Various

2019 on Goodreads

Jaden Nelson

1/8/20 Oops almost forgot to review this. Yeah 2019 really wasn't a great reading year for me. My reading frequency fell dramatically once college started (even though I had the time to read at least some each day), and I didn't find many books that I genuinely enjoyed (although I did find a few new favorites and reread past favorites eg. The Secret History, Dorian Gray and reread the Kingkiller books. I really want to start devoting more time to reading in 2020, find books that really interest me, and let myself read books that probably aren't intellectually stimulating (but are fun). Mostly the first goal because I have so many books I want to read asap, but I never get to them/lose interest. Also, I need to start giving books a longer chance/actually finishing them so that my "currently reading" isn't 10 books. Wish me luck

Helena

In 2019 I read 64 books in total. That was a bit less than the year before (78 in total in 2018). Probably because I have had a lot less free time to read last year than in 2018. I even had to downscale my goal from 65 to 55 cause of the stress of 'do I not reach the goal or do I reach the goal?'.

I had some books that were a disappointment (I'm looking at the Red Queen series, War Storm was a disaster to finish it. Took me a month to finish it). and I also had a lot of faves this year. 18 books out of those 64 were listed as my faves.

Most of my books were rated 4 stars. I had more books that had 4 of 5 stars than 2 or 3 stars luckily. I did not rate any books with 1 star.

How many books I read per month changed too. In some months I read only 2 books and in some months I read between 8 and 10 books.

Hopefully I have a better reading year in 2020!

Lacy W

Book read: 40 books

5 stars: 3
4 stars: 19
3 stars: 11
2 stars: 7
1 star: 0

Average star rating: 3.45 stars

2019 wasn’t the best of years, if I am being honest. I didn’t read a lot and since we are being very honest, I don’t remember a lot of 2019. I had a lot of mental health issues, mostly I was in a very deep depression that I didn’t come out for quite a long time. There were a lot of personal things that happened to me that I won’t get into. I tried hard to continue to read but I just wasn’t able to read like I wanted too. While 2019 wasn’t a good year for me, I managed to find 3 (three) favorite books!

My favorite books:
The Taster by V.S Alexander
The Grace Year by Kim Liggett
House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

My least favorite books:
The Last Summer by Ann Brashares
Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews
The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

Vera Sokolyanskaya

Best Book of the Year: The Winter of the Witch

Best YA Series of the Year: Wolf by Wolf and Blood for Blood

Best YA Sci-Fi of the Year: Obsidio

Best YA Contemporary of the Year: Let's Talk About Love

Disappointment of the Year: The Beautiful

Worst parent award: Everything, Everything

Special "Faerie abuse is still abuse" and "WTF everyone loves about this book" Award: The Cruel Prince

Best Non-Fiction: The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business

Best Non-Fiction book still in progress: Gender and Our Brains: How New Neuroscience Explodes the Myths of the Male and Female Minds

Best Memoirs: Becoming

Maria

Главное околокнижное событие 2019 года для меня, конечно, в том, что я завела телеграм-канал про young adult

А книжные итоги вот такие:

🏆 Best Series Start – Wolf by Wolf (Wolf by Wolf #1) by Ryan Graudin / «Волк за волка»
Приключенческий янг-адалт про Гитлера. Книга вышла в 2016, но так как-то получилось, что все новые серии были весьма средненькими. 

🏆 Best Sequel Book – The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) by R.F. Kuang
ПТСР, наркозависимость, китайская история и всепожирающая магия. 

🏆 Best Series Ending – The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3) by Katherine Arden
Куликовская битва, жар-птица и трескучие морозы. Кэтрин Арден для меня из тех авторов, у которых я теперь читаю абсолютно всё. 

🏆 Best Standalone – The Wolf in the Whale by Jordanna Max Brodsky
Инуитские шаманы, марш-броски через тундру и Рагнарёк. Книга, определенно незаслуживающая быть такой неизвестной. 

🏆 Best Contemporary – Nice Try, Jane Sinner by Lianne Oelke
Канадская Дарья Моргендорффер участвует в «Большом брате». 

🏆 Best Middle Grade Book – Dead Voices (Small Spaces #2) by Katherine Arden
Привидения в заснеженном Вермонте и отважные двенадцатилетки. 

🏆 Best Book in Russian – Невеста ветра by Наталия Осояну
Не уверена, что «Невесту ветра» можно отнести к янг-адалту, но это мои награды, кому хочу, тому и выдаю. 

🏆 Best Re-read – Watership Down by Richard Adams / «Обитатели холмов»
Великая книжка про кроликов. В этом году я многое перечитала, что-то для рецензий в канале, что-то просто по любви. «Обитатели холмов» – одна из любимейших книг моего детства, я читала её, наверное, раз пятьдесят, и она всё лучше и лучше.

🏆 Biggest Disappointment – The Beautiful (The Beautiful #1) by Renée Ahdieh
Нет повести печальнее на свете, чем повесть о том, как вампиры не смогли вернуться в янг-адалт.

🏆 Biggest «WTF has everybody found in it?» – Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orïsha #1) by Tomi Adeyemi / «Дети крови и костей»
Не оценила это якобы освежающее африканское фэнтези.

🏆 Favorite Female Character – Омат из The Wolf in the Whale
🏆 Favorite Male Character – Китай из The Dragon Republic
🏆 Favorite Group of Human Characters – участницы конкурса красоты Miss Teen Dream из Beauty Queens
🏆 Favorite Group of Non-Human Characters – кролики из Watership Down
🏆 Best Worldbuilding – Seraphina (Seraphina #1) by Rachel Hartman
🏆 Best Use of Mythology and Folklore – The Wolf in the Whale
🏆 Biggest Loss – The Cike в The Dragon Republic

🏆 Book of 2019 – The Wolf in the Whale

Jude Silberfeld

Mid-November, I published a first list of my favourite books of the year so far. I’ve read a lot of great stuff since then, but I’m not replacing any of my original choices so the list just grew. Even more so as one of my favourites is actually a series of three books (to date). All the books on the list are my favourite, in no particular order, except for the first one, Living by Lise Gold, which touched me the deepest.

So here we go:
#1 Living by Lise Gold
#2 Breathe by Cari Hunter
#3 Back to September by Melissa Brayden
#4 Sit. Stay. Love. by Karis Walsh
#5 The Secret Chord by Virginia Hale
#6 Fear of Falling by Georgia Beers
#7 Love Under Glasse by Kristina Meister
#8 The X Ingredient by Roslyn Sinclair
#9 Galileo by Ann McMan
#10 Invisible, as Music by Caren J. Werlinger
#11 Breaking the Ice by K.R. Collins
#12 The Good Girl by Madeleine Taylor
#13 Big Girl Pill by K.D. Williamson
#14 The Traveling Triple-C Incorporeal Circus by Alanna McFall
#15 Other Girls by Avery Brooks
#16 On a LARP / Zero Sum Game / Say Her Name by Stefani Deoul

I need to make a clarification: I’m pretty sure I’m going to be the only lesfic reviewer without any book by E.J. Noyes on my favourite-books-of-the-year list. I’m also pretty sure the only reason I don’t have any Noyes book on my list is because I haven’t had time to read the books she released in 2019. I gave Gold (published in 2018 but read by me in 2019) 5 stars, though. I also read three books by Lee Winter, two of which I absolutely loved (Requiem for Immortals and Breaking Character), which were both released prior to 2019.

One last thing: one of my favourite books of all time is Charon Docks at Daylight, written by Zoe Reed years ago but which I only read this year. I can’t write about my favourite reads without at least mentioning it. So if you haven’t read it, make it one of your New Year’s resolutions. To make it even better, it’s free.