All The Best Books That I Couldn't Put Down in 2018

Happy 2019! I can’t believe it’s already 3 weeks into the new year… and I’ve only read half of one book, ha! I’ve got to get a move on this year, as my goal is 25 books this year.

P.S. Want to read my 2019 book picks? Those are here!

I read a lot in 2018 (19 to be exact!), and since many people ask me for book recommendations, I wanted to outline the best books of 2018 (at least in my opinion!)–and the reasons why I loved them so much.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

I have to admit, the cover and description of this book really did not have me interested at first glance. I actually picked up a copy of this at work on our free table, but didn’t start reading it until two of my favorite podcasters started talking about how great it was! Children of Blood and Bone is a fantasy novel about kids who make it their mission to bring back magic in a land where magical people have been subjected to genocide. Yes, pretty heavy, but this is actually a YA book! The story has adventure, violence, betrayal, friendship, and even love. I highly recommend!

Good book club pick? Yes!

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Oh my gosh, this book. I could not put it down once I got into it (it took about 30 pages or so). I so deeply adored the main characters, and was genuinely upset when it was over. Where the Crawdads Sing is about a young girl named Kya Clark, who lives in the marsh in very rural North Carolina. She is known as the Marsh Girl, lives alone, and is absolutely in love with nature. While the book is centered around a mystery, to me it was so, so much more than that. I hold this book close to my heart.

Good book club pick? Yes!

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

The Alice Network is about a young girl who goes on a quest to find her beloved cousin who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during WWII. It also tells the story of a female spy during WWI. The story is told equally between post-WWII and WWI, which is one of my favorite types of stories to read. I love when books jump around between perspectives and times, and I also love historical fiction, so this book really got me.

Good book club pick? Meh.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

I loved this book. The Great Alone is set in very rural Alaska during the 70’s, where a 13-year-old girl, Leni, and her parents learn how to survive the winters and wild of their new home. As if their lives couldn’t be any harder on a homestead in Alaska’s wilderness, Leni’s father is an abusive alcoholic who mentally imprisons both Leni and her mother. The Great Alone was hard to read at times, but an incredibly riveting story that I very much loved.

Note: Kristin Hannah also wrote one of my other favorite stories, The Nightingale. If you haven’t read that, read it first!

Good book club pick? Yes!

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

I have a lot of feelings about this book. The writing was beautiful, and it invoked a lot of really great conversations between my friends and I. An American Marriage is about a newlywed couple whose world is rocked when the husband gets arrested and convicted for a crime he didn’t commit. He is expected to be in jail for a very long time, but gets out early only to find out that everything in his life, especially his marriage, has drastically changed. “What would you do in this situation?” is a question my friends and I pondered, and it made for some very lively discussions (especially with our significant others, ha!).

Good book club pick? Yes!

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

UGH you guys, this book was incredible. I can’t even explain how much I loved it. It’s a long one–592 pages–but every page is riveting, heartbreaking, whimsical, and everything in between. I loved the story so much. The Heart’s Invisible Furies follows a young man throughout his life in Dublin during the 1940’s on. There’s not much else I can say about it without giving it away, but it’s a story of a lifetime of getting to know yourself and how everything in life comes full circle in the end.

Good book club pick? Yes!

Educated by Tara Westover

What a story. While the truth of some of this memoir is being questioned by characters involved, it is a riveting and heartbreaking story nonetheless. Tara Westover grew up in a survivalist family in the mountains of Idaho, and never set foot in a classroom until she was age 17. Educated is a true story of resilience and the ultimate quest for knowledge. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Good book club pick? Yes!

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This might be one of the most addictive books I read all year! I think I read this in about… 3 days. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is about a famous film actress who tells her entire life story to a budding journalist. They form an unlikely friendship, and it turns out that Evelyn’s life story is not at all that it seems to the general public. It definitely got me wondering about the private lives of celebrities now.

Good book club pick? Meh, maybe!

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

I had a hard time with whether or not to put this book on my best of 2018 list. While I absolutely hated the writing style, I loved the story. The Immortalists is about a set of siblings who go to see a psychic when they are very young–and this psychic tells them all the exact date in the future that they will die. How the teenagers process this information and how it affects their lives varies greatly, and it begs the question: do we really want to know what the future holds? This story is very thought provoking, so I recommend it for that aspect alone.

Good book club pick? Yes!