2012 in Review

I know that 2 thirds of the way through February is not exactly the prime time to be posting a 2012 wrap-up, but I like to chase after bandwagons, wildly flailing, rather than to jump on them while they're still going strong. It's just how I roll. I liked most of the books I read in 2012 so this post is a little heavy on the favourites, but oh well, without further ado:

My Favourite Books of 2012

The Help by Katharine Stockett
A lot of people have criticized this book as being another classic case of white saviour syndrome (see also The Blind Side, Avatar blah blah blah) where a story about black people is told through the lens of a white protagonist who we are supposed to be able to relate to. This did bug me a bit (I probably found Skeeter’s parts the least interesting), I really enjoyed this book. It made me laugh, it made me cry. Fun for all the family. The movie is pretty good too.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Jane Austen is a babe. Nuff said.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
I actually listened to the audiobook of this (which is loooong) on a bunch of long train journeys and I really enjoyed it. I didn’t think it was that great (I did like it, I’m just not as nuts about it as some people are), I prefer Neil Gaiman’s short stories to his novels, but it was one of those books which I kept catching myself thinking about for a long time after I finished it. I’m really interested in like, fairytales, folktales, myths, fables, etc etc, so I think that’s why this book played on my mind for a long time.

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
I absolutely loved this book. It’s just sweet and good and lovely. It took me quite a while to get through, because the story itself isn’t super gripping, but the characters and the setting just feel really real and the prose is really beautiful. It also made me super glad I’m not 13 anymore. I definitely want to read something else by David Mitchell soon, I have Cloud Atlas lined up and I want to read it before I see the film.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson
This was probably my favourite book that I’ve read this year, I know I’ll read it again. I don’t really feel qualified to express how great this book is, it’s just funny, and clever, and awesome. I love it, and I think Thompson is a crazy genius.

The End of Mr Y by Scarlet Thomas
I’ll admit that the main reason I bought this was because it looked really good (I can’t resist buying books with black-edged pages), but I ended up really enjoying it. There were a lot of times reading it when I was like “this is stupid, this is pretentious” but I still couldn’t help but love it, and I really couldn’t put it down. It’s kind of a strange book, and there are times when everyone starts doing a lot of rambly philosophising which is kind of annoying, but its super exciting. RECOMMENDED.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
This is another one that I couldn’t put down (and also that I bought just because it had black-edged pages…I’m sensing a pattern here). I think I just powered through it in an afternoon actually. It’s about circuses, magic, and the 1890s, and I love ALL OF THOSE THINGS. There’s a lot of flowery description in it, so if you’re not into that then this probably isn’t for you, but I loved it. Also there’s the whole fated true love thing which normally makes me want to puke, but it didn’t really bother me that much in this book. Definitely one my favourites from this year.

Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood
I did this for my Contemporary Women’s Writing module and I really liked it. Also I wrote an essay on it and wasn’t even sick of it after that so it’s got to be pretty good. I’ve read two other novels by Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale and Alias Grace, and Lady Oracle is not at all like either of those. It’s really funny and sweet, it’s kind of a coming of age tale in a way, I really liked it. Also it’s quite interesting when you’re thinking about genre fiction and fiction aimed at women, which unless you’re doing a Contemporary Women’s Writing module, you probably aren’t. But oh well, you should still read it. It’s good.

Union Street by Pat Barker
Another one from my Contemporary Women’s Writing module. This book is horrible but really really good. If that makes sense. It reads more like a collection of short stories than a novel, but it’s about a group of working class women in the 1970s, and they all have really grim lives and horrible things happen to them. Not a cheery book by any stretch of the word, but it’s really compelling.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
I read this in one sitting and I cried pretty much all the way through. I’ve read all of John Green’s books except Will Grayson Will Grayson and this was definitely my favourite. I don’t really know what to say about this other than it’s really sweet and lovely and heartbreaking, and really easy to read too.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
This is the only one of Neil Gaiman’s books that I’ve never really heard anyone talk about, and I had no idea what it was about when I started it. This is another one that I listened to the audiobook of, it’s read by Lenny Henry and it’s great. Normally I don’t normally like reading books where I dislike all of the characters, but in this book pretty much all the characters are super annoying but I really enjoyed it. It’s just funny and kind of weird, pretty standard Neil Gaiman.


The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
This was by far the best Young Adult book I read this year. I read YA books all the time, they’re like my comfort food. I normally pick one at random that’s cheap in the kindle store and then power through it in one sitting, and I’m pretty sure that’s how I found this one. I know YA dystopias have been done to death (thanks a lot, Suzanne Collins) but this one is really really good. To be honest I think it’s more aimed at like…13-16 year olds but whatever, I don’t care. It’s set in a world where people have had to abandon Earth and move to a new planet, but for some reason their society has really regressed. Also on this new planet there’s some kind of chemical in the atmosphere which means that everyone can hear each other’s thoughts (I know it sounds stupid). It’s told from the point of view of a 13 year old boy called Tom who lives in this creepy village where there are no women. It sounds kind of cheesey and stupid, but it’s really interesting.

My Least Favourite Books of 2012

Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor 
Ergh, this book. This is another YA book I bought on a whim (partly because the cover was pretty) and powered through in an afternoon. I guess I did technically enjoy reading it, but this book sucks. I read quite a lot of stuff about it on the internet and people seem to fucking love it, but trust me. It is terrible. I would compare it to Twilight in that it’s about two like…fated loves or whatever. And also in that both these characters suck and are super annoying because they’re just the author’s idealistic fantasies, and in that their super special magical love is total bullshit. Every time the main character is described (which is often) it’s like OH SHE’S SO COOL, OOH SHE HAS BLUE HAIR, OOH SHE’S SO GOOD AT DRAWING, OOH SHE KNOWS SO MANY LANGUAGES, EVERYONE LIKES HER SO MUCH. Enough. Shut up. And then the love interest, oh my god. He is literally an angel. And people are all ooh I’m blinded by his beauty and then it’s all ooh he’s so damaged, he’s so troubled, he’ll never love again. GUESS WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? To sum up: this book can suck my dick.

Blonde Roots by Bernadine Evaristo
I read this because I needed to write an essay on it and it really really annoyed me. This book is telling the story of slavery but with the sides switched (if that makes sense), so white Europeans are the slaves and black Africans are the slave owners and traders. Essentially, the whole moral and point of this book is - SLAVERY IS BAD. I'm just like, dude, I knew that already. You don't have to make it about white people for me to be like, oh I get it now! Being owned by another human would suck! Thank god someone told it from my perspective so I can finally empathize. NO! Not a fan.

Endgame by Samuel Beckett
God I hate postmodernism. That's pretty much all I have to say about this one.

The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch
I bought this book shortly after I moved to the Netherlands, it's by a Dutch author and set mainly in Amsterdam. I wasn't sure whether to include it on my least favourites list because I mostly enjoyed reading it, but I found the ending so annoying that the cons outweigh the pros. The first 200 pages or so were really great, and mainly focused on the friendship between the two main characters, Max and Onno, but then a girl comes into the picture and the direction of the story kind of changes, and after that it started to drag a lot. The second half of the book focuses on Max's son Quinten who is a total pain in the ass and I found him really annoying. The ending of the book ties up all the loose threads in a way that feels very sudden and strange and it ended up just really frustrating me and making me wish I'd never read it in the first place. Although I enjoyed the first half of this book a lot, overall it just really wasn't worth it.


So that's it for my 2012 wrap-up, hopefully I'll be able to make it to 100 books this year!