3 Favorite Award Winning Novels From Last Year

Do you follow any book awards? Do you put books that have won on your reading list? Here are 3 of my fave books that won book awards last year.

Uprooted, Naomi Novik

Uprooted was presented last year with a Nebula Award for Best Novel (2015). Since 1965, the Nebula Awards have been given each year for the best novel, novella, novelette, and short story eligible for that year’s award. The Nebula Awards are voted on, and presented by, active members of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc.

Uprooted is a unique and beautifully written book with such such thoroughly detailed World building that I wanted to submerse myself in it every chance I got. It’s about dragons and had a fairy-tale feel to make it a sark but whimsical, magical story. I loved this through and through.

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead

The Underground Railroad was the winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction – not to mention that it was on many “best of the year” lists. This is not an easy book to read. Whitehead really digs into slavery and brings across how nasty, cruel, brutish and awful a period of time that was – a real dystopian society for many Africans and African Americans. This book literally brought me to tears many times as the main character, Cora, went through one hardship after another.

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hellish for all the slaves but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned and, though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.

The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin

The 2016 Hugo Award for Best Novel was awarded to The Fifth Season. The Hugo Awards honor excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy.

It took me a while to get into The Fifth Season. There’s a lot that’s being introduced in this alternate earth called the Stillness, which is plagued by constant seismic activity which leads to frequent near-extinction events called “Fifth Seasons”. But after about 30 or so pages – be prepared to not want to let go of this book. The World building, the characters, the plot, the pace – everything was spot on! And ooh Jemisin totally slayed me with that ending!

It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. And it ends with you. You are the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where Orogenes wield the power of the earth as a weapon and are feared far more than the long cold night. And you will have no mercy.

What was you fave award winning read from last year? Have you read any of the books mentioned above? What did you think?

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