Top 10 Favorite Books

Normally today is a top 5 Tuesday post, but, Shanah @ The Bionic Bookworm decided that since we were talking about our all time favorite books it would be way too difficult to narrow down to just 5. I agree with her but I hesitate to put this in order because honestly it depends on the day what order my favorite books fall into. The top three are easily my three favorite books at the moment and that won’t change anytime soon, but the rest of them could fall into any order. Also, I am excluding the Harry Potter series from the list because that’s a fairly obvious favorite! I also mention some first books in a series and I can tell you that I love the entire series as much as I love the first book.

1. The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal – This is my all time favorite book. I can honestly say I will never stop singing it’s praises. Have you ever sat down and read a book that you felt was meant for you to read? That’s how I feel about this book! It feels like it was precisely what I needed in the moment that I picked it up and it’s one of those books that I want to keep close to me at all times. I’ve been considering getting it for a friend as a birthday gift because I want her to love it as much as I do!!!!!! I want everyone and their mother to read this book and love it as much as I do! Also, it just won the Nebula award for best novel so if that doesn’t convince you that its good I don’t know what will! Here’s a link to my review. (Fun fact, it’s the first review I ever wrote so my reviewing style has changed a bit since then. I’ll be re-writing a review/discussion once I do a re-read of the book.)
2. Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid – The minute I put this book down I knew it was one of my favorites! I still think about the characters in this book all the time and I love reading and watching discussions surrounding this book. I even had a moment today on my way to the grocery store where I thought “this is definitely a song Billy Dunne would write.” Needless to say, I love this book. I actually have both a review and a discussion post here on my blog if you are interested in knowing more about the book as well as my in depth thoughts and reactions to various plot points please go check them out.
3. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson – This wouldn’t be a favorites list without Brandon Sanderson would it? As much as I love and adore The Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson, I had to choose Warbreaker for this list because it means so much to me. The characters within the book were incredibly well developed, as well as the plot. Everything surprised me and everything about the book was incredibly fantastic. This is another series I have a review and a discussion post of on my site if you are interested in learning more.
4. Red Rising by Pierce Brown – Red Rising is one of the first science fiction novels I read as an adult and I loved even though it was somewhat of a difficult read at time. I’m currently re-reading this book which is something I’ve been scared to do because I was scared I wasn’t going to love it as much as I did the first time. But at about 70 pages in I remember why I love this series so much.
5. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare – I had to throw a Shakespeare play in here considering the name of my blog. I have so much of Much Ado About Nothing memorized due the multiple versions I have watched throughout the years. Watching Beatrice and Benedick fall in love again and again is one of my favorite experiences and I don’t think I will ever get tired of seeing new iterations of the story.
6. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden- I added this series to the list because I get so excited every time I think about this book. I read this series so quickly and it was a total surprise how much I loved it. I’m looking forward to having this book as one of my winter time re-reads for years and years to come!
7. Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas – If you haven’t started this series yet I don’t necessarily recommend getting into because it has a ton of ups and downs and can be somewhat problematic at times. That being said, I still love it! The finale of the series was a lot of fun and I was so happy with how everything ended. The entire series is like binge watching reality television or eating at McDonalds, you know it’s probably bad for you and the drama is really unnecessary but yet you can’t seem to stop yourself from coming back to it.
8. Illuminae by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kauffman – This is one of the most fun and crazy science fiction series I have ever read and I really love it! It will make you laugh, and cry (usually within seconds of each other) and it’s so fantastically written by both of its authors that I can’t recommend it enough.
9. Still Me by JoJo Moyes – The Me Before You series has a billion and one problems but it means a lot to me. Me Before You was one of the first books that I read after a really long period of reading next to nothing (other than books for school) for about 5 years. I read it at a time when I was dealing with a lot and reading the book really helped me. When I finally got fully invested in reading again last year Still Me was one of the first books I read and it means so much to me to see Louisa Clark’s journey end. I was in the process of re-building myself and finding myself again similar to Louisa Clark so to see a character going through a parallel journey was very meaningful. This book isn’t one of the the all time best books ever written but it’s meaningful to me so it is on my favorites list.
10. The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis – I listened to this book on audiobook the first time I ever read it because I noticed the audiobook was being read by Kenneth Branagh (one of my favorite actors). I didn’t expect to fall in love with the book and it might actually be my favorite of all the Chronicles of Narnia series purely because of the description of watching the creation of the world. It was incredible. As I listened to that passage being read I felt so excited because C.S. Lewis put into words how I had always imagined the creation of the world and it was incredibly beautiful.