Best Books of 2013

I have a slight problem with doing a 'Best Books of 2013' because I really don't believe that what Goodreads thinks I've read this year is the full total of everything I've actually read. As you may have noticed, my internet presence this year has been somewhat... sporadic this year and so I've only listed things as 'currently reading' on Goodreads when I remember to, thus I'm pretty sure some important stuff has been overlooked!

However, ignoring that I do just so happen to have exactly ten books on my Five Star list for 2013, and they are as follows (in kind of the order I read them):

1. Maus by Art Spiegelman (review) - Brilliant, quirky and very important. Awesome graphic novel which I should have read sooner. 
2. Wild by Cheryl Strayed (review) - The best memoir I've read in a while. Totally inspiring and beautifully written. I need to buy myself a copy so I can read it again. 
3. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor (review) - This was a re-read of a series that I thought was great as a child, and it really stood up to re-reading. Not easy reading because it's about difficult issues, but very well written and really well told. 
4. Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti (review) - Lots of people kind of hated this book, and I think having read their thoughts that it's probably worth a re-read because I tend to get carried away with people making points that are brilliant and which I agree with and gloss over the other stuff. That said, this book does make many brilliant and important points and has a lot of great reasons why feminism should be important to everyone. 
5. Rags & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales edited by Melissa Marr & Tim Pratt (review) - This was a brilliantly timed arrival, as it turned up the day before we went to see Neil Gaiman, whose publicist is responsible for sending this collection to me, as he had written one of the stories in it, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty which was, of course, brilliant. There were a lot of stories in it which were particularly great and it was nice to read something which had some fairytales but also some other classic tales as well as some lesser known ones. 
6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky - I never got around to reviewing this for some reason, I think because I loved it so much it was difficult to talk about it, and also probably because I watched (and also loved) the film at around the same time so it was a bit of an overload. I wish I had written about the book now because to be honest, the film is kind of overriding it in my head. All I really remember is that I prefered the ending of the film, which is totally ok to say when the director of the film is the guy who wrote the book, right? 
7. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan (review) - I only read this a couple of weeks ago after picking it up on our epic book buying spree in Leeds, and it really didn't disappoint. It was full of awesome characters and didn't play out at all the way I thought it was going to. 
8. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell - Also didn't get around to writing about this, again because I was overwhelmed by the awesome. Eleanor and Park were both awesome, and it was so well written and beautiful and the ending was totally not what I expected. Loved it. 
9. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (review) - If I had to pick a favourite book of the year, just one, this would be it. It's my favourite of his books as well I think, and basically it's just beautiful and brilliant and you should all read it. 
10. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell - Yes I did just put The Ocean at the End of the Lane in the middle so you wouldn't notice there are two Rainbow Rowell books on this list, but I just finished Attachments and I adored it. Such awesome, gorgeous, quirky characters who I totally love now, and such a lovely, romantic, unusual plot. Rowell for the win. 

An an honourable mention needs to go to This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz, which has to be the cleverest and most beautiful collection of short stories I've read this year. 

So there's that. This post took me a looooong time to write as I've been totally flat out with a horrendous cold/flu type thing and unable to take anything for congestion or do much about my horrible cough except drink honey and lemon :-( Once I've recovered I hope to be back to blogging more regularly!

Some Thoughts About Will Grayson,Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan

So I bought Will Grayson, Will Grayson on our epic blogger shopping trip in Leeds, because it's the last of John Green's books I haven't read/didn't own and because I really enjoyed Dash and Lily's Book of Dares (and really liked the film but haven't yet read the book of Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist) both by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan. On Monday I stuck it in my bag for the 3 hour (there and back!) bus trip to work, as an alternative to Dickens. I've been managing about 3 chapters of A Tale of Two Cities of a morning before I'm forced to look for a lighter option - he's a bit heavy for 7am most of the time! 

Anyway, suffice to say that Will Grayson, Will Grayson was done by the time I got back home again Monday night. It was much quicker reading than I'd expected and (this particularly for Hanna) much better than The Fault In Our Stars! It's kind of also a book about issues (one of the Will Grayson's is gay, the other is perpetually stuck in orbit to his larger than life gay best friend) but it's really not so much about that than the characters and their voices. The stories run parallel to each other and then reach a point where they kind of intersect, so you have two completely separate casts of characters who sort of mingle together at various points. 

One storyline is written by John Green and one by David Levithan and it really wasn't difficult to tell whose Will Grayson was whose, and they were both very different characters but they worked really well together. One of the Will Grayson's is quite an angry teenager (kind of like I was, so I related), whereas the other is just a bit of a doormat, but neither of them were annoying and despite it being about teen issues and relationships and all that drama it never got whiny. 

These days I find myself paying more attention to the parents, especially when I read YA, probably because I am one myself now! Will Grayson's mum features quite heavily in the story, and she's far from a perfect character; she's obviously struggling but I really liked that she was in a situation that a lot of people could probably relate to but she still managed to be a decent parent and have a relationship with her depressed teenage son. She was very accepting of him, and I really liked that about her. The other Will Grayson's parents were mentioned more than seen, but they had their moments. I particularly liked the fact that there's a scene where Will isn't feeling good and he calls his Dad to get him to call school for him and his Dad comes home just because he wanted to hang out with him while he was ill. Awwwwww. 

So yeah, basically it's just a good quick read with some really cool characters, most of whom I haven't even mentioned, but Tiny Cooper is great and so is Jane. Also I like the cover, because it's purple. Obviously not the most important thing to mention, but still!