Top Reads of 2015
I'm excited to share with you my favorite books of last year. Perhaps I am most excited about the fact that not just one, but two picture books made my list for the first time. Or maybe it is that I predicted one of the books to be the next Newbery winner, when in fact, it received an Honor.
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
This books was highly and emphatically recommended to me by a co-worker and friend of mine. At first I wasn't sure about the major storyline being around flowers, but oh my goodness, did it work. I devoured this novel in about 24 hours. It's not very often that I binge read anymore, but I just couldn't put it down. The perfect mix between Victoria's life in the foster care system and finding her gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them put me in a trance.
Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan
Just looking at this nearly 600 page children's book can be intimidating. But I'm so glad I picked it up and was just sure it would be the Newbery winner for the year. It is the story of 3 different children throughout the world during WWII and how they end up with the same harmonica. Guys, in the last 50 pages or so I had chills. Chiiiillllls. It was one of those books you have to just sit a while to detox from. I'm recommending this to everyone!
If You Plant a Seed by Kadir Nelson
The most beautiful picture book ever. The illustrations themselves leave me in awe, but then the story it tells is so important. It teaches the reader that seeds of kindness and seeds of selfishness harvest two very different results. At one point the rabbit and mouse have a food fight with the birds that want them to share their food. Makes you giggle, at the same time receiving the moral of the story. So cute!
Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler
I read the cover of this book and knew I would loooove this one. It reads, "If Calling Me Home were a young woman, her grandmother would be To Kill a Mockingbird, her sister would be The Help, and her cousin would be The Notebook." Right there I knew I was going to feel all the feels. And I did. It's the story of an elderly white woman and her young black hairdresser going on a journey to a funeral. You don't know whose funeral it is until the end of the story. I kept it together until the extreme bitter end. The last sentence had me bawling ugly tears.
Paper Hearts by Meg Wiviott
I've always enjoyed books about the Holocaust. This was a new Young Adult book that was released towards the end of the year. It is the story of two teenage girls in Auschwitz. The two best things about this book: it's written in prose, so I devoured it in one night and at the end you find out it is a true story. Right away I wanted to plan a trip to Canada to go see the real paper hearts. I have loaned this books out a couple times already, and plan to read this again which I don't do often, if ever.
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
I had heard great things about this book and I am so glad that I checked it out as an audio book. It truly brought the characters to life in a way that I know I couldn't have if I was reading it myself. It is the story of two young girls. On Sarah’s eleventh birthday, she is given ownership of a ten year old slave named Handful, who will be her personal handmaid. The story follows their lives for the next thirty five years while they both strive for a life of their own within their own undeniable relationship as friends instead of master and slave.
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
When I finished this book my relationship with the book changed from love-love to love-hate. I slammed that book shut and was angry with it. I glared at that book every time I passed it for a week. But then I remembered why I loved it. It's not your typical love story at all, as you would expect about a book written about a quadriplegic and his caregiver. I was glad when the follow-up novel was released this year, but like many sequels it fell short of the original story. I hope the movie release this year does it better justice than the sequel did.
\I Ain't Gunna Paint No More by Karen Beaumont
This picture book had me giggling the whole time. I fell in love with it when I saw the cover. The small child covered in paint and grinning from ear to ear tells you what you already know will happen. The cute rhyming of the story makes it a fun read along that all kids will love.
The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah
I found Kristen Hannah last year. When I heard she wrote a new book about WWII I was all heart-eyes before seeing the beautiful cover and reading about the storyline. It tells the stories of the women's war through two sisters. One a mother and wife of a soldier forced to home Nazis while her husband's fighting and another who is an active member of the Resistance. The story takes place over the course of the war and is very detailed for those readers who need to know everything about the human condition.
Black Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin
Suprisingly, this is the only suspense novel on my list this year. Many of the others I read like The Girl on the Train, The Murderer's Daughter, and We Were Liars I had predicted the ending. This one I had not, so it kept me guessing the whole time. It is about the one girl that survived a murderer that left victims in a field of black-eyed susans. Because of this, for the rest of her life Tessa will be known as a Black Eyed Susan. She has very little memory of what happened during that time, but somehow her testimony has the wrong man on death row. Twenty years later she finds black-eyed susans planted outside her bedroom window. Then begins the real mystery of finding the true murderer.
Chasing Sunsets by Karen Kingsbury
This is the second book in the Angels Walking series. I surprisingly enjoyed this book better than the first! The focus of the main character's changes to Mary Catherine and Marcus Dillinger, a LA Dodger, during their volunteering at a local youth center. Things go great between them until she receives devastating news about her health. It quickly alters her future and forces her to make a rash decision. I am so exciting to read the third book in this trilogy, which will be released this March.
Have you read any of these? What did you think?
Bet yet, do you have any recommendations you would like to share?
Can't wait to see what this year of reading holds.
Happy Reading!
Audra
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