The Best Books I Read in 2019

A few years back, I started keeping track of the titles and number of books I was reading each month and adding up them up at the end of the year. The results always fascinate me, especially now that I have several years worth of data to analyze. In 2017 I read a total of 79 books, and I read 70 in 2018. This year I set my goal at 85 books, in hopes of enjoying the best reading year I’ve ever had, at least in terms of numbers. And though I would say 2019 has been a tough year in a lot of ways, it has truly been an excellent reading year. I surpassed my goal with a total of 115 books finished this year!

How did this happen?

As I contemplated this (and congratulated myself), I wondered what made a 45 book difference between this year and last. Several factors came to mind. The first, and probably most significant difference, is that I embraced audiobooks like never before, especially in the last 6 months or so. I listened to 21 audiobooks over the course of the year, up from only 8 the year before.

Another factor that I think contributed to the jump is that I transitioned to working from home full-time. That doesn’t mean that I spend my days curled up in the recliner zooming through books (I wish!), but it does mean that I don’t have any commute time and I can lay out my day for maximum efficiency. That means the work gets done quicker and the reading time comes sooner! Plus I can read when I eat lunch because I don’t have to talk to co-workers. And all my fellow introverts say, “Hallelujah.”

Finally, I think I felt compelled to read more than usual this year because books are my chosen method of escape. Our family went through a lot of changes this year, and I think reading helped me decompress through the more stressful shifts.

Choosing isn’t easy

The one downside to a prodigious reading list is that I had even more trouble than usual narrowing down my choices for the best books I read this year. After much debate and internal anguish, I managed to winnow my picks to 14 books that were stand-outs for me, either because I couldn’t put them down, or I couldn’t stop thinking about them after I finished. A few books fell into both groups.

And just a note, many of these are backlist titles that have been out for a while. This list reflects what I personally enjoyed in 2019, not necessarily what was published this year.

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The Best Books I Read in 2019

Brunch at the Bittersweet Cafe

Maybe its just because I like to read and eat, but a protagonist who bakes a lot and posts Instagram pictures of her culinary creations alongside books really resonates with me. Also, the meet-cute at the beginning is really fun, and the title is very descriptive. The story leans towards sweet, but there are plenty of challenges for the characters to work through before the end.

The Selection

The best way to briefly describe this story is Hunger Games + The Bachelor. This is the first in a dystopian YA series following a young girl who is selected to compete for the hand of the crown prince, now that he has reached marriage age. I’m really endorsing the entire Selection series here, because I flew through all of them as fast as I could borrow them from the library.

A Curse So Dark and Lonely

Another YA choice, this one is the best Beauty and the Beast retelling I’ve ever read. The heroine, Harper, is strong and unique and as far from a damsel in distress as you can get. The beast is dark and brooding, of course, but also surprisingly complex and a good match for Harper. The ending? Totally surprised me. I can’t wait for the sequel to release January 7, 2020.

Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good

It’s very difficult for me to articulate why I loved this book so much. The best I can do is to say that it is the memoir of a woman whose family is extraordinary and ordinary at the same time. It is filled with humor and real, raw family stuff that we can surely all relate to. It follows her family from before the author was born to well into her adulthood, and it was one of the ones that I could not stop reaching for.

Lake Season

This one squeezed in at the last minute. I read it in less than 24 hours because it was just such a sweet, readable, heart-warming love story. It follows an author with writer’s block who falls for a lovely innkeeper who is obsessed with solving the mystery surrounding an old letter found in the wall of the inn. I definitely wasn’t expecting it to take the turn that it did near the end, and I found it to be a very satisfying read.

Sleeping Giants

Again, I’m pretty much picking an entire series here, but it starts with Sleeping Giants. Sci-Fi is usually not something I reach for, but I heard about this book from so many different directions and the discussion was always complimentary, so I decided to give it a try. Told through a series of personal and governments logs, it is the story of a team of people working to uncover the mystery surrounding a gigantic set of metal body parts found scattered around the globe. I highly recommend the audio version for this one. The cast of narrators is amazing.

The Chemist

Another last minute finalist, I didn’t even choose this one to read, my husband did! Despite my best efforts, he isn’t a big fiction reader, so when he said he borrowed a novel on audio I knew it didn’t matter what it was, I was going to read it too so we could talk about it. Turns out he’s a good picker because I couldn’t put this one down. When a government interrogator goes on the run to escape the hit her employers ordered on her, she employs all her chemical knowledge to keep herself safe. When the bureau asks her to come back for one more job in exchange for her freedom, she reluctantly agrees. But of course, things are not as they seem.

The Lady and the Lionheart

And Joanne Bischof makes it on to my best of list for the second year in a row. Last year I raved about Sons of Blackbird Mountain. This year I can’t stop recommending this historical love story between a young nurse and a troubled circus performer. It was such a fascinating look into the lack of individual rights people possessed in that time period. I would say it was heart-warming and heart-wrenching all at the same time.

Station Eleven

I’m not sure what I thought this book was about when I started reading it, but it definitely went in directions I wasn’t expecting. This is a post-apocalyptic novel that I would not recommend starting if you have a cold. There are so many layer to the characters and story, and learning the ways everyone was connected kept me reading long into multiple nights.

The Girl in Red

Don’t read this one while you are sick either. It’s also post-apocalyptic, but that’s where the similarities between it and Station Eleven end. I almost didn’t read past the first few pages because I was afraid it was going to be too dark and creepy, and it is both of those things but not to a point I couldn’t handle. The chapters skip back and forth between what Red is doing now and how she got to the present part of the story and it is full of twists and turns. She is such a great character and this book is unlike anything else I’ve ever read.

The Mother-In-Law

This is another book that turned out far different than what I expected. The tagline ‘Everyone in this family is hiding something’ turns out to be eerily true. The chapters flip back and forth between Lucy and Dianna, exploring their relationship and the motivations behind their actions. They also go back and forth between the past and present, showing the events leading up to Dianna’s mysterious death. My big take away from this book? Good communication is absolutely essential.

Intuitive Eating

This book should be required reading for everyone. At the risk of sounding dramatic, it completely changed the way I look at food and dieting. The way of thinking laid out in this book is so contrary to what most of us have been taught our whole lives, but the mindset is so encouraging and healthy. If you’ve never read it, please pick it up!

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

Where are my introverts? This book will refute the lies that many of us have believed at one point or another – for example, you’re not ‘just shy’, and extroverts are not better than introverts. There are biological differences in the brains of these two groups of people and each group has their strengths and weaknesses. I think this book is affirming for introverts and could be a great educational experience for extroverts. So good!

The Curse of Misty Wayfair

Like dual-timelines, non-traditional love stories, and mysteries that are creepy but not quite scary? If so, I urge you to become acquainted with Jaime Jo Wright, and particularly The Curse of Misty Wayfair. Although I enjoy all her books, this one is my favorite. It deals with mental illness in a way that is compassionate and historically accurate, highlighting how far we’ve come in treating people who suffer from mental illness, and also how far we still have to go with our current understanding.

What were some of your best books of 2019? I’m always open to adding to my TBR, so give me all the suggestions.