Overall, it's been a very good reading year - I completed (exceeded in fact) my 50 books in 2013 challenge and have read far more fiction this year than I have done in any other year since I've been keeping track of my book consumption. Not everything I read was wonderful, looking back through my lists there is quite a lot of filler and plenty of things I have no interest in re-visiting. By far the biggest disappointment of the year was Veronica Roth's Allegiant - I was really sad to see a series that I had really loved end so poorly (you can read me review here). In line with one of my new year's resolutions (which I'll blog about later this week) I think I'll probably force myself to reread Allegiant in order to better rationalise/understand why it left me so unsatisfied.
Fortunately however, I read many books that I really enjoyed. The most important of these are:
By far my favourite book of the year was Carol Rifka Brunt's Tell the Wolves I'm Home (review). I loved the book when I read it back in February and it's been playing on my mind ever since then. I was deeply moved by all this book had to say about childhood and the unique agonies of mourning, growing up and navigating family relationships. It's definitely the book I've recommended the most this year and I expect that it will continue to be for some time.
For all that Allegiant was extremely disappointing, there were plenty of other gems to be found in YA literature this year. Worthy of special mentions are Katie Coyle's whipsmart Vivian Versus the Apocalypse (review) and Maggie Stiefvater's The Dream Thieves (review) which made my heart ache in the most wonderful way!
I hope that you all had a good reading year and that 2014 brings us all the excellent literature we deserve! I hope that the next year is full of deeply moving character stories and romping great high-concept novels. May all the sequels and final installments to series published this year come from the Deathly Hallows school of satisfying conclusions, rather than from the Mockingjay school of squandered potential!
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