End-Of-Year Roundup: Best Books of 2017

2017 is coming to a close, and that means I now get to share with you my favorite books of the year. I read sooooo many good ones this year, y’all (229 books in total, as a matter of fact!) and it was torture trying to narrow things down to a list of just ten books. You almost had a list of my Top 35 Books of the Year… That just didn’t have a nice ring to it, however, so I worked my tail off and came up with my top ten favorites (plus just a few more, because that’s how I roll).

My Top Ten Books of 2017:

1. 1. Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
  2. This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
  3. Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E.K. Johnston
  4. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
  5. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  6. Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig
  7. The Reason You’re Alive by Matthew Quick
  8. The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr by Frances Maynard
  9. Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu
  10. The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg

As always, click each title to be taken to a summary of the book. Now, you may have noticed something about this list that is a little unusual compared to past lists… Yes, you are correct: three of the titles are YA books! 2017 was the year of the YA novel for Pathologically Literate!! I’m not sure of the exact stats (those are yet to come in my PIE CHART post in January) but let’s just say I read… a crap-ton of YA novels this year. I know, I know – Hell did not freeze over, like I claimed so many times that it would before I would become a YA fan. What can I say, y’all? There is some quality stuff out there and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

While I was choosing which arm to cut off narrowing down my selections, I just had to tack on some honorable mentions, as I could not keep my list down to a mere ten books. This, too, was a tough job as I wanted to choose so many of the wonderful books I read this year. Please don’t forget to check out my “2017” Shelf on Goodreads for a look at everything I read this year. While you’re there, be sure to add me as your newest Goodreads friend!!

Honorable Mentions:

- Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
- Range of Motion by Elizabeth Berg

Oh, yes, y’all – another anomaly on the Honorable Mentions list, isn’t there? I’ve also mentioned in the past that Harry Potter was not something that called to me, and it wasn’t – until now. Indeed, 2017 was also the year of Harry Potter – in which I tentatively picked up the first book in the series, liked it, then wound up absolutely devouring the rest of the series in little over a week. This sparked a flurry of excitement within my online book club, and I had much fun discussing the various books in the series with my friends there as I read them.

2017 was a year of good times and good reads, and I can’t wait to see what’s to come in the next year. Bring it on, 2018!!