Booklist books are my FAVORITE blog posts to read, and I think that you all feel the same way! In order of when I read them, these are my top books of 2019. I read 59 books this year, so narrowing it down to 10 is hard! I kind of cheated by listing 5 more honorable mentions!
The shortest book I read was The 12 Week Year (190 pages) and the longest book I read was Pachinko (496 pages). I read 29 fiction books and 30 Non-Fiction books. 15 of the authors were male, and 42 were female. I read two sets of books with the same author (Elin Hilderbrand and Jenny Colgan). 10 of the books were by authors who are a different culture or ethnicity than my own (and three of those made my top 10 list!). I read the most books in December (9) and the least books in April (2). I also did not finish four books (City of Girls, A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing, Early Riser, and A Cook’s Tour).
I get asked A LOT how I have so much time to read. I wrote this post years ago, but I still find it to be true! Read this post if you want to make time to read as a busy Mom!
And now…onto my top 10 books of 2019 (with 5 more honorable mentions)!
Decluttering at the Speed of Life
Synopsis: While the world seems to be in love with the idea of tiny houses and minimalism, many of us simply can’t purge it all and start from nothing. Yet a home with too much stuff is a home that is difficult to maintain, so where do we begin? Add in paralyzing emotional attachments and constant life challenges, and it can feel almost impossible to make real decluttering progress.
My Review: I really loved this book! While I consider myself more of a minimalist than this author, I found this book to be the most practical decluttering/organizing book I’ve read! It just had REAL LIFE tips that are maintainable. Highly recommend!
On Call in the Arctic
Synopsis: Imagine a young doctor, trained in the latest medical knowledge and state-of-the-art equipment, suddenly transported back to one of the world’s most isolated and unforgiving environments—Nome, Alaska. Dr. Sims’ plans to become a pediatric surgeon drastically changed when, on the eve of being drafted into the Army to serve as a M.A.S.H. surgeon in Vietnam, he was offered a commission in the U.S. Public Health for assignment in Anchorage, Alaska.
My Review: Goodreads told me that this book is the book I read this year that had the least ratings from others on Goodreads. So, basically, Goodreads is telling me that this book is SO UNDERRATED! It’s call the midwife meets Kristen Hannah’s The Great Alone and I LOVED IT! If you like memoirs, you need to read this one!
The Hate U Give
Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
My Review: Yes, I am married to a police officer and this book has been quoted as being “anti-police”. However, I did not find it to be that. I found it be thought provoking and while I didn’t agree with every single detail of the book, I thought it was incredibly well-written and I couldn’t put it down! If you haven’t read it yet, I highly suggest that you do!
Tattoos on the Heart
Synopsis: How do you fight despair and learn to meet the world with a loving heart? How do you overcome shame? Stay faithful in spite of failure? No matter where people live or what their circumstances may be, everyone needs boundless, restorative love. Gorgeous and uplifting, Tattoos on the Heart amply demonstrates the impact unconditional love can have on your life.
My Review: This book was just so beautiful and inspiring. It raw and beautiful and compelled me to love my people just a little bit deeper and show up for them in a consistent way.
Grumpy Mom Takes a Holiday
Synopsis: Most days motherhood often looks like bottomless piles of laundry; a sink full of dishes; sleepless nights; and unshowered, nonstop, endless days. If that’s all there is, then no wonder “Grumpy Mom” sometimes sneaks into your heart and home.
If you can relate, you’re in good company—Valerie Woerner gets it and has experienced Grumpy Mom more often than she’d care to admit. In Grumpy Mom Takes a Holiday, Valerie shares what she’s learned so far about sending Grumpy Mom packing and embracing a joyful, intentional motherhood that is so much better than you thought possible.
My Review: This was my favorite book of 2019! It met me exactly where I am. It brought so much gospel truth and conviction. If you are Christian mother and you have not yet read this book, make it the first book you read in 2020!
The Flatshare
Synopsis: Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the
My Review: I thought this book was so fun! It was chick-lit with a meaty plot that I had never heard before and so I found it compelling and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was predictable but the author developed it so well that it was worth reading through the whole thing!
The Mother in Law
Synopsis: From the moment Lucy met Diana, she was kept at arm’s length. Diana is exquisitely polite, but Lucy knows, even after marrying Oliver, that they’ll never have the closeness she’d been hoping for.
But who could fault Diana? She was a pillar of the community, an advocate for social justice, the matriarch of a loving family. Lucy had wanted so much to please her new mother-in-law.
That was ten years ago. Now, Diana has been found dead, leaving a suicide note. But the autopsy reveals evidence of suffocation. And everyone in the family is hiding something…
My Review: I couldn’t put this one down! I strongly dislike horror books/movies, so I don’t tend to gravitate towards mystery or true crime. But this one was the perfect mix of drama and mystery and it was light enough to not be horrifying. I had no idea whodunnit until the very last chapter!
The Cafe by the Sea
Synopsis: Years ago, Flora fled the quiet Scottish island where she grew up — and she hasn’t looked back. What would she have done on Mure? It’s a place where everyone has known her all her life, where no one will let her forget the past. In bright, bustling London, she can be anonymous, ambitious… and hopelessly in love with her boss.
But when fate brings Flora back to the island, she’s suddenly swept once more into life with her brothers — all strapping, loud, and seemingly incapable of basic housework — and her father. Yet even amid the chaos of their reunion, Flora discovers a passion for cooking — and find herself restoring dusty little pink-fronted shop on the harbour: a café by the sea.
My Review: I loved the sweet romance of this novel while also providing enough of a plot to keep me entertained. I felt like it dealt well with heavy topics like grief and the loss of a loved one while also keeping things light.
Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors
Synopsis:
Up-and-coming chef DJ Caine has known people like Trisha before, people who judge him by his rough beginnings and place pedigree above character. He needs the lucrative job the Rajes offer, but he values his pride too much to indulge Trisha’s arrogance. And then he discovers that she’s the only surgeon who can save his sister’s life.
As the two clash, their assumptions crumble like the spun sugar on one of DJ’s stunning desserts. But before a future can be savored there’s a past to be reckoned with…
My Review: I love books that have a focus on a different culture. It wakes me up to my third culture kid roots and I just love hearing how other cultures do things. I also love Jane Austen retellings, so this one was a win for me. There was a gender role reversal in this book that I didn’t LOVE but it worked.
Last Christmas in Paris
Synopsis: August 1914. England is at war. As Evie Elliott watches her brother, Will, and his best friend, Thomas Harding, depart for the front, she believes—as everyone does—that it will be over by Christmas, when the trio plan to celebrate the holiday among the romantic cafes of Paris.
But as history tells us, it all happened so differently…
My Review: This book started out really slow for me. Historical fiction is not my preferred genre, but by halfway through, I could not put this book down. It was NOT light and fluffy, but it was heartwarming and made the past come alive for me in a way that I hadn’t thought about WWI before. And by the end I was flipping pages as fast as I could to find out what happened. Highly recommend this one!
And just because I can’t possibly leave these ones out, here are five more honorable mentions!
One Day in December
Synopsis: Laurie is pretty sure love, at first
My Review: I couldn’t put it down because I just wanted to know what was going to happen! The book had some twists and turns that I didn’t see coming and I felt like I was on an emotional journey! So
Ayesha At Last
Synopsis: Ayesha Shamsi has a lot going on. Her dreams of being a poet have been set aside for a teaching job so she can pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle. She lives with her boisterous Muslim family and is always being reminded that her flighty younger cousin, Hafsa, is close to rejecting her one hundredth marriage proposal. Though Ayesha is lonely, she doesn’t want an arranged marriage. Then she meets Khalid, who is just as smart and handsome as he is conservative and judgmental. She is irritatingly attracted to someone who looks down on her choices and who dresses
My Review: As I mentioned above, I love books where two cultures come together to form a third culture. This book was extremely compelling to my third culture kid heart because it dealt so much with coming of age in a culture that is not the same as the traditions of the family culture. It was clean and easy to read and a fun read!
A $500 House in Detroit
Synopsis: A young college grad buys a house in Detroit for $500 and attempts to restore it—and his new neighborhood—to its original glory in this “deeply felt, sharply observed personal quest to create meaning and community out of the fallen.
Drew Philp, an idealistic college student from a working-class Michigan family, decides to live where he can make a difference. He sets his sights on Detroit, the failed metropolis of abandoned buildings, widespread poverty, and rampant crime. Arriving with no job, no friends, and no money, Philp buys a ramshackle house for five hundred dollars in the east side neighborhood known as Poletown. The roomy Queen Anne he now owns is little more than a clapboard shell on a crumbling brick foundation, missing windows, heat, water, electricity, and a functional roof.
My Review: This book started out as a young man with a little bit of a white savior complex, and morphed into SO MUCH MORE. While the author was very cynical and had some negative things to say about the police, I felt like his journey through buying and fixing his house was an incredible testament to how hard it is to stick it out and make a difference in the hard places of the world. This wasn’t always easy to read, but I highly recommend it.
The Great Alone
Synopsis: Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.
Thirteen-year-old Leni, a girl coming of age in a tumultuous time, caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if it means following him into the unknown
At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources.
But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves.
My Review: This was a GOOD BOOK. The characters were so beautifully written and the plot made it so that I couldn’t put the book down! However, the only reason it didn’t make my top 10 was because it just kept going on and on and on. It’s not that the book was too long, necessarily, but more that there were enough plot climax and resolutions to last for several books, so I felt emotionally overwhelmed by the time I was done reading the book!
Daisy Jones and the Six
Synopsis: Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six: The band’s album Aurora came to define the rock ‘n’ roll era of the late seventies, and an entire generation of girls wanted to grow up to be Daisy. But no one knows the reason behind the group’s split on the night of their final concert at Chicago Stadium on July 12, 1979 . . . until now.
My Review: I loved how different this book was, written in the form of a series of interviews. I couldn’t put it down because I wanted to get to the bottom of why the band broke up! But I was disappointed at the ending…like that was the reason? C’mon, I feel like it could have been more exciting than that! Still, it was a fun read.
What about you? Have you read any of the books on my list? What was your favorite book of 2019?