post I also mentioned is most likely the order in which they will get the most votes, ultimately meaning the book with the most ratings will win, regardless of actual average rating. I also included a column to indicate whether each book was in my original predictions list or not.
Title
Author
# Ratings
Avg. Rating
Predicted?
The Silent Patient
Alex Michaelides
166,647
4.05
Yes
An Anonymous Girl
Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
64,071
3.84
Yes
My Sister, the Serial Killer
Oyinkan Braithwaite
61,624
3.78
No
The Turn of the Key
Ruth Ware
44,845
3.99
Yes
The Mother-in-Law
Sally Hepworth
37,190
4.00
No
The Lost Man
Jane Harper
35,686
4.21
Yes
Lock Every Door
Riley Sager
30,158
3.99
Yes
Run Away
Harlan Coben
26,421
4.07
Yes
The Whisper Man
Alex North
21,610
4.10
No
Miracle Creek
Angie Kim
20,253
3.96
No
My Rankings
The great news is that I was successful in my goal – I was able to pick up and give every single book on this list a shot. (The bad news? One of them I DNF’d because of how much I disliked it…). So, I feel VERY confident that I am able to place an unbiased vote in this category, which is a really great feeling! Below is MY personal list of rankings of these books, from my LEAST favorite down to my FAVORITE thriller on the list of finalists, and my vote for best mystery/thriller of the year.
10. The Lost Man by Jane Harper My Rating: 1 star My Thoughts: This book is about two men whose brother turns up dead in the middle of the Australian desert, and the two remaining brothers are left to solve the mystery of his death. Unfortunately I DNF’d this book near the beginning – I tried reading it in physical form and via audiobook, but I just couldn’t get into the story at all. After reading other reviews of the book, it appears that it’s slow-moving throughout the whole book, and I just didn’t think I could push through.
9. My Sister, the Serial Killerby Oyinkan Braithwaite My Rating: 2 stars My Thoughts: This book follows a young woman named Korede whose sister has killed three of her past boyfriends and calls on Korede to clean up her messes and help her cover up her crimes. Although this is one of the most-hyped thrillers of the year, I did not enjoy the characters or story at all. I didn’t find anything shocking (thanks to the title, there’s not much to be surprised by) and there is really no mystery being solved, either. Very disappointing!
8. The Whisper Man by Alex North My Rating: 2 stars My Thoughts: This book is set in a town where, 20 years ago, five young boys were abducted and killed by a man known as the “Whisper Man” because of the way he would sit outside their windows and whisper creepy things in the nights leading up to their disappearances. I thought the premise of this book was very adequately creepy, but ultimately the mystery was pretty unsurprising and unoriginal. I would have loved a few more twists to help the story stand out in my memory a little more!
7. An Anonymous Girlby Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen My Rating: 3 stars My Thoughts: I REALLY wanted to like this book, which is about a young woman who enters a psychological study that she thinks is going to be a one-time-thing, but actually ends up consuming a large part of her daily life after she becomes more involved in the study and the psychologist running it. I was really intrigued by the unique format that this story is told (two different perspectives, one of them told in second-person), but I soon grew bored with it and found myself not caring at all what happened to the characters.
6. Run Away by Harlan Coben My Rating: 3 stars My Thoughts: This book follows Simon, a middle-aged man with three children, the oldest of whom is a daughter who has gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd in college, dating an obvious drug dealer, and when he turns up dead, she runs away and goes missing. Simon is then determined to take matters into his own hands and go searching for his missing daughter. I’m not exactly sure why, but this thriller felt very different to me than other thrillers I usually read. It took a little while to get into, but once I was well into the book, things started clicking and I actually found myself pretty invested in the story. I enjoyed the way things came together in the end, and although not life-changing or a new favorite, this book was a pleasant surprise and a solid read for me.
5. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides My Rating: 3 stars My Thoughts: This was a VERY popular thriller this year, about a woman who killed her husband in their home and hasn’t spoken a single word in the 6 years since the incident. The firt half had me COMPLETELY hooked. I loved the mystery and enjoyed the format in which it was told. By about 3/4 of the way through the book, I had some theories that ultimately ended up being correct, which did take away from some of the enjoyment of the ending for me. But, I do very much understand the hype of this book and why so many people have considered it their favorite thriller of the year.
4. The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth My Rating: 4 stars My Thoughts: This book shifts back and forth between the perspectives of a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law with a rocky relationship. When one day the mother-in-law turns up dead, everyone in the family begins to wonder about what secrets everyone else has been hiding. Although I actually wouldn’t consider this book a thriller, and the mystery aspect is a little weak, I surprisingly still enjoyed the story because of the complex character dynamics. Was it the most exciting book I’ve ever read? No, but I can still appreciate that it had many layers and the little mystery it did have was wrapped up nicely.
3. Miracle Creek by Angie Kim My Rating: 4 stars My Thoughts: This mystery follows the story and court case after an explosion at an oxygen-treatment center leaves two people dead, a handful of people injured, and a bunch of people looking suspicious as the mystery is revealed of what ultimately caused the disaster. I wouldnāt call it your typical thriller ā much more of a mystery, as the tragic event happens right away and the entire rest of the book is filling in the pieces of what really happened. A good majority of the book is told through the court case following, and although I wouldnāt normally pin myself as a courtroom-mystery-lover, I actually did really enjoy this story as a whole, including the courtroom scenes and way of revealing the mystery.
2. Lock Every Door by Riley Sager My Rating: 4 stars My Thoughts: Another extremely-hyped thriller this year, this book follows Jules, a young woman hired to be an apartment-sitter for a luxury apartment in Manhattan. Soon after starting, she starts to notice weird and creepy things about the apartment’s occupants and the building itself, making her question whether the arrangement is too good to be true. This one definitely lived up to all of its hype – the atmosphere is just so creepy and intriguing and the mystery and reveals were well-crafted. Most people either love or hate the big twist/reveal at the end, but I definitely fall on the love side and think that Riley Sager really can do no wrong at this point.
1. The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware My Rating: 5 stars My Thoughts: This book follows Rowan, a young woman who has been hired by a wealthy family to be a nanny caring for the three children living at home. Told in letter-form, after-the-fact, the story is told from Rowan’s perspective as she tries to defend herself from the murder of one of the children. So many bloggers and Booktubers are calling this book the perfect thriller, and I have to agree – I loved everything about it. The writing and atmosphere are so well-done, and I truly did not know which direction the mystery was going to go. If you have not read this book and are looking to pick up one thriller from this year, I think this is the one to choose.
So clearly, my pick for best thriller is The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware! Again, I thought it was really enjoyable to read all of these thrillers throughout the last couple of months and be able to place my vote having read (or tried to read) every single book on the list.
I’d love to know if anyone else tried this challenge this year, but even if not – which book did you vote for in the Goodreads Choice Awards?
In my October TBR post, I said that this month was ALLLLL about the thrillers. And it totally was. I ended up reading 15 books in October, 12 of which were mystery/thrillers, and 12 of which Iām predicting could end up on the 2019 Goodreads Choice Awards Mystery & Thriller nominee list (see those predictions here). Iām super proud of meeting my reading goals this month and pleasantly surprised with how many books I loved ā Iād definitely say I found myself some new favorite thrillers this month!
I typically wrap up my reading in chronological order of how I read the books, but this time I think I will start with all of my thrillers, ordered from favorite to least favorite, and then into the non-thrillers at the end.
Brief Summary: This book is about a young woman named Lowen who is hired as a writer to complete the remaining books in a series started by a famous author, Verity Crawford, who suffered an accident that has left her unable to finish her work. In order to perform this job, Lowen agrees to move into the Crawford household for a short period in order to sort through Verityās office to find any notes on the series that may have been previously prepared. Spending so much time in Verityās home and going through her things, Lowen starts to uncover much more about Verity than she ever bargained for ā and thatās really all I want to say about the plot!
My Thoughts: I was so, so, so pleasantly surprised by this book ā I couldnāt put it down! It feels weird to say that I enjoyed reading it, because some parts are so messed up that enjoyment is not quite the right word, but I was completely immersed. Everything from the basic plot to the characters to the pacing I thought was done perfectly, and I personally loved the ending. I do consider it to be a thriller and think itās a little odd that people are arguing that itās notā¦ but as a Colleen Hoover rookie I canāt speak to how different it is from her other books. All I can say is that I was on the edge of my seat reading this book and if Colleen Hoover wants to continue dabbling in the thriller world, I will continue to read.
Title: The Turn of the Key Author: Ruth Ware Genre: Thriller Pages: 0 (audiobook) My Rating: 5 stars
Brief Summary: This book follows Rowan, a young woman who has been hired by a wealthy family as a nanny caring for the three children living at home. The story is actually told in letter-form, after-the-fact, as it is known by the reader that Rowan has been charged for the murder of one of the children, and she is recounting the experience from the beginning to prove her innocence.
My Thoughts: Iām sure most people at this point have heard of this book and all of the hype that surrounds it ā so many book bloggers and Booktubers are calling it the perfect thriller, and I actually would have to agree. The writing and atmosphere of this book are so well done, I truly did not know which direction the story was headed and what the solution to the mystery was going to end up being. I listened to the audiobook and would highly recommend – not only did it help immerse me fully into the story, it also helped me speed through the book as quickly as possible since I was so interested to get to the ending!
Title: The Last Time I Lied Author: Riley Sager Genre: Thriller Pages: 370 My Rating: 5 stars
Brief Summary: This is the second thriller novel written by Riley Sager, and it follows young woman Emma as she returns to the same summer camp that she last attended when she was 15 years old. Her first time at the camp, Emmaās three bunkmates went missing, were never found, and caused the camp to be shut down due to safety concerns for the campers. 15 years later, the camp is reopening and Emma goes back as an instructor with hopes of getting closure for her three friends lost all those years ago.
My Thoughts: I feel like this book has been SEVERELY underhyped compared to Riley Sagerās other two thrillers, and I have to say that this one is by far my favorite. I absolutely loved the fun and creepy setting of the summer camp and thought that the mystery, twists, and reveals were smart and ultimately shocking ā at least to me. I felt fully invested in the story and characters and was itching to get to the end so I could get some answers. Although there was one MAJOR plot hole that I noticed (would love to discuss with others that have read it š), I honestly enjoyed the book so much that Iām willing to overlook it and still give it a 5-star rating.
Title: Lock Every Door Author: Riley Sager Genre: Thriller Pages: 368 My Rating: 4 stars
Brief Summary: This thriller, Riley Sagerās latest release, follows Jules, a young woman hired to be an apartment-sitter for a luxury apartment in Manhattan for six weeks. Although the apartment building is creepy and the job comes with some odd ground rules, the pay is so good that Jules canāt possibly turn the opportunity down. Soon after starting, however, she starts to notice weird things about the apartment and other tenants in the building and questions whether the arrangement is too good to be true.
My Thoughts: Another extremely-hyped thriller that actually lived up to the hype for me. The atmosphere was just as creepy and intriguing as everyone has said, and I think the mystery and reveals were well-crafted. Unfortunately, my reading experience was tainted JUST SLIGHTLY due to the fact that I knowingly spoiled the ending for myself before picking the book up. I think the ending really would have shocked me if I didnāt know what was going on going in, but I still thoroughly enjoyed my reading experience and am already looking forward to Riley Sagerās 2020 release.
Title: The Silent Patient Author: Alex Michaelides Genre: Thriller Pages: 323 My Rating: 3 stars
Brief Summary: This book is told in two perspectives ā one is from Theo, a psychotherapist who is interested in treating Alicia Berenson, a woman who killed her husband in their home and hasnāt spoken a single word in the 6 years since the incident. Theo believes he can get her to speak and finally shed some light on the tragedy, what happened, and whether Alicia is truly guilty of the crime. The second perspective is from Alicia, told through the journal entries she wrote recounting her life and relationship with her husband several months leading up to the incident.
My Thoughts: I went into this book pretty much completely blind to the synopsis, and Iām really glad I did. The first half had me COMPLETELY hooked. I loved the mystery and enjoyed the format in which it was told. By about Ā¾ of the way through the book, I had formed some theories, some of which turned out to be correct. I donāt consider myself a great mystery-solver, nor do I usually try to guess the endings of books, but for this one I just so happened to do so and unfortunately it did take some of the satisfaction out of it for me. I still think itās a good thriller, and understand why so many people have read and loved it, but ultimately not my favorite of the month.
Title: Run Away Author: Harlan Coben Genre: Thriller Pages: 0 (audiobook) My Rating: 3 stars
Brief Summary: This book follows Simon, a middle-aged man with three children, the oldest of whom is a daughter who has gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd after her college experience didnāt quite go according to plan. She is dating an obvious drug dealer, and when he turns up dead, she runs away and goes missing. Simon is then determined to take matters into his own hands and go searching for his daughter, navigating the dark world of drugs and dangerous men that he canāt believe his daughter has been involved with.
My Thoughts: Iām not exactly sure why, but this book felt very different to me than other thrillers I usually read. It could be because Iām unfamiliar with the author, or Iām unfamiliar with following a middle-aged man instead of a 20-something young woman, but something in the tone of this book I felt difficult to connect with, especially at the beginning. But I pushed through (thanks to the audiobook), and about halfway through things started clicking and I finally started to feel invested in the story. I enjoyed the way things came together in the end, thought the mystery was smart and well-revealed, and although I donāt think I found a new favorite author or thriller, am satisfied with the read.
Title: Two Can Keep a Secret Author: Karen M. McManus Genre: Thriller Pages: 329 My Rating: 3 stars
Brief Summary: This book follows high-schooler Ellery as she and her twin brother move to Echo Ridge, a small town that their mother grew up in and their aunt went missing from at age 17. Soon after arrival, one of the teachers at the high school turns up dead and a public threat is made by an anonymous person that one of the homecoming queen nominees will be next, and the entire town is left fearing for the safety of themselves and everyone around them.
My Thoughts: Unfortunately I donāt have too much to say about this bookā¦ YA thrillers are not my favorite to begin with, and this one didnāt do anything particularly special to stand out in my mind. I wouldnāt say that anything about it was bad ā I actually think the ending was pretty good ā but the plot
Title: An Anonymous Girl Author: Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen Genre: Thriller Pages: 0 (audiobook) My Rating: 3 stars
Brief Summary: This book is about a young woman who enters a psychological study that she thinks is going to be a one-time-thing but actually ends up consuming a large part of her daily life. Although she doesnāt think she is in any immediate danger, she starts to question the motives of the individual running the study and wondering if the payment, although generous, is worth having her own morality scrutinized in such detail.
My Thoughts: I wanted to like this book, and for the first half I was intrigued by the unique format of the story, but ultimately I grew bored with it and found myself not caring what happened to the characters. I think that Iāll soon forget most of the details of the book, which to me is a big indicator that it didnāt resonate or impact me much at all.
Title: Someone We Know Author: Shari Lapena Genre: Thriller Pages: 292 My Rating: 3 stars
Brief Summary: This is a domestic thriller following several members of a neighborhood with lots of secrets. When one of the women turns up dead, everyone starts pointing fingers and wondering if they can trust their neighbors, friends, and even own family.
My Thoughts: Ugh… the more I think about this book, the more upset I get about it – 3 stars might be generous. I think the writing is good – Shari Lapena knows how to write in a way to keep you turning the pages – and the mystery is fairly well-crafted…. but there is just so much cheating and lying that it totally goes out of the realm of possibility for me. Not every married person is having an affair and has a burner phone, so it’s annoying when every character in a book is/does. It actually made the ending far less shocking to me, because every person was made out to look shady and had a motive for being the murderer.
Title: The Institute Author: Stephen King Genre: Thriller Pages: 0 (audiobook) My Rating: 2 stars
Brief Summary: This novel is about Luke Ellis, a young boy who is kidnapped in the middle of the night and brought to āThe Institute,ā a compound where several kids are being held captive and studied for their apparent telekinetic or telepathic abilities.
My Thoughts: Although the synopsis of this book sounds right up my alley, I was super disappointed by this book. I really didnāt get much of a thriller/horror vibe at all ā much more of a dystopia/action-type book, but even so I found it to be pretty below average. Not only did I not feel any suspense or pull to the characters and their well-being, but I also found the plot as a whole to be unoriginal and the ending extremely unsatisfying.
Title: My Lovely Wife Author: Samantha Downing Genre: Thriller Pages: 374 My Rating: 2 stars
Brief Summary: This book is said to be āDexter meets Mr. and Mrs. Smithā ā it follows a married couple who, 15 years into their relationship, gets bored and decides to start murdering people to keep their spark alive.
My Thoughts: This thriller, although very well-loved in the book community, was just not for me. I found the first 300 pages just flat-out boring, and by the time things actually got interesting, it all happened and wrapped up way too quickly. I completely understand and agree with the comparison to Dexter ā I personally didnāt enjoy that show either, so itās clearly something with me not caring to watch/read from the serial killerās perspective!
Brief Summary: This book is about J, a boy who has been raised for his entire life in a single building along with 25 other boys without the knowledge or influence of the female gender. A couple of miles away, the very same experiment is being done on a set of 26 girls raised without ever coming into contact with a male. As the kids grow older, some of them start to ask questions and the experiment authorities start to fear failure of the experiment theyāve been working so long to keep intact.
My Thoughts: Again, the premise of this book sounds just like something I would love, but I found myself completely underwhelmed by the execution. I would not consider it to be a horror or thriller in any capacity, as there was no suspense or thrill in the entire first 300 pages. The last bit of the book, although action-packed, didnāt have me invested enough to care about the outcome.
Brief Summary: This sci-fi book is all about memories. We follow two different individuals, the first being Barry, a New York City cop investigating a new disorder showing up in individuals called False Memory Syndrome, where suffererās minds are suddenly infiltrated by memories of entire lives they have not lived, causing some of them to go mad and eventually resort to killing themselves to make the false memories stop. The other main character is Helena, a researcher studying the effects of dementia and Alzheimerās and working on a solution to allow those suffering to preserve memories to be revisited later, when memory loss causes them to forget the most precious people and moments in their lives.
My Thoughts: I love love love Blake Crouchās sci-fi writing. I loved Dark Matter when I read it earlier this year, and I think I loved this one even more because of how much I enjoyed the characters themselves. I really appreciate how Blake Crouchās plots and science elements are just enough to keep your mind reeling, but not too much so that you feel lost or stupid for not fully understanding (it is still fiction, after all). This book doesnāt necessarily have much more twists and turns, so I wouldnāt call it a mystery/thriller, but thatās not what I wanted out of it so I was completely satisfied with the story and complex journey that these characters were on. Highly recommend to fans of Dark Matter, highly donāt recommend to anyone who didnāt care for that book ā I found them to be very similar in a lot of ways.
Brief Summary: This book follows several different members of a community impacted by a school shooting. It dives into all of the charactersā (including the shooter himself) relationships, upbringings, and understandings of the world both before and after the incident, revealing insights and asking questions about humanity at its core.
My Thoughts: This is definitely a tough book to review because of its highly sensitive subject matter, but I have to say that I appreciate the intent of this book to show that everybodyās life is complex ā whether youāre a popular kid, a well-established working adult, a loner, or someone in-between, everyone has highs and lows that no one else can possibly understand. With that, everyone ā even a āmonsterā capable of shooting another human ā has loved ones and redeeming human qualities, too. Not every issue is black and white, and not every person can be tagged as good or evil. Outside of the hard-hitting stuff, I found his book to be pretty entertaining but maybe a bit too long. It switches between character perspectives and timelines often, which was sometimes hard to keep straight, and I didnāt love the ending, but again itās hard to say that this book is overall good or bad when its intent seems to be just to get you to think a little deeper about things you may judge prematurely.
Title: Through a Daughterās Eyes Author: Mary DeJong Genre: Memoir Pages: 123 My Rating: 5 stars
Brief Summary: This nonfiction book goes back and forth between memories and written accounts of the authorās life watching her father battle cancer. It captures some of her happiest memories, playing basketball with her dad and playing at the park with her best friends, and some of her worst, getting the news that her dad has passed away and standing at her fatherās funeral as a middle-school student.
My Thoughts: Full disclosure, this is absolutely a biased review as I went to high school with the author of this book and know the community that was impacted by this loss. But with that, I think that this book is as emotional and powerful as it gets, even for being so short in length. I loved the format and getting the different timelines and perspectives and was totally immersed. I feel like after reading this book Iāve been given some new perspective on family and life and really appreciate that.
I’m extremely happy with the reading I got done in October, and I’m happy to say that I still feel motivated going into November – which is good, considering my ambitious November TBR. I’d love to know if you’ve read any of the books above or what your reading plans are for November – we’re getting down to crunch time for finishing everything we want by the end of the year!!
You know what time of the year it is…. Goodreads Choice Award time! If I’m not mistaken, I believe the nominees for the 2019 GR Choice Awards will be announced tomorrow, with multiple voting rounds going on until winners are announced in early December.
This year I thought it would be super fun to take a page out of Booksandlala‘s book (AKA my favorite Booktuber, check her out if like Booktube videos and somehow haven’t found her already!) and read all of the nominees in the Mystery & Thriller category.
However, me being me, I had to take it one step further and try to get a little head start by predicting the books that I think will be nominated and ultimately win the category. I wanted to release this list today, so that when nominees are announced tomorrow I can see how many I got correct and how many I missed š
So read on if you’re interested in my predictions, my rationale for selecting them, and my ratings & rankings for the ones I have already read.
How the Awards Work
For those not familiar with the Goodreads Choice Awards in general, I thought I’d briefly explain the awards and voting schedule.
The Goodreads Choice Awards are a set of popular-vote book awards voted on by the users of the Goodreads app/website. The awards are separated by category, most of them being genre-related (Fiction, Mystery/Thriller, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, etc.), with some additional categories including Debut Author and Best of the Best. 2019 will be the 10th year of the awards, and the categories seem to change slightly from year-to-year. There are a number of rules for what books can be nominated for the awards, which I was easily able to find on the Goodreads website, but the major criteria are that the books must have been released between November 16, 2018 and November 15, 2019, books can be nominated for only one genre category, and opening round nominees must have an average rating of 3.5 or higher (although write-in votes can have any rating).
The Opening Round of the awards typically starts on the last Tuesday of October (this year will be tomorrow, October 29th) and lasts for 6 days. It consists of 15 nominees selected by Goodreads based on titles shelved under each category, average rating, and number of ratings. Voters can vote for any of the 15 nominees OR write in a vote for any book of their choosing.
The Semifinal Round begins the following Tuesday (November 5th this year) and lasts for 6 more days. It consists of the 15 original nominees plus the 5 most-written-in titles to make up a list of 20 nominees. Voters can vote for any of the 20 nominees on the list.
The Final Round of voting begins the following Tuesday (November 12th) and last for 14 days. This round consists of the top 10 nominees determined by the Semifinal Round. Voters can vote for any of these top 10 books.
And finally, the winners for each category of the Goodreads Choice Awards are announed on the first Tuesday of December, which this year falls on December 3rd.
My Mystery & Thriller Predictions
As I mentioned, the selection process for opening-round nominees is slightly unclear, but we do know it involves a book’s average rating, its number of total ratings, and the genre that it is shelved most commonly as. With this information, I went in and looked up all of the thrillers I could find and think of and listed them based on number of ratings. I also made sure to look at authors with books previously nominated for this award because repeat nominations (for authors with new books) is common. Filtering out books with an average rating of less than 3.5, below is my predicted Top 15/Opening Round nominees.
#
Title
Author
# of Ratings
Avg Rating
Pub Date
1
The Silent Patient
Alex Michaelides
148,971
4.05
Feb 2019
2
Verity
Colleen Hoover
61,442
4.37
Dec 2018
3
An Anonymous Girl
Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
60,705
3.85
Jan 2019
4
The Turn of the Key
Ruth Ware
35,635
4.00
Sep 2019
5
Recursion
Blake Crouch
34,545
4.21
Jun 2019
6
The Lost Man
Jane Harper
33,784
4.21
Feb 2019
7
Watching You
Lisa Jewell
31,792
3.95
Dec 2018
8
My Lovely Wife
Samantha Downing
31,601
3.92
Mar 2019
9
The Institute
Stephen King
27,675
4.27
Sep 2019
10
Lock Every Door
Riley Sager
26,214
4.01
Jul 2019
11
Two Can Keep a Secret
Karen M. McManus
25,169
3.98
Jan 2019
12
Run Away
Harlan Coben
24,650
4.08
Mar 2019
13
Before She Knew Him
Peter Swanson
20,135
3.84
Mar 2019
14
The Last House Guest
Megan Miranda
17,138
3.59
Jun 2019
15
The Night Olivia Fell
Christina McDonald
12,191
3.89
Feb 2019
And some titles I think might come up as write-ins:
16
Someone We Know
Shari Lapena
11,658
3.98
Jul 2019
17
Wilder Girls
Rory Power
10,714
3.66
Jul 2019
18
I Know Who You Are
Alice Feeney
9,886
3.41
May 2019
19
The Night Before
Wendy Walker
6,616
3.69
May 2019
20
The Family Upstairs
Lisa Jewell
4,046
4.18
Aug 2019
21
The Nanny
Gilly MacMillan
3,277
3.81
Sep 2019
22
Inspection
Josh Malerman
2,859
3.45
Mar 2019
My Pick/Ratings So Far
Of the 22 books I listed above, I have read 11. Below is my personal ranked list of these titles from my favorite to least favorite – tune into my October wrap-up in a couple of days for some more in-depth thoughts of almost all of them!
Verity – Colleen Hoover – 5 stars I absolutely loved this book’s premise and execution – very suspenseful, great twist and ending!
The Turn of the Key – Ruth Ware – 5 stars Super atmospheric and suspenseful, enjoyed the mystery and characters, satisfying ending.
Lock Every Door – Riley Sager – 4 stars Also super atmospheric and suspenseful, I enjoyed the reveals even though I spoiled this book for myself!
The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides – 3 stars Amazing premise, loved the format, first half of book was 5 stars but twist was predictable and ending unsatisfying.
Run Away – Harlan Coben – 3 stars Took a while to get into, overall good mystery and satisfying ending.
The Last House Guest – Megan Miranda – 3 stars Easy read, pretty good twist and reaveals, ultimately forgettable.
Two Can Keep a Secret – Karen M. McManus – 3 stars Quick read, nothing outstanding, YA thrillers are generally not my favorite and this one followed that trend.
An Anonymous Girl – Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen – 3 stars Intriguing beginning but grew bored with the storyline, not surprised by the twists, not invested in the characters by the end.
The Institute – Stephen King – 2 stars Very long, not suspenseful in my opinion, underwhelming ending.
My Lovely Wife – Samantha Downing – 2 stars Did not find the serial killer perspective interesting, not suspenseful at all, not invested in characters.
Inspection – Josh Malerman – 2 stars Great premise but had some weird focuses/tangents, not suspenseful, action came too late in the story for me to feel invested.
But with that, my predicted winner is overwhelmingly The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. Lala does a really great job in her video from last year explaining that the winner of these awards is almost never the book with the highest rating on the nominee list – it is usually the book with the most ratings – and The Silent Patient is far and away the most-rated book on the list. I can’t wait to find out if my predictions are correct!
I would love to hear some additional opinions on this topic – are you a fan of the Goodreads Choice Awards, do you have any predictions for nominees or winners, and have you read any of the books on my prediction list?
I plan to post some updates throughout the voting periods following the nominees and trying to read any that I have not yet read. Also let me know if you want to join me in that challenge!
In my October TBR post, I announced that I want to read ALL THE THRILLERS this month š okay, not all of them, but a lot of them. I had 10 on my initial list, and hoping to get to even more than that if I can.
What better time to participate in a spooky readathon to motivate me to keep chugging through that list? Below are the challenges created by Booktuber Booksandlala, who created and is hosting Spookathon from October 14th-20th. The overarching goal is to read as many thrillers as possible throughout that week, but there are 5 specific challenges to also hit:
Read a thriller
Read a book with red on the cover
Read a book with a spooky word in the title
Read a book with a spooky setting
Read something you wouldn’t normally read
My TBR right now consists of 3 books, which I can double up to make hit all of the challenges. I really like to go into my thrillers blind, so instead of any type of synopsis Iāll just share what I DO know about the books (if anything) and a short explanation on how they complete the challenges.
Title: Two Can Keep a Secret Author: Karen M. McManus Challenges Hit: 1, 2, 3
I know close to nothing about this book, but have seen it floating around the bookternet enough for it to have made its way onto my TBR – bonus that it hits 3 challenges as a thriller with red words and the spooky word “secret” in the title!
Title: Lock Every Door Author: Riley Sager Challenges Hit: 1, 4
I am so excited to finally get to read this book! I have recently read and enjoyed Riley Sager’s other two thrillers and have heard that this one is even better. This takes place in a big, creepy apartment building, fulfilling the spooky setting challenge #4!
Title: Run Away Author: Harlan Coben Challenges Hit: 1, 5
This is the book I know the least about – I consider it to fill challenge #5 because this is an author I have never heard of and never would have picked up without having previously done research on books that have a chance to be nominated for Goodread’s Thriller category in about a month.
I’d love to know who else is participating in Spookathon this year and what’s on your TBR! Or, have you read any of these three books?
I am loving fall so far and all the inspiration and motivation it’s giving me to keep reading š This month I read 11 books – while that’s not my highest of the year, I’m still very happy with that amount and really happy with the books themselves that I was able to complete! Without too much of an intro, let’s go ahead and get into the wrap-up!
Title: Golden State Author: Ben H. Winters Genre: Science Fiction/Dystopia Pages: 319 My Rating: 4 stars
Brief Summary: This book takes place in a futuristic society where lying is among the very worst crimes a person can commit. We follow Lazlo, a member of this societyās āSpeculative Service,ā as he enforces the laws requiring citizens to tell the truth at all times.
My Thoughts: This is a WILD ride of a bookā¦ at first it seems clearly dystopian, then it turns into sort of a mystery/thriller, and then it erupts into complete chaos. I didnāt know who was good and who was bad, who and what I was supposed to believe, and I CERTAINLY didnāt know what to expect from the ending. Not sure Iām completely satisfied with how it wrapped up, but it had/has my mind reeling, and I really enjoy that. Aside from the ever-twisting plot, I really enjoyed reading about the nuances of this society ā for example, finding out that fiction books are outlawed because of their obvious deviation from the true world, and that sarcasm is considered okay as long as all parties understand that the speaker isnāt deliberately trying to mislead the listener. Overall a great read, and I fully recommend to fans of dystopias, science fictions, and government conspiracies.
Title: Appalachian Book of the Dead Author: Dale Neal Genre: Metaphysical Thriller (?) Pages: 250, DNF’d at 100 My Rating: 1 star Publication Date: September 3, 2019 An ARC of this book was provided to me by SFK press, but I am under no obligation to review positively or otherwise. All thoughts are my own and are given voluntarily!
Brief Summary: This book has been described as a āmetaphysical thriller,ā as it starts out by telling the story of an outlaw escaping prison and disappearing into the woods in South Carolina, murdering the unlucky few who get in his way. The book then follows several different individuals living in the near vicinity, paranoid by the news of this escaped convict but otherwise trying to live their lives.
My Thoughts: I just could not get into this oneā¦ I was confused about the tone and vibe of the writing ā very slow-paced and ominous, but no clear plot ā and I didnāt care about or connect to ANY of the characters. I unfortunately DNFād after 100 pages, which is something I have a really hard time doing, but my reading experience was that bad.
Title: Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office Author: Lois P. Frankel Genre: Female Nonfiction Pages: 0 (audiobook) My Rating: 3 stars
Brief Summary: This nonfiction book highlights ā101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make that Sabotage Their Careers,ā and then offers advice and solutions to stopping them.
My Thoughts: The format of this book was enjoyable ā each of the 101 sections/tips were short enough to easily digest, and it offered plenty of convenient stopping points for reading this book in small chunks. Most of the advice was pretty generic, but overall good. Some of it started to rub me the wrong way, however ā her advice to women āwith thin skinā and who find themselves getting overly emotional at work is to just āget over itāā¦ really? That along with a few of the sections on personal appearance felt way over-simplified and a little outdated. Overall not life-changing, and I will not be re-reading or recommending in the future, but there are some helpful nuggets if the reader is open to some tough love.
Title: The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth Author: Alexandra Robbins Genre: Miscellaneous Pages: 448 My Rating: 5 stars
Brief Summary: This book explores āquirk theory,ā or the idea that quirks and things that usually make us feel excluded early in life (like in high school) are exactly the traits that make us unique and successful later in life. The book follows seven individuals from different locations in the U.S. throughout one school year, going in-depth to their feelings and experiences ā particularly how their quirks make them feel in relation to their peers and if there is anything they wish they could change about themselves or their situations. The book alternates between their stories and the authorās expression of different social theories, how they apply to each individual, and what it means for us as the readers and society as a whole.
My Thoughts: This book is really hard to summarize in just a few sentences because of just how in-depth it goes to each of the followed individualsā lives, plus we get constant commentary from the author relating everything back to different psychological and social theories. It was really, really interesting, plus the seven different storylines made it feel like reading a fictional novel. I enjoyed seeing how each of the individualsā lives played out, and I think I gained some insight and confidence that my own quirks should be celebrated and honed, not ignored. I would DEFINITELY recommend this book to high-schoolers or any individuals who are struggling with feeling excluded from their peers.
Title: The Last House Guest Author: Megan Miranda Genre: Thriller Pages: 0 (audiobook) My Rating: 3 stars
Brief Summary: This thriller follows Avery, a young, 20-something woman living in Littleport, Maine and working as a property manager for some of the vacation homes. It follows two timelines, the first being the summer of 2017 when Averyās best friend Sadie is found dead in the water near her familyās vacation home, and the police are questioning everyone near to her to find out whether it was an accident, a suicide, or a murder. The other timeline is one year later, as Avery is dealing with the closing of Sadieās case and wondering whether the police might have gotten it wrong.
My Thoughts: As an audiobook, I generally enjoyed this story. The setting of Maine gave it a great small-town, beachy vibe that was both fun and a little creepy. I canāt say that anything in the story was particularly great or terrible ā a pretty run-of-the-mill thriller. I didnāt predict the ending, but thatās not usually my strength or my goal when reading thrillers. I love to just absorb the story and twists as they come ā but some reviews Iāve seen say that the twists were obvious, and veteran thriller readers may find this story unsatisfying. If youāre a fan of Megan Miranda, I think this one is worth a try, but if you require huge plot twists or over-the-top storylines, you may want to skip this one.
Title: The Art of Fielding Author: Chad Harbach Genre: Sports/Contemporary Pages: 512 My Rating: 5 stars
Brief Summary: This book mainly follows the players on a midwestern collegiate baseball team throughout the senior year of team leader Mike Schwartz and junior year of talent standout Henry Skrimshander. Although baseball takes up a majority of their time, and therefore makes up a lot of the bookās plotline, the characters also deal with plenty of other issues including plummeting self-esteem, messy relationships, and uncertainty about the future.
My Thoughts: Whewā¦ this book. There is so much more than meets the eye. First of all, I will say that although this book centers heavily around baseball, I do not think you have to be a sports fan in order to enjoy it. But if you ARE a baseball fan, you will enjoy it that much more. These characters are SUPER complex and the story is long enough that we get very intimate with their thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, and uncertainties, which I think makes the story extremely relatable and easy to become invested in. Since my husband was the one who originally recommended this book to me, I think I can safely recommend it to both men and women ā anyone who is looking to dive into an emotional story with lots of ups and downs, not unlike what we all go through in life in general.
Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone Author: Laini Taylor Genre: Fantasy Pages:418 My Rating: 4 stars
Brief Summary: This fantasy novel follows Karou, a college student who spends half of her life in the human world, attending art classes and struggling with a nagging ex-boyfriend, and half of her life in a fantastical world, running errands for her part-human-part-animal father figure and receiving wishes in return ā one of which she used to have her hair permanently grow in a bright blue color. She doesnāt know much about this other world, or her own past for that matter, and suddenly things start happening in and around this fantastical world that cause her to start questioning more deeply, which ends up putting her in danger and leaving her wondering if she should abandon the other world to live safely as a human, or risk everything to get the answers sheās been looking for.
My Thoughts: Iāll start out by saying I am NOT a fantasy reader. I prefer my fiction realistic, but I have seen this book and Laini Taylor often highly rated and recommended by members of the book community, so I decided to give it a try ā and I really enjoyed it! I appreciated that I could still identify with the main character as a person (not just a mysterious magical being), and the fantastical world/magic system was complex enough to make for a compelling and satisfying story while also staying simple enough that I could follow and understand it all. I enjoyed the entire story, including the ending, and although I donāt think I will be continuing with this series nor will I only be reading fantasy from now on, Iām glad that I branched out and overall enjoyed my reading experience with this one.Ā
Title: Maybe in Another Life Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid Genre: Contemporary Pages: 342 My Rating: 4 stars
Brief Summary: This book starts with main character Hannah moving back to her hometown of Los Angeles after several years moving from city to city, job to job. On one of her first nights back, she is confronted with a turning-point decision: go home with her best friend after a night of drinking and dancing, or stay out with an old fling possibly wanting to rekindle their romance? The story then splits into two alternate realities, following Hannah as she lives out her life based on the two possible outcomes of this decision.
My Thoughts: I think the concept of alternate realities is really interesting, and I loved reading about both possible outcomes and the compounding effect of one seemingly simple and trivial decision in the main characterās life. It really makes you think about all of the pivotal decisions in your own life and where you might be had you chosen a different path (which I guess is equally exciting and terrifying, depending on your personal outlook). I donāt think any of these characters were overly compelling, and this is not my favorite TJR book to date, but it was a thought-provoking page-turner of a book and I was ultimately left extremely satisfied after reading it.
Title: Final Girls Author: Riley Sager Genre: Thriller Pages: 339 My Rating: 4 stars
Brief Summary: This book follows Quincy, a woman who is twelve years removed from a traumatic life event where she was the sole survivor of a mass murder in a cabin in the woods. This puts her in a very small and exclusive group of women known to the press as āfinal girls,ā something she shares with only two other women in the country. When one of the other final girls is found dead having committed suicide, and the other shows up suddenly at Quincyās doorstep, Quincy is forced to dig up old memories and emotions sheād been repressing in an attempt to form a normal life after such an abnormal past.
My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this as my first Riley Sager read. The idea of uniting sole survivors from mass murders into this kind of āfinal girls clubā is really intriguing, and that was enough to pull me through the first half of this book, which has very little thrill/mystery to it other than the backstories of all of the final girls. Once the twists and mysteries of the present time are revealed, it becomes more of your typical thriller and although it includes one of my least favorite plot devices ā women with memory problems ā I still enjoyed the ride and didnāt predict any part of the ending. So far I see why the Riley Sager hype is there and Iām excited to get to his subsequent books!
Title: After I Do Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid Genre: Contemporary Pages: 336 My Rating: 3 stars
Brief Summary: In this book, a couple that has been married for 9 years finds themselves in a rut in their relationship ā they are constantly fighting, resent each other over small things, and are just generally unhappy being together. They decide to take a one-year break from their marriage, during which they are free to explore other people and relationships and are not allowed to contact each other in any way. The goal is for each of them to re-evaluate the relationship and decide if they want to fight for their marriage or go their separate ways for good.
My Thoughts: As someone who is married, a lot of the elements of this book hit close to home ā itās super common for small, nitpicky items to add up and boil over into a huge fight if you canāt communicate before it gets to that point, and itās definitely difficult to learn to love the other person past the honeymoon phase of the relationship. Other than the interesting ways this couple chose to deal with their issues, I didnāt find myself super invested in the relationship and rooting for one outcome or the other. The couple is very average ā which is what theyāre supposed to be ā but it made the overall story kind of boring and forgettable.
Title: One True Loves Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid Genre: Contemporary Pages: 0 (audiobook) My Rating: 3 stars
Brief Summary: This book follows Emma, a young woman who is celebrating her engagement to a man named Sam when she suddenly gets a phone call from her previous husband, Jesse, who has been presumed dead for 3 years. With this revelation that Jesse is still alive, Emma is caught in between her feelings for both men and wondering if itās possible to love two people at the same time.
My Thoughts: Iāve said it before and Iāll say it again ā Taylor Jenkins Reidās books are so unique and I always find the plots super interesting to think about. I mean, nobody can imagine losing the love of their life early and having to move on to another relationship only to find out that the first person is still alive. However, with this book I just didnāt feel like I had enough time with the characters to be fully invested in any relationship. The story flips back and forth between current-day Emma and Sam, current-day Emma and Jesse, high-school Emma and Sam, and high-school Emma and Jesse ā which are all relationships with completely different dynamics that make it really hard to sink your teeth into one before youāre whisked into another.
As I said in my October TBR, I am sooo excited to get to reading allll the thrillers this upcoming month. Let me know what you read in September and what you have planned for October!
In preparation for this TBR, I went onto Goodreads and made an Excel list of all of the thrillers I can think of with their respective ratings and number of ratings. Because I want to read the most-hyped books, I ordered them in order of NUMBER of ratings so that I know these have been the most-read out of all thrillers I could find or think of.
Most of these books I am planning on checking out from my library or listening to on Scribd ā because of that, Iām not 100% sure which books Iāll have access to at any given time during the month, so my goal is to read 7 of the 10 listed below.
And lastly before getting into it, because these are all thriller/mystery books, I want to go into reading them without much knowledge of the plot so that I can be fully surprised by all of the twists and turns. Because of that, I donāt have any sort of synopsis to share for any of them! All I know is that lots of people have read and enjoyed them š
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
134,155 Ratings
4.05 Average Rating
Verity by Colleen Hoover
57,836 Ratings
4.38 Average Rating
An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
57,621 Ratings
3.85 Average Rating
Recursion by Blake Crouch
29,581 Ratings
4.22 Average Rating
My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing
28,937 Ratings
3.93 Average Rating
The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware
24,042 Ratings
4.03 Average Rating
Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus
23,657 Ratings
3.98 Average Rating
Run Away by Harlan Coben
23,000 Ratings
4.08 Average Rating
Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
21,627 Ratings
4.03 Average Rating
Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson
19,100 Ratings
3.84 Average Rating
If you love thrillers… PLEASE let me know which ones of these you have read and what has been your favorite! Also, let me know if there are any thrillers you think are missing from my list š
