Best Books of 2019 That We Missed

So many books, so little time!! The beginning of the new year has us looking back at 2019 and tallying up all those amazing books that we just didn’t get to. Time to stack that TBR just a little higher with these top titles we missed last year…

✫ TANYA ✫

Normal People, Sally Rooney

This got the 2nd most votes in the Goodreads Choice Awards for Fiction, and since I enjoyed the winner, The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, I thought I would give this a try too.

At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers—one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain.

Pet, Akwaeke Emezi

The cover for this is just amazing, and the summary gives me the chills … in a good way. I’m sorry I missed reading this book last year, and hope to get to it soon.

There are no more monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. With doting parents and a best friend named Redemption, Jam has grown up with this lesson all her life. But when she meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colours and claws, who emerges from one of her mother’s paintings and a drop of Jam’s blood, she must reconsider what she’s been told..

Get a Life Chloe Brown, Talia Hibbert

There’s a lot of good buzz about this book and I love a good quirky main character.

Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion.

♥ KIM ♥

According to Fantasy Book Review, these are the must reads of 2019:

Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo 

As soon as I saw this come out, I knew I was going to read it. Leigh Bardugo is probably top of my auto-buy list. Everything she writes turns to gold. I have this on audio and it’s up next.

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. At age 20 she’s the sole survivor of a multiple homicide. In her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her? Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies.

Recursion, Blake Crouch

Can you believe I haven’t even read Dark Matter yet? Both of these are moving to the top of my TBR this year.

Memory makes reality. That’s what New York City cop Barry Sutton is learning as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.

Kirkus Reviews had a few that caught my eye that I’d never heard of:

A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World, C.A. Fletcher

Categorized as dystopia and getting a bunch of thumbs up from reviewers, I’m adding this to my list. Honestly, I’ve been missing some really good dystopia in my life.

When a beloved family dog is stolen, her owner sets out on a life-changing journey through the ruins of our world to bring her back in this fiercely compelling tale of survival, courage, and hope.

Steel Crow Saga, Paul Krueger

New to me author that I’m interested in read more from. According to reviews, Steel Crow Saga looks like it has a little bit of everything I love in a book. I hope it doesn’t disappoint!

Four destinies collide in a unique fantasy world of war and wonders, where empire is won with enchanted steel and magical animal companions fight alongside their masters in battle.

What book did you miss last year that you really want to get to?

(Photo by David Clode on Unsplash)