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It's my blogiversary! Actually, it was my blogiversary on August 16th, but close enough. My first post on this blog was published on August 16, 2013, and is probably cringeworthy. Don't look at it.

Instead of looking at old posts, let's look at old books. What are my favorite books from every year I've been blogging?

👊  Best Books From The Last 10+ Years  👀

2013: The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

Young Adult Contemporary Fiction

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

Why I love it: Honestly, I don't remember. I didn't write book reviews in 2013! I wasn't even using Goodreads back then. I recorded my reading in a diary like a cavewoman, and all I wrote about this book was "Favorite." Very insightful. 

Like many young bookworms, I went through a John Green phase in my late teens and early 20s. I think I enjoyed the irreverent way he writes about serious subjects. He's also very good at putting abstract feelings and topics into words. His books always leave you with something to ponder.

I haven't reread this book since 2013. I'm not sure how I'd feel about it now.

Buy it on Amazon

2014: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Adult Historical Fiction

It opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist.

Why I love it: I've read almost all of Margaret Atwood's books, and this is one of the most intriguing. Only a massively talented author could write a book with a structure this intricate. The Blind Assassin is so many things! It's a family saga, a mystery, a historical fiction book, a science fiction book, a thriller. Most authors would make a mess of it. Not Margaret Atwood.

She develops characters better than any author I've read. Her characters—especially the women—are flawed in ways that will make you love and loathe them. This book is long (643 pages), but the plot moves pretty quickly because there's so much going on. It took a lot of talent and courage to write this.

Buy it on Amazon

2015: The Strange And Beautiful Sorrows Of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

Young Adult Fantasy

Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava—in all other ways a normal girl—is born with the wings of a bird.

In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year-old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naïve to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the Summer Solstice celebration.

That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo.

Why I love it: It's a book about love, but it’s not a love story. The characters’ relationships don’t always work out. Sometimes the swoon-worthy hero doesn’t turn out to be all that swoon-worthy. I love this book because it has elements of magic, but it still feels real. It’s honest. The characters’ emotions are raw, and even the good guys have some pretty nasty flaws.

Can we talk about the writing? I can’t believe this is a debut novel. The writing has a melancholy tone with some bursts of humor. The descriptions are on-point. Most of the story is set in Seattle, but it’s a surreal, otherworldly Seattle. The writing completely embodies the strangeness of Ava’s family. It's brilliantly weird!

Buy it on Amazon

2016: All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Adult Historical Fiction

Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

Why I love it: My copy of the book is jam-packed with pink sticky notes because I love the characters, the writing style, the nonlinear structure, the way the chapters are divided, everything. This book is a chunker (over 500 pages), but I read 300 pages in one day because I needed to know what happened next. Whenever I wasn’t reading the book, I was thinking about it. Every time I put it down, it somehow ended up in my hands again. It’s been a long time since a book has had that kind of grip on my imagination.

I want to rave about everything, but there are too many spoilers. I guess I can say that my favorite element of the story is the jewel. Mixing the legend of the jewel with a WWII battle is pure genius. According to the legend, whoever holds the jewel cannot die. The book shows the lengths people will go to in order to save themselves (and others). Deep down, the characters know that magic and legends are wishful thinking, but there’s always a tiny chance that they could be real, right?

Buy it on Amazon

2017: Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg And The Secret History Of The Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin

Young Adult Biography

In 1964, Daniel Ellsberg was one of the Pentagon insiders helping to plan a war in Vietnam. The mountainous Asian country had long been a clandestine front in America's Cold War with the Soviet Union. The U.S. Government would do anything to stop the spread of communism—with or without the consent of the American people.

But as the fighting in Vietnam escalated. Ellsberg turned against the war. He had access to a top-secret government report known as the Pentagon Papers and knew it could blow the lid off of years of government lies. But did he have the right to expose decades of presidential secrets? And could one man, alone, face the wrath of the government?

This is the story of the seven bloody years that transformed Daniel Ellsberg from a government insider into "the most dangerous man in America," and of the storm that would follow when the secrets of the Vietnam War were finally known.

Why I love it: Don't let the serious suit man on the cover fool you. This book is wild. The pace moves like a thriller novel, and the author doesn’t leave out any of the scandalous (or slightly gory) details. I love that the author includes quotes from soldiers and photos from Vietnam. It shows the reasoning behind Daniel Ellsberg’s decision to leak the documents. People were dying in Vietnam because Washington couldn’t get its act together. The author really helps the reader understand Ellsberg’s frustration.

Most Dangerous kept me awake way past bedtime. I kept thinking, One more chapter, one more chapter. Then it was 2:00 in the morning, and I’d finished the book. Even if you’re not in love with politics, it’s worth reading. It’s full of twists that will make your jaw drop. This is definitely not a dry textbook (even though the cover looks like one).

Buy it on Amazon

2018: Salt To The Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Young Adult Historical Fiction

While the Titanic and Lusitania are both well-documented disasters, the single greatest tragedy in maritime history is the little-known January 30, 1945 sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German cruise liner that was supposed to ferry wartime personnel and refugees to safety from the advancing Red Army. The ship was overcrowded with more than 10,500 passengers—the intended capacity was approximately 1,800—and more than 9,000 people, including 5,000 children, lost their lives.

Sepetys crafts four fictionalized but historically accurate voices to convey the real-life tragedy. Joana, a Lithuanian with nursing experience; Florian, a Prussian soldier fleeing the Nazis with stolen treasure; and Emilia, a Polish girl close to the end of her pregnancy, converge on their escape journeys as Russian troops advance; each will eventually meet Albert, a Nazi peon with delusions of grandeur, assigned to the Gustloff decks.

 

Why I love it: Reading this book made me feel physically cold. Like, shivery. The characters are on a ship in the Baltic Sea that’s supposed to take them to safety, but it sinks, plunging them into a freezing ocean that’s just as deadly as the war they’re fleeing. The fast-paced plot follows four young people who have been swept up in the tide of refugees trying to get out of Europe during WWII. I understand why so many readers adore this book. It has something for everybody. It’s well-researched historical fiction, so the facts appeal to history lovers like me. Adventure enthusiasts would enjoy the survival elements. There’s romance, danger, secrets, and people who can’t be trusted. I guess I recommend this book to everybody!

 

Buy it on Amazon

2019: Born A Crime: Stories From A South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Adult Memoir

One of the comedy world's brightest new voices, Trevor Noah is a light-footed but sharp-minded observer of the absurdities of politics, race and identity, sharing jokes and insights drawn from the wealth of experience acquired in his relatively young life. As host of the US hit show The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, he provides viewers around the globe with their nightly dose of biting satire, but here Noah turns his focus inward, giving readers a deeply personal, heartfelt and humorous look at the world that shaped him.

Noah was born a crime, son of a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents' indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the first years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, take him away.

A collection of eighteen personal stories, Born a Crime tells the story of a mischievous young boy growing into a restless young man as he struggles to find his place in a world where he was never supposed to exist. Born a Crime is equally the story of that young man's fearless, rebellious and fervently religious mother—a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence and abuse that ultimately threatens her own life.

Why I love it: This memoir is brilliant. Each chapter reads like an essay about an incident from Trevor Noah’s childhood. I’m not entirely sure how he survived to adulthood. Between South Africa’s cruel laws and the trouble he brings on himself, he shouldn’t be alive.

This book is both accessible and insightful. I learned about South Africa in school, but a memoir made it real for me. You feel like you’re there with the author while he’s being thrown out of a moving car or (accidentally) burning down a white family’s home. While you’re reading about the author’s personal experiences, you’re also learning about South Africa’s history, culture, and flawed legal system. It’s a compelling book.

Even if you’ve never seen Trevor Noah’s comedy shows, you should read this memoir. I promise you’ll be entertained while you're learning.

Buy it on Amazon

2020: Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

Adult Memoir

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag." In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Why I love it: It lives up to the hype! I can rarely say that about bestsellers.

The author sometimes makes infuriating decisions, but I was impressed with her bravery. When she realized that her parents’ lifestyle wasn’t what she wanted, she found ways to educate herself and create a new life away from her family.

Even though the author’s childhood was very different from mine, I still found parts of her story weirdly relatable. I can relate to feeling like I’m living in a different reality from my family. It’s unsettling to discover that you have different values or that you remember events differently from the people around you. It makes you question your own sanity. This book made me feel less alone.

Buy it on Amazon

2021: Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Young Adult Novel-In-Verse

A gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES.

And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END . . . if WILL gets off that elevator.

Why I love it: The plot reminds me of A Christmas Carol, but it’s set in a modern, inner-city apartment building. Most of the story takes place on an elevator. Yep, a 300-page elevator ride. (I swear it’s not as boring as it sounds!) A teenager’s brother is murdered, and the teen sets out to get revenge. When he steps into the elevator in his apartment building, a ghost gets on with him. The elevator stops at every floor, and a new ghost gets on at each stop. That’s when the Christmas Carol similarities start. The ghosts force the teen to confront his choices and reevaluate his decision to commit murder. It’s a thoroughly modern ghost story! And, best of all, it never gets preachy or heavy-handed! The author treats his (deeply flawed) characters with compassion and lets the readers draw their own conclusions. You should read it. It’s an excellent tale.

 

Buy it on Amazon

2022: Another Day In The Death Of America: A Chronicle Of Ten Short Lives by Gary Younge

Adult Sociology Nonfiction

On an average day in America, seven children and teens will be shot dead. In Another Day in the Death of America, award-winning journalist Gary Younge tells the stories of the lives lost during one such day. It could have been any day, but he chose November 23, 2013. Black, white, and Latino, aged nine to nineteen, they fell at sleepovers, on street corners, in stairwells, and on their own doorsteps. From the rural Midwest to the barrios of Texas, the narrative crisscrosses the country over a period of twenty-four hours to reveal the full human stories behind the gun-violence statistics and the brief mentions in local papers of lives lost.

This powerful and moving work puts a human face—a child's face—on the "collateral damage" of gun deaths across the country. This is not a book about gun control, but about what happens in a country where it does not exist.

Why I love it: It's a must-read for any American. The author picks a random day and researches all the children who died from guns on that day. The kids had different lifestyles and came from different parts of the country, but they all died from violence or gun accidents on November 23, 2013. It's a thought-provoking look at the stories behind the statistics. It doesn't argue for gun control or the second amendment. It's just a story about what happens when children have easy access to guns and not enough education about them.

This is a book that will stay with me forever because it shows how quickly and pointlessly life can end. Two kids got ahold of their parents' gun and decided to play with it. A lonely teen befriended a gang member. Sometimes a decision that seems spontaneous and inconsequential can end up altering an entire community.

Buy it on Amazon

2023: The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Adult Science Nonfiction

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her enslaved ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Why I love it: Everybody should read this book. It's fascinating, and it brings up topics that society really needs to discuss.

Who was Henrietta Lacks? That's what the book is about. Henrietta's cells were taken after her death and used without her permission. Her children and grandchildren are living in poverty and have not gotten any money from the use of her body. Henrietta's grave doesn't even have a headstone. This all feels very wrong.

For me, the most interesting part of the book is the ethical questions it brings up. Who should profit from biological specimens? If you give a doctor permission to cut out your tumor, do you forfeit your rights to that tumor?

I couldn't stop reading this book. I loved learning about Henrietta and the people whose biological samples have made life better for all of us.

Buy it on Amazon

Looking back at my old favorites was interesting because the books I remember most from each year weren't always the ones I chose as favorites. I think we need another blog post. Most memorable books from the last 10+years?

Have you ever revisited your favorite books?