Best Books of 2019…

Hello! I have been planning on doing this post for weeks and I am so happy to finally be sharing it today. For some reason, figuring out which books would make this list was much harder than I initially anticipated. I think this is partly because I read so many amazing books last year that it was just hard to narrow it down, which is NOT a bad problem to have.

Tracking My Reading:

After overthinking it for weeks, I decided I was going to look back at all the books I read and then decide which ones were the most memorable. Does anyone else have a hard time remembering exactly what happened in a book? I am always super impressed when someone tells me in detail about a book they read many books ago..While I can remember basic things, mostly I remember how they made me feel. All the books that I picked for this list were ones that stuck with me long after I finished them.

So How Do I Remember The Books I Have Read?

1. The Bookworm Life 2. So Many Books, So Little Time. 3. Book Journal (*Etsy shops -these are not affiliate links)

I am not a super-organized person and I definitely don’t have one of those cute reading tracker journals  (but how amazing are the ones pictured above?!) or an excel spreadsheet of all my books.

I would love to be one of those people but at this stage of my life, I am just not.  For me, if tracking my reading doesn’t happen pretty much automatically, it probably is not going to happen! Enter Goodreads!

Goodreads Year in Books!

Goodreads has been a savior for me and helps keep track of all the books I read whether they are hard copies, ebooks or audiobooks. It’s what I use when I do my monthly reading recaps and it also makes it easy to look back and sort by date or rating.

Picking My Favorite Books of 2019…

In July I recapped my favorite books from 2019 (so far!) and it was interesting to see how everything stacked up six months later. You can read that blog post HERE.

2019 was a GREAT year of reading which made making this final decision not easy! While some of these books remained on my favorites list I read a lot of amazing books in the second half. When I reflected on my “favorite” books of the year, the ones that came up are the ones I still think about today, even if I read them many months ago.

My list of favorite books from 2019!

The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo

I kept seeing The Most Fun We Ever Had on #Bookstagram and I put it on my TBR list but I  wasn’t sure if summer was the time to read it. I was a little nervous about the length and I didn’t know if I was in the mood for a family saga piece of writing during this more hectic time of the year. After seeing yet another raving review I decided to read it on a whim and boy was I wrong!

When you are reading a 500+ page book it is a real commitment. Your reading experience is more like a marathon and just not a sprint to the finish. Author Claire Lombardo pulled me right into the lives of the members of the Sorrenson family and I had a hard time putting this one down. The writing was both captivating and completely absorbing. I ended up going back and forth between both reading the hard copy and listening to this on audio. This made it an absolutely amazing and engrossing reading experience and was perfect for this style of writing.

While there were a lot of well-developed characters and the narration jumps back and forth from present (2016) to the past I never felt confused or that it was hard to keep track of it all. This is all such a testament to Lombardo’s skilled writing ability.

The story was compelling and the characters were both raw and relatable. I loved that their relationships with each other and themselves showed the intricacies of both families and just being human. The nuanced history and complexities of relationships that have spanned decades were presented in such a completely compelling manner. There were humorous parts and so many memorable quotes that I will never forget.

When I wasn’t reading or listening to this book I was thinking about it.  It was difficult to leave this fictional family at the end of my reading journey, which for me, makes this truly a remarkable read. I highly recommend this debut(!!) novel and I can’t wait to read what Lombardo shares next.

You can read my full review of The Most Fun We Ever Had HERE.

The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall

I wasn’t sure what book should follow The Most Fun We Ever Had but I knew I wanted to read another family saga. The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall fit into this category so I decided to give it a go.

Wall introduces us to two couples, Charles and Lily and James and Nan. The beginning of the book gives us a rich background for each character starting from their childhoods through early adulthood. These couples lives then become intertwined when Charles and James become pastors at a New York City Presbyterian church. Over the years we see them struggle with their faith, beliefs, marriage, parenthood, and friendships.

This book is a deep dive into these four characters, who navigate many joys and heartaches over the decades we follow along with them. I loved seeing their evolving relationships with both themselves and one another and having the rich backstory to these multi-dimensional characters made this storyline even more rewarding.

While there are religious themes in The Dearly Beloved, Wall presents them without judgment or bias toward any belief system and the writing never feels preachy. I appreciated that it showed the struggles of all four characters at some point within their own belief systems.

You can read my full review for The Dearly Beloved HERE.

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

While I knew she was a great writer from reading her victim impact statement (you can read it on Buzzfeed HERE) when she was known for so many years as “Emily Doe”, I was blown away by Know My Name by Chanel Miller. Her voice is strong and her writing is filled with details, reflection, humility, and even hope. I listened to this one on audio but I also purchased a hardcopy because I knew it was one that I needed to have in my own collection.

I loved how poignantly Chanel Miller shared what it is like to deal with very private grief while at the same time needing and move forward with daily life…I loved learning about her amazingly supportive family unit and her ability to see the good in people, like the men who stepped in to help the night of her attack. While she only speaks for herself, she really is speaking for a generation and I can’t recommend this one enough.

She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey

I followed Know My Name with She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey and the timing couldn’t have been more timely for me. She Said is a fascinating and powerful look at what it means to bring a story of this magnitude and sensitivity to life through journalism.

Told step by step, She Said shares what journalists Kantor and Twohey learned, uncovered, and reported on in the early stages of the Weinstein investigation.⁣
I was greatly impacted by the power of women coming together and sharing their stories and this book is one that I just cannot stop thinking about. It was absolutely my favorite audiobook of 2019 and I highly recommend it.

Juliet’s School of Possibilities by Laura Vanderkam

I love Vanderkam’s nonfiction books about time management and this is her first novella. In Juliet’s School of Possibilities, Vanderkam incorporates her knowledge and expertise into a short fable about a woman named Riley who is “spread too thin”. ⁣⁣⁣I wasn’t sure how this would work but I was definitely intrigued and it ended up being a small book that packed a big punch.
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In a society where “busy” reigns supreme, Vanderkam’s books are a wonderful reminder about how we get to choose how we spend our time and energy and this book is such a fun spin-off. We meet Juliet who shares profound wisdom and helps Riley rethink this balance.

“I don’t have time’ means ‘It’s not a priority.’ We always have time for what matters to us.”

This book is a quick read but it one that I think back to all the time. I love the idea that we are in control of our time and we choose what we prioritize and how we react to the chaos life can sometimes throw at us.

When I am having one of those days where I feel I am feeling rushed and stressed, I think back to Juliet and how she would react. I love how much this quick read has really stuck with me in my day to day life and I highly recommend it!

“Expectations are infinite. Time is finite. You are always choosing. Choose well.”

You can read my full review of Juliet’s School of Possibilities HERE.

Beyond The Point by Claire Gibson

Beyond the Point is narrated by three women who come to West Point to play basketball. We follow Dani, Hannah, and Avery over the course of seven years through their introduction into West Point and as they navigate early adulthood. The writing is beautiful and makes you just want to keep reading and I was fully immersed in the lives of these three women.

The aspects of military life were powerful and a great reminder for me as a civilian about the sacrifices so many thousands of women and men make that serve our country every single day. While this was a powerful piece of this book the story really is about their interpersonal lives.  The characters were flawed and real.  Gibson did an amazing job speaking to their strengths and resilience as individuals and also weaving their stories together. I loved learning about their pasts and how they played a part in who they are and who are yet to become.

The story is a journey of their relationships both with themselves and with each other. There are aspects of love, loss, discomfort, growth, and forgiveness. As someone who does not know a lot about military life, I learned so much about cadet life in an academy.

I also connected personally with their three women.  As someone who started adulthood around the same time as they did, I love the flashbacks to life in the early 2000s. The references to technology and how different life was not even 20 years ago was spot on. There were some Christian themes but it felt natural and worked for me as a reader. Faith was a part of the storyline for one of these characters in particular and I thought it added another thoughtful dimension to this writing.

You can read my full review of Beyond The Point HERE.

To Have and To Hold by Molly Millwood, PhD

While I am lucky to have had many conversations with the people in my personal life, never have I read something that explains the complexities of motherhood and marriage in such a profound manner until I read this book. The highs and lows of parenthood, the immense love and also the intense quest to reclaim ourselves as women and partners when our lives will never be the same are so real and valid.

To Have and to Hold spoke to me on so many levels. Millwood’s ability to write with both her voice as a professional and her voice as a mother was a perfect balance. This book was a favorite by so many that we picked it for our first Better Together Book Club selection this past fall.

It was the perfect book to start off our book club that focuses on motherhood. While we are all in very different stages of parenthood (from babies and toddlers to college-aged children), we could all relate back to the adjustment of new motherhood. And not only did we get to discuss the book with each other but we also had the most wonderful guest, author Molly Millwood herself! 

Atomic Habits by James Clear

This book was the last book I started in 2019 and was the perfect way to welcome not only a new year but a new decade. After seeing Atomic Habits recommended by some of my nonfiction loving book friends, I knew I had to pick this one up. This book does an amazing job of explaining the framework for how habits are formed.

Clear’s writing is relatable and accessible and in this genre of writing, this is definitely not always the case. He provides insightful feedback and approachable and practical steps towards making a new habit or breaking an old one. So much of this book spoke to me but I especially appreciated his sections discussing compound effects and how small changes over time can have a very big impact and how the best make to make a change is to make the habit part of your identity.

Atomic Habits was helpful to me both personally and professionally and I can’t recommend it enough!

The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer

I enjoy the historical fiction genre but it can be a hard one to really wow me as a reader. This book ending up checking all the boxes of a memorable historical fiction reading experience. Told in a dual narrative format, we meet Alina, a girl who is growing up in Poland during World War II and Alice, a mom who lives in present-day Florida with her husband and two children. We quickly realized that these two storylines are connected and the story unfolds beautifully over these 400+ pages.

“Not for the first time, I wish just once when I asked my grandmother about the war, instead of her telling me “that was a terrible time, I don’t want to talk about it,” she’d been able to say something more. Anything more. Maybe if she could have shared some of her story, I could have learned from it, I could have taught my children from it—we could have built a better world from the hard lessons she surely learned.”

This was my first book by Kelly Rimmer and I was blown away by her ability to share multi-faceted characters that felt so real and raw while also diving into a heartbreaking part of our not so distant history.  I love the dual storylines and how they wove together and kept me guessing until the end. Rimmer captured the power of sharing our stories while also reminding us that so many people have a history we might know nothing about.

As well as being completely enthralled by Alina’s harrowing and heartbreaking time in Poland, I connected so much with present-day Alice and her struggles to find herself amidst the daily challenges of family life.

“I can’t wait to tell him how much of a revelation it has been to do something like this – standing on a mountaintop for no reason other than the sake of the experience. This moment is an investment in myself. I’m giving myself permission to make a memory that benefits no one but me. I love being a mother, and I love being a wife. I even love being a daughter and a granddaughter. But as I stand here on the mountaintop, I’m not any of those things. I am simply Alice, and for one breathtaking moment, I’m completely present.”

This book captures heartbreak, resilience, persistence and the power for standing up for what is right, not only for yourself but for those around you.

Sometimes a book comes along at just the right time and this was the case for me and The Things We Cannot Say. Not only did I read a book that I connected with so deeply but I also found a new author to follow along with. Her April 2020 book release Truths I Never Told You was another 5-star read for me and I am excited to dive into her backlist now!

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I hope you enjoyed seeing my favorite books of 2019. I would love to hear which books made your list! <3

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