Last year I posted Books I read in 2016, ranked from best to worst, so here’s my list for this year.
I realized that more than half of the books I read in 2016 were written by white men, and thus all the recommendations I got from Goodreads were for books also written by white men. My goal for this year was to read at least 26 books written by People of Colour or trans/non-binary people, and I believe I have exceeded that goal (though there are still a few books on the list below written by cis white people).
Book count:
Page count:
As with last year’s post, I’ve broken down the list into different categories based on how I enjoyed the stories:
- Numbers 1 – 10 are joining my list of favourites
- Numbers 11 – 18 were very good, and I would happily read them again
- Numbers 19 – 31 were good, but not my taste. I would not choose to read them again, though I may recommend them to someone else.
- Numbers 32 – 38 were not so good, would avoid re-reading and would only recommend to others in very specific circumstances
- Numbers 39 – 40 were terrible and I would not recommend to anyone
Best Reads of 2017
- The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children, #1) by Seanan McGuire
- Small Beauty by Jai Qing Wilson-Yang
- The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie
- Bow Grip by Ivan Coyote
- Version Control by Dexter Palmer
- The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy
- Rise: A Newsflesh Collection by Mira Grant
- After Dark by Haruki Murakami
- Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson
- The Mothers by Brit Bennett
- Birdie by Tracey Lindberg
- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
- A Safe Girl to Love by Casey Plett
- Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
- Feed (Newsflesh Trilogy, #1) by Mira Grant
- Shadows Cast By Stars by Catherine Knutsson
- Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson
- Hadriana in All My Dreams by René Depestre
- American Street by Ibi Zoboi
- Blackout (Newsflesh Trilogy, #3) by Mira Grant
- He Mele A Hilo by Ryka Aoki
- Holding Still For As Long As Possible by Zoe Whittall
- Blood Oranges by Kathleen Tierney
- The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor
- The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer
- A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott
- Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
- If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
- Killer of Enemies (Killer of Enemies, #1) by Joseph Bruchac
- Deadline (Newsflesh Trilogy, #2) by Mira Grant
- One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul
- The Illegal by Lawrence Hill
- Discount Armageddon (InCryptid, #1) by Seanan McGuire
- Annabelle by Kathleen Winter
- Fellside by M.R. Carey
- The First Bad Man by Miranda July
- Faust Among Equals by Tom Holt
- Adam by Ariel Schrag
Got any recommendations for my 2018 list? Leave a comment!
I have a few different recommendations for you. I tried to tailor them to your tastes as much as possible. It’s really helpful that you mentioned which books you did and didn’t like in your list above!
“The Snow Child” by Eowyn Ivey. While the only thing these two plots have in common are mysterious little girls who show up out of nowhere, the writing style in general reminded me of “Let the Right One In.”
While I haven’t read it yet, I’ve heard nothing but good things about “When Dimple Met Rishi” by Sandhya Menon. It’s something I’m planning to read in 2018.
I loved “The Crossover” by Kwame Alexander. It’s written in the form of free-verse poetry by a 12-year-old African-American protagonist who has to balance his love of basketball with his growing fear that something is seriously wrong with his father’s health.
I noticed you have some Canadian books on your list, too. If you’re into nonfiction and art, I can’t recommend “The Many Deaths of Tom Thomson” by Gregory Klages highly enough. This one was a bit of a stretch, but I thought I’d mention it in case you were looking to branch out.
Happy reading!
Thanks so much! I will be sure to check out all 4 titles. I tend to prefer fiction, but I’m willing to try different genres of nonfiction because maybe I just haven’t found the right one yet. I used to think that I didn’t like sci-fi and horror, but as you can see from my list, that’s certainly not the case!