2013: A Year in Books | The Favorites

Image Credit: Abhi Sharma

The year is almost over, and you know what that means: it’s time to write our “Best of” lists and anger people with our terrible choices. But fear not! My impeccable taste guarantees a list filled with nothing but great recommendations… That, and I’m aware of how obnoxious and pretentious some of these lists are, which is why this year I’m going with “Favorites” instead of “Best”. So even if you violently disagree with me, at least you know that I consider this my list and not the list.

Before I get to it, though, I wanted to thank you all for the wonderful year I’ve had. I know I was a bit of a slacker, yet you’re still here even when I only blog once a month. But consistent or not, 2013 was a lot of fun and that’s all thanks to you blogger/twitter/reader/author friends who make the Internet welcoming, interesting and highly addictive.

I’ll resume my not-so-regularly scheduled blogging next month, but in the meantime I leave you with my favorite books of the year (in no particular order). Let me know if any of your favorites made the list.

Review: Down London Road by Samantha Young

A few months ago, everyone was talking about a self-published book titled On Dublin Street (or at least everyone on my little corner of the blogosphere). The book became a huge success and soon was acquired by Penguin. I thought it was a compelling story, but not a unique or innovative one.  The sequel was still on my radar, though, and it became a must-read when I realized that the heroine would be the sexually forward, gold-digging friend from On Dublin Street.

Jo is a bartender whose goal in life is to marry a rich guy. Her current boyfriend certainly fits the requirements, so she pampers him and does everything he wants, even if that means not being herself. But before you get excited thinking that we’re finally getting a heroine that completely breaks the mold, I should tell you that the reason why she acts that way is because she has to take care of her teenage brother and their abusive, alcoholic mother. So nope, she’s not materialistic or self-absorbed; she’s just damaged and filled with a bunch of secret pains. Of course she is.