My Favorite Reads of 2019

Happy 2020, book friends! Are you excited about the new year? I am!! I'm finalizing my new reading challenges and goals, but I also think it's important to highlight some of the great books I read last year.

In 2019, I read 441 books. I completed my Goodreads reading challenge (400 books), my Popsugar Challenge, and was one away from completing my YARC 2019 challenge of 50 books. So close!!!! Anyway, here are my top 10 (not necessarily published in 2019, I just read them then) in no particular order:

This was a heavily hyped adult novel that lived up to the hype, at least in my opinion! It was a dark read, but I felt it truly encompassed the lives and experiences of four people who became friends in college, and then learned to navigate adulthood. Among them is Jude, a deeply damaged individual struggling to survive in a world that has been anything but kind.

Huge trigger warnings for physical and sexual abuse.

Frankly in Love was billed as a YA romantic comedy, but it was so much more. Read my review here.

I really enjoyed this tender YA about a girl used to upending her life and moving with her chef aunt, finally finding a place they can both call home (in the unlikeliest of small towns).

This was a tremendous first book in a tremendous middle grade quartet about a track team and their coach. I am NOT a fan of sports books, but this was amazing.

I hated Ronan Lynch at the beginning of The Raven Boys, but by the end of the quartet, he became my favorite character. There is nothing not to love about this new trilogy, featuring Ronan and his equally memorable brothers. I can't wait to read the next book.

This middle grade book (the first in a series) has the potential to be the next Harry Potter. The world was fascinating and well-developed, and I loved all of the characters. 

In the ARTT room of their school, six middle-graders develop deep connections with each other, sharing everything from racial profiling to the devastating effects of ICE raids. This book broke my heart, but it is so very, very important.

Blended has such a cute, pleasant looking cover, but this middle grade novel is just as hard-hitting as Harbor Me. Isabella is an eleven year violinist who just wants to get to her recital, but what happens to her could be ripped straight from the news. Another important read.

This YA novel is about addiction, in a way I'd never read before. I went into it with a cast-iron heart, knowing that McGinnis' novels are always strange, compelling, and traumatizing, but I was still unprepared. Six months later, I'm still deeply affected by some of the scenes in this book. 

I am partial to good ghost stories, and The Winter People was an amazing ghost story with compelling questions about the ways the living chase after their dead.

What were your favorite books of 2019?