Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish that asks bloggers to create Top Ten lists on a variety of bookish topics. This week’s topic is…
Top Ten Books of the Past Three Years (2012 – Present)
2015 To Date
My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh (review)
Gorgeous writing, suspenseful plot, late 80’s/early 90’s teen nostalgia.
2014
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (review)
Made me love a post-apocalyptic story (which I normally don’t love).
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin (review)
The most perfect book for bookworms with the most lovably irascible main character.
The Wife, The Maid, and The Mistress by Ariel Lawhon (review)
Awakened me to “fiction based on true crime”.
2013
Me Before You by JoJo Moyes (review)
The witty banter, the sobbing. I heard there’s a sequel in the works? I’m not even sure how that would work.
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown (review)
History, sports, admirable characters…and surprisingly got me enthralled in the details of rowing.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (review)
Sprawling…and features possibly the best “book sidekick” ever.
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer (review)
One of the best books about friendship I’ve ever read (and may soon be joined in this category by A Little Life).
2012
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (review)
Brilliant, completely screwed up…and have never been more shocked by a reading experience.
Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan (review)
Random, quirky, eclectic.
Tuesday Intro
Every Tuesday, fellow blogger Bibliophile By the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, where bloggers share the first paragraph of the book they are currently reading or thinking about reading soon.
Plot Summary from Amazon
In Port Sabine, the air is thick with oil, superstition reigns, and dreams hang on making a winning play. All eyes are on Mercy Louis, the star of the championship girls’ basketball team. Mercy seems destined for greatness, but the road out of town is riddled with obstacles. There is her grandmother, Evelia, a strict evangelical who has visions of an imminent Rapture and sees herself as the keeper of Mercy’s virtue. There are the cryptic letters from Charmaine, the mother who abandoned Mercy at birth. And then there’s Travis, the boy who shakes the foundation of her faith.
At the periphery of Mercy’s world floats team manager Illa Stark, a lonely wallflower whose days are spent caring for a depressed mother crippled in a refinery accident. Like the rest of the town, Illa is spellbound by Mercy’s beauty and talent, but a note discovered in Mercy’s gym locker reveals that her life may not be as perfect as it appears.
The last day of school brings the disturbing discovery, and as summer unfolds and the police investigate, every girl becomes a suspect. When Mercy collapses on the opening night of the season, Evelia prophesies that she is only the first to fall, and soon, other girls are afflicted by the mysterious condition, sending the town into a tailspin, and bringing Illa and Mercy together in an unexpected way.
Here’s the first paragraph of the Prologue (this quote is from an uncorrected proof):
Early Friday morning in Port Sabine sees a ragged crew gather at the Market Basket on LeBlanc Avenue. After clocking out at the refinery, the night shift guys load up on Nyquil where, eight hours before, they’d bought black coffee and NoDoz. Because the store is close to the highway, drifters hitching to Galveston or farther south, to Corpus or Mexico, loiter the bathrooms. They strip off their undershirts and soak their hair beneath the faucet, sponge-bathing their gritty chests with soiled handkerchiefs before standing in the hot blast of air from the hand dryer. The cashier has orders from the manager to kick them out if they keep the dryer going too long, so he keeps the TV above the register on mute and listens for the machine’s high whine through the wall.
What do you think? Would you keep reading?
Sarah, Sorry no Tuesday post, but it’s too frustrating trying to post from an iPad using Blogger.
No worries and I bet that would be frustrating!
The Goldfinch and The Interestings would have to be on my top ten list, too! Absolutely loved both of those. And I’ve been hearing great things about Mercy Louis, so I hope it ends up being a good read for you.
The Interestings, especially, keeps growing and growing in my brain the farther I move away from it! Funny how books do that sometimes…and sometimes they do the opposite.
Great Top Ten list!
I enjoyed reading your top ten selection of the past three years Sarah, I would agree with Gone Girl, and I would pick a Jojo Moyes, but probably The One Plus One. I hadn’t heard of My Sunshine Away before but I like the sound of the teen nostalgia from those times, so I will look out for it.
I haven’t read One Plus One, but have heard good things! Definitely give My Sunshine Away a shot…gorgeously written and suspenseful.
The only one of your top 10 that I’ve read is GONE GIRL, but I have heard all kind of goodness about the rest. Nice list!
I was quite drawn in by your teaser. First, a book set in Texas (I’d assume), so there is that and I could really see the scene with hand dryers and Nyquil to come down, NoDoz to pump up. I’ll have to look for that one.
I thought that intro set the scene really well. I haven’t started reading it yet, so we’ll see!
I almost included Gone Girl on my list…almost. I loved it at the time and it’s lingered with me.
But at the time I made my list, other books jumped up and said, “Pick me! Pick me!”
I can’t say if I made the list again, that Gone Girl wouldn’t make it. 🙂
It would be interesting to recreate this list 3 years from now…including the same time period as we used today. I definitely feel like my opinions of books change over time.
Nice list! (Why don’t I do TTT? I really should.) The only one on your list of 10 that I haven’t read is Station Eleven. It’s on my Kindle and I hope to get to it within the next decade, ha ha.
It took me forever to start participating in TTT…I loved reading everyone else’s lists, so figured I should jump into the game! Station Eleven shocked me..I really didn’t think I’d like it…figured I’d sample it and then end up not buying it. But, I was pleasantly surprised 🙂
I like how you broke your list down into years, very creative. You’ve listed some excellent books, there are several I hope to get to this year. Your intro is very interesting. Sounds like a place where a lot of things could happen. I’d keep reading. Have a great day. Here’s my Tuesday post Kelley at the road goes ever ever on
I have only read Gone Girl on your list, but several others are books I want to read: Station Eleven, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, The Wife, The Maid, and The Mistress, The Boys in the Boat, and The Goldfinch in particular.
I like the intro quite a bit–the writing and the tone set. I would keep reading.
I definitely need to get a copy of The Interestings! And I’m so bummed that my library doesn’t have the audio for Boys in a Boat. Everyone has been raving over it. And I think I saw something about continuing with Louisa after the fact with Me Before You–the first was so powerful…it will be interesting to see how Moyes pulls it off!
I can’t even wrap my head around a Me Before You sequel..for me, it wasn’t just about Louisa, it was the sparks between the two of them, so I’m not sure what allure a sequel would hold for me.
What a great post, Sarah; we have so many favorite books in common. Me Before You definitely stuck with me for a long time after I finished reading it. I would definitely continue reading The Unraveling of Mercy Lewis; if for no other reason than for the fact that I grew up really close to Port Sabine and Galveston, Texas. Can’t wait to hear how this one pans out for you!
Me too 🙂 I just can’t imagine how she would possibly write this rumored sequel to it!
I like your list – some I have read, some I need to!
Great list! Station Eleven made it onto mine too. The Goldfinch, My Sunshine Away, The Interestings, and Gone Girl are also great choices!
I feel like I say Station Eleven on a lot of today’s list – deservedly so!
What a great list! It was very hard to do, I’m sure. I feel like I would have almost the same list — especially, I loved Boys in the Boat, A.J. Fikry, My Sunshine Away, and Station Eleven. But so hard to include only 10 on the list!
I definitely had trouble getting the list down to 10!
Awesome list! I’ve been wanting to check out Station Eleven for a while now because it seems like a very interesting and different book. I hope you have a great week! 🙂
Krystianna @ Downright Dystopian
I normally don’t like dystopian/post-apocalyptic books, but Station Eleven was a great exception!