[Cilla's 2016 Highlight Reels] Books

08:00 Cilla 16 Comments

I've always loved reading end-of-year best-of lists. Now that I have my own blog, I thought I'd write a couple of my own! Every day from 28 to 31 December, I'll be sharing some of the highlights of my 2016 in music, movies, television shows, books (of course), and life.

This post is the obvious list: best books I've read this year! Blogging has introduced me to some books that I wouldn't have otherwise heard of, and some of those books have been amazing. Here are 7 of them, in no particular order, with snippets of my reviews for each of them:

Graudin draws up the global political map as well as the details on the ground so that everything was in line with history, so it was easy for me to accept that it could all have come true. Consequently, I was sucked in from the beginning. It is action-packed and exciting, but it's not an easy story to digest - it wasn't meant to be. It's brutal in its reminder of the human cost of WWII, and there's no reprieve  in the story from that. -- Wolf by Wolf review

Internal screaming wasn't my only reaction to the book. Graudin didn't shy away from the ugliness of her fictional war, or of the very real Holocaust. At one stage of the story, Yael found herself back in the camp, and I think I might have held my breath for her that entire time. It strikes me afresh how horrifying that period of history was every time I read it. -- Blood for Blood review

I also love how the story looks into how society defines madness. Some of the characters that populate the asylums have what we would today declare as symptoms of mental illness. However, there are some who simply deviate from the expectations of society and others, like Grace, have been traumatised. Perhaps it's because I'm training to be a psychologist that I find this so thought-provoking, but I think it's a fascinating topic in general!  -- Review

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

I could not put this book down. I love how there was so few expositions, yet it was so easy to understand the world the characters operate in, and to understand the characters' back stories too. The plot kept me turning the pages the whole time; just when you think the stakes couldn't be higher, it got worse. I loved it.  -- Review

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 

On one hand, I regret not having this book in my life earlier. On the other, I don't think I'd have appreciated it as much when I was younger. I love the writing. There's this sorrow in the narrator's voice, like it's seen it all and knows how futile everything we do is (as one would expect of Death), but there's also this note of wonder. I walked away thinking about how awful and beautiful humans are, and how powerful words and stories can be. -- Review

The strength of the book, for me, lies largely in the friendship between the two main ladies. Individually, Sammy and Andy are fantastic characters. Both are marginalised girls of coloured trying to break free, and while both have streaks of steel in them, they're also frightened and lost and doing the best they can - which makes them both relatable and real. Together, however, they're even better. I've been looking for a book that depicts strong female friendship, and Under a Painted Sky does it wonderfully. -- Review

A Useful Woman by Darcie Wilde

The cast of characters are fabulous, though two in particular stand out to me. Rosalind Thorne is fascinating to read as she navigates the social conventions of the Regency era using the limited means in her disposal. She must carry herself with tact and reverence to others, but she's got steel. Her position in the peripheral of the haute ton (as the book would say) reminds me of Miss Marple; society kind of looks down upon her while still accepting her as their own, which puts her in an excellent position as a sleuth. Honoria is another complex character, whose attitude toward social conventions is refreshingly shocking. -- Review

In case you missed them:
↠ My favourite television shows of 2016.
↠ My favourite music and movies of 2016.