As the year winds down, award season is beginning and many best of lists are being released. Hub bloggers share their reflections on the books that have stuck with them over the course of the year.
What is the most memorable book you read during 2015?
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. Great character development and a refreshing plot. Six of Crows had everything, including diverse characters, world building, and a romance that wasn’t the usual trope. —Dawn Abron
Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick is still haunting me, ten months after I read it the first time. I know I haven’t uncovered all the layers and parallels and patterns yet, but those characters and that structure compel me to keep trying. — Julie Bartel
I Crawl Through It by A.S. King. This story of trauma and the ways that teenagers and adults cope with the horrible things that happen in every person’s life really spoke to me at a time when I needed to see that I would make it, I could “crawl through” what I was going through, too. The surreal and real all layered up on each other – this is a book that I will read again and again. — Traci Glass
Bone Gap by Laura Ruby. The imagery in this book is simultaneously lush and chilling. Face blindness, the inability to recognize faces, afflicts one of the main characters. Within the story, it is both a plot point and a metaphor about the inability to see what everyone else sees in the world around you. This book will warrant another reading soon. — Diana Slavinsky
All the Rage by Courtney Summers. Summers’s book is timely and important. More importantly, it is honest, brutal, and doesn’t seek easy answers or sugary conclusions. People are hurt by the destructive actions of their peers, and they struggle to deal with the aftermath in a way few books are afraid to confront. This is an ugly book that recognizes the truth of sexual assault is very real, and sometimes that means no happy endings. — Scott Rader
What was the most memorable book you read this year?
— Molly Wetta, currently reading Sunshine by Robin McKinley
My most memorable book of 2015 was George, by Alex Gino, a heartwarming story about a transgender tween coming to terms with who he/she is and wants to be. This, I know, is still a very sensitive area (despite growing acceptance)–especially when the protagonist is so young! But I thought Gino did a wonderful job with the subject and with George’s character. I have recommended it to several patrons at my library, and I will recommed it to many more! A great choice for those who have read Wonder and want something equally awesome to read next.
Honorable mentions go to The Rest of Us Just Live Here, by Patrick Ness and I Am Princess X, by Cherie Priest.
Nonfiction: Symphony for the City of the Dead by M.T. Anderson
Fiction: For sheer laughs, The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak by Brian Katcher
Comics: This is my first year of reading comics with any regularity, but I loved Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye and was sad to see it end. And I have to give a backlist shoutout to Ed Brubaker’s Death of Captain America Complete Collection.