Best Books of 2015

Here are the best books that I read in 2015 in no particular order. 

The Same Sky by Amanda Eyre Ward

A tragic story about a Honduran child trying to emigrate to the United States illegally and her connection to a Texan woman suffering from infertility.  You can read my review here.

Clara's War by Clara Kramer

Although this book is the heartrending story of a young Jewish girl's struggle for survival during the Nazi era, it is her message of hope and courage that is the main message.  You can read my review here.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

A really fun dystopian novel about a young man living his life inside a video game.  You can read my review here.

Lost & Found by Brooke Davis

A quirky book about two old people who befriend a child in her time of need.  You can read my review here.

The Rent Collector by Camron Wright

A beautiful story about literature, friendship and redemption, even though it is set in a Cambodian garbage dump.  You can read my review here.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

At times sad, but often funny, this feel good story about a curmudgeonly Swedish man was a delight to read.You can read my review here.

Another Place at the Table by Kathy Harrison

A book about a family opening their home to foster children; tragic and yet inspiring.  You can read my review here.

The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes by Anna McPartlin

A beautiful and heart-wrenching novel about a young mother in hospice care, and her relationship with her quirky family members and friends.  You can read my review here.

A Walk Across the Sun by Corban Addison

The descriptions of life in India were beautifully written, revealing both the exotic charm and the seamy underside of life in Mumbai.  You can read my review here.

Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord

A really quick and easy read, written at times like a children's novel, about a Frenchman traveling around the world.  Interestingly, it encouraged thoughtful contemplation about happiness.  You can read my review here.  

Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall

  A Southern coming-of-age story about a spunky, sassy, adventurous nine year old, who ends up learning some tough lessons about family, race and segregation in pre-civil-rights era Mississippi. You can read my review here. 

The Invisibles by Cecilia Galante

A group of women with tragic backgrounds come together as adults to support each other during trying times.  You can read my review here.

In A Perfect World by Laura Kasischke

An unusual apocalyptic novel about an ordinary woman, her relationship with her new stepchildren, and her ability to make do during a mysterious pandemic flu.You can read my review here.

I figured that since it was 2015, I should pick my 15 favorite books of the year, but I guess I can't keep expanding my list every year or pretty soon it will encompass all the books I've read.  As of December 16, I only have 11 that really stood out, plus the last two that I thought were also very good.  So maybe that will be it for the year.

Or not!  I just finished this book, and really enjoyed it:
Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center

A feel good, easy to read book about a woman discovering her strengths and learning to find joy in her life.  You can read my review here.

Someone Else's Love Story

Someone Else's Love Story

Joshilyn Jackson

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads): At twenty-one, Shandi Pierce is juggling finishing college, raising her delightful three-year-old genius son Natty, and keeping the peace between her eternally warring, long-divorced Catholic mother and Jewish father. She’s got enough complications without getting caught in the middle of a stick-up in a gas station mini-mart and falling in love with a great wall of a man named William Ashe, who willingly steps between the armed robber and her son.

Shandi doesn’t know that her blond god Thor has his own complications. When he looked down the barrel of that gun he believed it was destiny: It’s been one year to the day since a tragic act of physics shattered his universe. But William doesn’t define destiny the way other people do. A brilliant geneticist who believes in science and numbers, destiny to him is about choice.

Now, he and Shandi are about to meet their so-called destinies head on, in a funny, charming, and poignant novel about science and miracles, secrets and truths, faith and forgiveness,; about a virgin birth, a sacrifice, and a resurrection; about falling in love, and learning that things aren’t always what they seem—or what we hope they will be. It’s a novel about discovering what we want and ultimately finding what we need

Review:  Hmmm, this was truly a weird story and I'm having a hard time describing exactly how I feel about it.  It started out bizarre and confusing, with strange characters falling in love during an armed robbery (really?), but as I got to know the characters, I started to really enjoy their individual voices and histories.  William's character seemed to drift a little towards the end of the book, though.  Even the minor characters were delightfully quirky and realistic, and as you should know by now, I love characters with eccentricities.  However.... it did seem like a young teenage mom with a genius child, falling in love with a brilliant Asperger's biotechnologist, with a perfect poet male friend and a loud-mouthed blunt female friend, a reserved and judgmental Catholic mother, an unfaithful and doting Jewish father, and a cold and pretentious stepmother was really A LOT of coincidental character quirkiness in one book. 

On to the story, then.  On one hand, it was oddly compelling, and I didn't want to stop reading it, even though it dealt with my absolute least favorite subject to read about.  But there were parts that didn't feel quite right.  First, Shandi had two separate major epiphanies about her life in this book, and while I felt like the first was possibly plausible due to being in a life-or-death situation, the second seemed a little too quick and convenient a way to wrap up the book.  Don't get me wrong, this second epiphany seemed completely right and a good fit for her character, it just happened much much too quickly with absolutely no explanation of how her mind got there.  Second, (and I can't figure out how to say this without it being a spoiler, but if you have any common sense you'd have figured it out really quickly anyway), I just didn't feel comfortable with the description of the date rape.  The author did a great job presenting how both characters felt, and making both characters seem sympathetic and real, but I think that was my problem.  Overall, I felt like what the boy did was wrong, and I didn't want to feel sympathetic towards him, but I couldn't help it.  Third, there is quite a twist towards the end of the book that relied solely on the author's wordplay throughout the book, and it felt a little cheap.  Don't get me wrong, I quite liked the twist, it just felt like the author was saying "HA HA!  I tricked you with my cleverness!"  But perhaps I am reading way too much into her motivations.

So, to sum up, I really enjoyed reading this book and debated putting it on my list of best books of the year, but decided that the lack of explanation around the ending caused me to knock it down to 4 stars.

Rating: 4 stars

Best Books of 2015

Here are the 10 best books that I read in 2015 in no particular order (they were not all published in 2015 but I read them all this year).  I decided to stick with either young adult fiction or adult fiction and did not include any juvenile fiction even though some of the juvenile fiction books I read were very good!

Little Mercies by Heather Gudenkauf

I know that I will always like Heather Gudenkauf's books and this one did not disappoint.  This book is emotional and face paced.  You can read my review here.

Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall

A great historical fiction novel of a young girl and an African American woman in the 1960s.  You can read my review (and Marcie's) here.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

This book is dark, painful and emotional but such a good read.  It takes a toll on your emotions but you will be glad you read it.  You can read my review here.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

A look into slavery by the perspective of an abolitionist who's family had slaves and from a slave.  You can read my review (and Marcie's) here.

Before I Go by Colleen Oakley

This book was a teary read about a woman who has terminal cancer.  Sad but very good.  You can read my review here.

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

This book is about mothers who have school age children.  It's quirky, a little humorous and drama filled.  You can read my review here.

The Lives Between Us by Theresa Rizzo

Theresa Rizzo is a new author for me and I really liked her writing style.  There was some romance, an ethical dilemma and plenty of drama that keeps you reading.  You can read my review here.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

What a poignant read!  A heartbreaking story about a woman struggling with early onset Alzheimer's.  You can read my review here.

Five Days Left by Julie Lawson Timmer

Tragic books seem to be my thing this year.  This is a book about a young woman struggling with a disease and how it affects her family.  You can read my review here.

Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah

The psychology of this book very much intrigued me.  There was a feral young girl who the main character becomes attached to and is trying to help.  You can read my review here.

Between Friends

Between Friends

by Kristy Kiernan

Genre: Women's Fiction

Synopsis:  There was a time when Ali Guiterrez would have been forced to give up on her dreams of motherhood.  But thanks to modern reproductive technology-and the gift of her best friend Cora's eggs-Ali is the mother of fourteen-year-old Letty.

Now, yearning for a second child, Ali asks her best friend's permission to use another of the frozen embryos that have been stored away in anticipation of this decision.  But Cora has a secret that could change Ali's plan for the future-and tear apart her life right now...

from the back of the book

Review:  This book is going to be difficult to review based on the synopsis as it gives nothing away as to what happens in the story.  It also isn't a great summary of what the book is about.  Based on the synopsis I thought this book was going to be more about the trials of having a baby and about friendship between Ali and Cora.  But not's not entirely true.  This book is told in three perspective: Ali's, Cora's and Letty's.  Adding Letty as a narrator changes the story to include much teenage angst.  I was not looking for a book about that and I just wanted to shake Letty at times and tell her to grow up.  I also wanted to knock some sense into Ali and make her realize that she needed to do something about her errant daughter.  There was also quite a bit of the story about Ali's relationship with her husband, Benny.  There was not a lot about Ali trying to have another baby.  It was brought up but that was not the main story.  There was a secret about Cora but she didn't come out and tell Ali about it right away.  It was this thing we knew about but we had no idea when she was going to tell Ali.  In fact that seemed to be a common thread with many of the characters-no one would just come out and say what they wanted to say.  That drove me nuts a little bit.  Once all the secrets came out the book moved along at a much quicker pace.  The last quarter of the book was emotional and heart wrenching.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Happiness for Beginners

Happiness for Beginners

Katherine Center

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads): A year after getting divorced, Helen Carpenter, thirty-two, lets her annoying, ten years younger brother talk her into signing up for a wilderness survival course. It's supposed to be a chance for her to pull herself together again, but when she discovers that her brother's even-more-annoying best friend is also coming on the trip, she can't imagine how it will be anything other than a disaster. Thus begins the strangest adventure of Helen's well-behaved life: three weeks in the remotest wilderness of a mountain range in Wyoming where she will survive mosquito infestations, a surprise summer blizzard, and a group of sorority girls.

Yet, despite everything, the vast wilderness has a way of making Helen's own little life seem bigger, too. And, somehow the people who annoy her the most start teaching her the very things she needs to learn. Like how to stand up for herself. And how being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes you just have to get really, really lost before you can even have a hope of being found.

Review:  While this story does have a bit of romance, it's really more about a woman figuring out what is important to her while on a survivalist hike.  I loved the characters, although I felt like they should have done a little more communicating instead of hiding their feelings from each other.  But I guess people don't even do that in real life, so why should they in books?  I enjoyed watching Helen discover her strengths, and I especially enjoyed reading about Helen learning to find joy in her life.  What good lessons that I should apply to my own life!  A feel good, easy to read, fun book to read on a cozy sleety day.  (Although I did think that surely the survivalist company would have stressed safety a little more when taking a group of novice hikers on a three week long backpacking expedition.)

Rating: 4.5 stars

I Was Here

I Was Here

Gayle Forman

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads): 
Cody and Meg were inseparable.
Two peas in a pod.
Until . . . they weren’t anymore.

When her best friend Meg drinks a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated. She and Meg shared everything—so how was there no warning? But when Cody travels to Meg’s college town to pack up the belongings left behind, she discovers that there’s a lot that Meg never told her. About her old roommates, the sort of people Cody never would have met in her dead-end small town in Washington. About Ben McAllister, the boy with a guitar and a sneer, who broke Meg’s heart. And about an encrypted computer file that Cody can’t open—until she does, and suddenly everything Cody thought she knew about her best friend’s death gets thrown into question.

I Was Here is Gayle Forman at her finest, a taut, emotional, and ultimately redemptive story about redefining the meaning of family and finding a way to move forward even in the face of unspeakable loss.
 
Review:  I definitely enjoy Forman's writing style, even when I find some of her subject matter disagreeable.  This was another book that I couldn't put down, and I really cared about the main character even though she was nothing at all like me.  When Cody's best friend Meg commits suicide, Cody feels guilty for not being able to stop her friend, even though she had no idea that Meg suffered from depression.  The thought that Forman put into Cody's emotions regarding the death of her best friend and her own feelings of guilt made Cody seem so real; I cried several times imagining the pain that Cody was feeling.  The problem I had with this book was the romantic relationship between Cody and Ben, a stereotypical bad boy who had slept with her best friend and then ditched her.  In my mind, a good friend wouldn't start a romantic relationship with her best friend's ex for any reason at all, and especially if the ex was a total jerk.  While I understand that young adult books seem to need a romantic premise, I think this would have been a stronger book if the romance had been nonexistent, and it had focused solely on the grief, guilt and suicide.

Rating: 4 stars

Everything Everything

Everything Everything

Nicola Yoon

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):My disease is as rare as it is famous. Basically, I’m allergic to the world. I don’t leave my house, have not left my house in seventeen years. The only people I ever see are my mom and my nurse, Carla.

But then one day, a moving truck arrives next door. I look out my window, and I see him. He’s tall, lean and wearing all black—black T-shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, and a black knit cap that covers his hair completely. He catches me looking and stares at me. I stare right back. His name is Olly.

Maybe we can’t predict the future, but we can predict some things. For example, I am certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It’s almost certainly going to be a disaster.
 
Review:  As I was reading this, I thought it was going to be one of my favorite books of the year.  While definitely a young adult novel, as evidenced by the typical self-centered teenaged behavior, the characters were surprisingly sympathetic and entertaining.  Both Madeline and Olly had interesting personality quirks and even their digital communications were fun to read.  I found myself having a hard time putting the book down, and thinking about the characters while going about the rest of my day.  The major flaw in the first 99% of the book was that the romance between Madeline and Olly blossomed too quickly; she saw him, she immediately knew her life would change.  Then she met him, and she seemed to experience a complete personality change because she fell in love.  Maybe that happens to some people, but I prefer novels where the getting-to-know-each-other stage happens BEFORE the falling-in-love stage.

But then I got to the end, and I was furious.  The author has built an entire story around Madeline being stuck inside of her house; her entire personality and history are based solely on her bubble-boy disease and the beautiful relationships she has with her mother and her nurse.  Even the romantic relationship between Madeline and Olly was predicated on the fact that the two teenagers would never really be able to be together because of Maddy's disease.  And the end was a total cop out.  The novel would have been much stronger if the ending was in keeping with the rest of the book, in my opinion.

Rating: 4 stars