My favorite books in 2018

I'm wrapping up another year of this little book project and it's so fun to look back at the books I've read this year. I'm under last year's total (56!), as I just started my 45th book of the year last night. Barring some unexpected New Year's Eve reading binge, I'll end 2018 with 44 complete books read. In what has been a really busy year personally and professionally, I'll take it. I didn't set out to read a book a week like I did in 2017, but I found a need to keep that pace (or close to it.) I found myself getting twitchy if it took me more than a week to finish a book.

Some months were better than others. I read six books in August, but I was on vacation at the lake and did little more than read on the beach. I only read one book in September, which I can attribute to a busy work schedule and getting back into the back-to-school routine with the kids. Overall, I'm happy with my year of reading. And, coming up with the list of my favorites was easier than expected. I read some duds this year and read some masterpieces. And, I'm so glad I keep this blog because some books, I don't even remember reading!

Here's my top 5, which actually includes seven books (it's my blog and I'll cheat if I want to.) These weren't necessarily new books in 2018, just books I read this year. Maybe it will inspire you to read one of them in 2019! 

1. Beartown and Us Against You. Yes, these are two books. But, they're a package deal. Us Against You is the sequel to Beartown and you really can't read one without the other. They tell the story of a junior hockey team and the community that surrounds them. They're about sports and life and tragedy and heartbreak. They're beautiful and perfect and among the best two books I've read, not only this year, but ever. Fredrik Backman is a brilliant genius and two of his books were on my favorites list last year, too. Read these - read all of his books. You'll thank me later. 

2. The Music Shop I can only describe this as the perfect little book with incredible characters, a sweet story and a Spotify playlist that goes with it. I knocked it out in a day and, as I said in my original review, I felt like this book had been waiting for me my whole life. How can you go wrong with a neighborhood record store and a little love story? If you love music and characters, read this book today. But, fire up the Spotify playlist when you do.

3. The Nix This was more than just a book, this was an experience. I suppose that's what you deserve when you invest time into a 620-page book. But, heavy as it was to lug around the house, it never felt long. The Nix is the kind of book you miss when you finish it. It's about a guy whose mother abandons him at a young age and the strange crime she commits that brings them back together. In between, you learn about a family's history, a protest movement, video games, Choose Your Own Adventure books and how to write like a total badass. It's not just good, it's exceptional. I wish I could read it for the first time all over again.

4. House of Broken Angels "Despite a sad setup, House of Angels hums with joy." I'm not smart enough to write that sentence, but that's how an NPR book review describes this incredible book. That sad setup is that Big Angel, the patriarch of a Mexican-American family, is ready to die. But, he has a lot of other stuff to take care of first. What happens in these pages is the "other stuff" that gets in the way between birth and death. It's the stuff that really matters. As a reader, you just get to go along for the ride, meeting larger-than-life characters along the way. This book should be a movie, but it doesn't need to be because the author paints it all so vividly, you feel like you're living it right there with them. It really snuck up on me and stuck with me even more than I expected. I looked back at the review I wrote with a smile, remembering all that joy. 

5. The Power Would this book resonate so powerfully in the years before the MeToo movement? Hard to say. The fact of the matter is this book hit shelves at precisely the right time. What would happen if women had all the power? If by simply channeling an electricity inside them, they could render men helpless? The Power explores that reality. You find yourself cheering, then bracing yourself as you worry it will all go horribly wrong? It's a story that explores the idea of absolute power corrupting absolutely. Powerful is an understatement. 

Honorable Mention: Turn Around, Bright Eyes 

I can't celebrate a year of great reads without mentioning Rob Sheffield. I love this guy and all he writes. I read two of his amazing books this year - this one and Talking to Girls About Duran Duran. Both were fantastic. Sheffield is a music writer and a pop culture wizard. This book follows up Love is a Mixed Tape, in which he writes of music's role in his grief over the sudden death of his young wife (one of my favorite books I read last year). This book shows us life after that loss, as he moves to New York and tries to start over. It's about love and loss and grief and karaoke. I loved every word and every cheesy song reference. 

Dopesick

America, we have a problem.

If you've been paying attention, you already know that. The grip of opioids on men, women and children has not yet reached its peak and we're losing hundreds of people a day. Dopesick explains how it started, how it's escalated and how turning our back on (and criminalizing) those within its grasp is doing nothing to stop the spread of this addiction.

I'm not sure why I picked up this book, but I'm wondering if it should be required reading for law enforcement, journalists, teachers, lawmakers... Anyone who encounters people in the throes of addiction could stand to learn a little more about how they got there. And, anyone with a voice that can effect change in this country should know better all the ways that we have failed.

Beth Macy's reporting here is outstanding and exhaustive. She reaches back not just to the beginning of the opioid crisis in America, but to the drugs that took hold of parts of our country centuries ago. Because we forget, we're allowing history to repeat itself.

Macy chronicles the rise of Oxy in rural Virginia, the trials of its creators, the heartbreak of the desperate mothers in its wake. She walks you through the brief path from prescribed painkillers to the desperation of heroin. You'll feel powerless reading it, you'll find yourself shaking your head. Maybe you won't exactly excuse the crimes committed by those chasing the next high, but maybe you'll give pause and realize... it can take - and, maybe has taken - hold of someone you love. My step-brother's daughter of an overdose a couple of years back. She had supportive parents, a loving family and every chance in the world. I hadn't seen her in years and couldn't imagine how that sweet little blonde girl with the big, beautiful eyes could end up dying with a needle in her arm.

You'll read how it has crept into our communities, then into our homes. How almost every adult interviewed in this book started their adolescence taking prescribed stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin and ended up, years later, addicted to heroin. About how almost no one noticed - until it was too late.

I can't imagine that feeling - what it's like to give up everything to chase that first high. I can't imagine finally being ready to get help, only to find that for every treatment bed available in this country, there are five people who want help.

The book is frustrating, terrifying, painstakingly told and excruciatingly sad. It will wake you up to the problems facing every community in this country - and, you may end up feeling powerless to help.

The Hate U Give

There are times you know a book is important and perfect for the audience for which it's intended. You know that book strikes the exact right tone at the right tone. All those things can be true - and you still might not like the book in the end.

The Hate U Give had so much hype. It's a book about the shooting of an unarmed black teen, told from the perspective of the friend who witnessed it. I heard about it long before it was a movie and was told it was a book I "had" to read. No question I would check it out as soon as I saw it on the library shelf. 

I somehow missed that the book was YA. That doesn't mean it's not good, but it usually means it's a voice to which I can't exactly relate. The narrator is 16-year old Starr and I have no reason to believe the voice doesn't exactly capture the right tone. Again, I realize I wasn't the right audience, but the voice felt oversimplistic and it made it hard for me to get into the story. Overall, I can see why people loved this book, why they think it's a must read and why it strikes such an important tone at this point in history. But, for me, it felt simple and predictable. 

When Breath Becomes Air

"Death comes for all of us..."

It's a truth universally ignored and, quite often, feared. From the moment we are born, it is the inevitable fate that awaits us all. The only difference with someone like Dr. Paul Kalanithi is that he's been given a timeline of sorts for when that final bill will finally come through.

And with that begins a book that I will never forget. 

I've wanted to read this story since the hype began over its release in early 2016. It's the memoir of a neurosurgeon who faced - and wrote about - his own journey towards death. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, I knew the writing would be good and I knew the story would be powerful. It's the power of it all that also kept me at bay.

I'm terrified of death. My own and other people's. I often think about the idea that one day, it's all simply... over. So, reading a true and unflinching story of a man younger than me careening towards a death even he can't prevent didn't sound like the most enjoyable way to spend my time. Sometimes, though, you have to face what scares you to better understand why it frightens you so much.

So, I held my breath. And, I began. And, I held it until the end. Until the breath released in quiet sobs.

The brave, powerful end.

Paul Kalanithi's path took him from studying literature to medical school, as he hoped to better understand how our brain influences who we are. As he tells the story of his life in residency, you learn what an honest, humble and brilliant man he was. Just when he and his wife, who is also a doctor, were finally ready to begin their lives together, he's diagnosed with the lung cancer that will certainly kill him. You follow him through treatment highs and lows and revelations of what his life has become. But, that's not what makes this story so powerful. What makes it powerful is how he unflinchingly stares death down. 

Most powerfully, his oncologist won't evaluate his cancer in terms of months or years left to live. She encourages him instead to consider his values. What does he want to do with the time he has left. Continue practicing medicine? Take a different path in research? Write a book? Watching him make those choices will have you thinking of your own life, your own values. He has a timeline, but there's no reason to wait for a terminal diagnosis to consider what's most important in your life.

Kalanithi doesn't write about his last days before his death. He loses his strength long before that. Instead, the book that meant so much for him to write is finished by his grieving wife, who describes his final days - his final breaths. And shares how he would want his life remembered.

This book, while bleak in subject matter, somehow manages to be powerful and uplifting as well. It's a book that changes you, a book that will have you reevaluate the way you consider death - and life.

Eternal Life

Of all the book reviews that I've written on this blog, the one read by the most people is a review about a book that I HATED. If that's the trend, this one may be the most successful post of the year. Because, for me, this book was absolute torture.

I read about Eternal Life when I saw it was one of the NY Times notable books of the year. Consider this review the counterpoint.

Simply put, Rachel can't die. She's been alive for thousands of years and lived lifetimes all over the world, with different marriages, different kids, etc. Only one person on earth knows what that's like for her - a man with whom she made a vow that now makes it impossible for them to die.

Sounds interesting, right? The plot wasn't really the problem. I mean, the actual plot lines were a problem, but the general premise of the book is fascinating. If you could live forever, would you? If you could experience the joy of being with the ones you love, wouldn't you want it never to end? Well, Rachel didn't think it all the way through. What she didn't realize is that you also watch everyone you love die. You experience that grief over and over. Eternal life doesn't mean eternal happiness. It often means eternal grief.

I get it - you're still with me on this. It sounds fascinating. The real problem is that the author leaves too much on the table. She bounces between present day and events in the far distant past - but, the way she lays out the timeline of the past is confusing. She doesn't make either timeline interesting enough to make you want to know more. The characters aren't interesting or compelling enough to carry it through. I kept reading because I needed to know how it ended; I was disappointed in that, too.

Simply put, I feel like I lived a thousand lifetimes reading this. Like Rachel, I was just praying for it all to end.

Did I mention there's a love story, too? I can't. Don't make me talk about it.

I gave this book two stars on Good Reads. Why two and not one? The premise did stay with me. My grandma is 101 years old and, for years, has talked about how sad it is to watch so many people in her life die before her. Her parents, siblings, husband, one child, all of her friends. While she's experienced so much joy, there's sadness and loneliness, too.  The book also touches on the fact that the reality of death is what gives life meaning. Two stars for making me think, I suppose. But, I'd like to see the premise in better hands.

Elevation

This review will be a quickie, just like this book. After reading a 620-page monster, it was nice to pick up something I could finish in an afternoon. And something that was totally rewarding and, in my opinion, worth the hype.

I've been reading Stephen King for most of my life. I started with Thinner in 4th grade (which is crazy, considering I have a 4th grader and I can't imagine him reading some of the gruesome things I exposed myself to.) I've gone through phases where I read everything he writes, then backed off and thought I was "too smart" for it. Then, I read 11/22/63 and realized I'm actually kind of a moron - that book was like nothing I've ever read and I still think about it all the time. Anyway, I had no idea this book was coming out until it started showing up on all kinds of "notable books" lists.

Elevation is a quick read. It's not a short story (of which King is a master), but it's not a full-blown novel either. It's about 140 pages - and, the pages are small. Because of that, it's a nice, tight read. I started it at 2 in the afternoon and finished before 10. I took breaks to make dinner, put up a Christmas tree and watch the first Rocky movie with my kids. You could knock it out in an afternoon and be free for happy hour.

Elevation tells the story of a man who is experiencing bizarre, unexplained weight loss. Sounds like Thinner, right? But the difference here is that while the scale is showing the drop in pounds, his body isn't changing. He looks the same, his clothes fit the same, etc. Throughout his story, the drop in weight loss leads to an incredible lightness and he knows that, eventually, it will be impossible to function normally.

While dealing with this, our protagonist also manages to insert himself into a divide in his community that he's determined to resolve. Maybe one big gesture before there's nothing left can ensure a legacy he'll leave behind.

This book is simple, straightforward, interesting and easy. The characters are rich, the story is unique - just what you'd expect from King. It's also - dare I say? - sweet. There's no gore, no major twist, nothing that will keep you up at night. In fact, if you start before lunch, you'll be done before the sun goes down.

The Nix

Prepare for some gushing, people. This is one of the best books I've read this year and I now feel it's my responsibility to preach the gospel of Nathan Hill. Prepare to be evangelized.

When you make a decision to read a book that's 620 pages long, you make a choice. A choice to commit. You balk for a second because a book like that can swallow you up or overwhelm you. But, if you're lucky - lucky like I was when I picked up The Nix - it will absolutely consume you in the best possible way.

I opened page one and was HOOKED.

It's hard to describe what makes this such an incredible read; it's hard to convince someone to invest the kind of time it takes to read a book this long. But, this book was so good - the writing so fantastic, the characters so rich - I put it away in about 5 days. I thought about it when I wasn't reading it. I missed it when I was at work. It's that freaking good.

We quickly learn about a professor named Samuel whose mother abandoned him at age 11. We learn about the questions she left behind and how it affected his life. Then, his mother commits a bold, bizarre and public crime and circumstances that follow force mother and son to interact once again.

Cool plot, right? Well, that barely scratches the surface of what this book is all about. It's about mothers and sons, the life choices we make, the secrets we keep, the loves we leave behind, what truly haunts us. Nathan Hill does an incredible job intertwining characters and storylines and time periods. He even pulls off changing the narrative structure based on which character is the focus of a particular chapter (what he does with a video game addict's downfall about 3/4s of the way in is a stroke of genius.)  He makes you care about each character's narrative arc so much, you're personally invested in each one. Then, the way he brings them all together is simply masterful. I gasped out loud, not seeing a particular twist coming.

To read this book is an investment of your time. But, it's completely worth it. You'll have time over the holidays to read and relax, right? This might be the perfect excuse to slow down and bury yourself in truly great writing. Let an incredible book like this be your gift to yourself.