I (Laynie) am happy to announce I read 100 books in 2019…and somehow it wasn’t even a stretch. (Though I did get worried about meeting my goal when I decided to re-read the entire Harry Potter series in the fall. I love them, but the 700+ pages were bogging down my stats.)
Nevertheless we prevailed.
Here is my list. I’ve put four or five stars beside the ones I recommend. You can ignore the others. There is one I rather close to hated and would give it negative stars here except I don’t want to give it any more attention than it deserves.
So without further ado….
1. Before We Were Yours - Lisa Wingate
2. Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis
3. Devil in the White City - Erik Lawson
4. Becoming - Michelle Obama
5. The Silent Wife - A.S.A Harrison
6. This Is How It Always Is - Laurie Frankel
7. No Relation - Terry Fallis
8. Beautiful Boy - David Sheff ****
9. Us Against You - Fredrick Backman *****
10. Dear Mrs. Bird - AJ Pearce
11. Twelve Hearts - Lindsay Blake and Layne James
12. Sweetbitter - Stephanie Danler
13. Hope - Anne Lamott
14. The Nowhere Girls - Amy Reed
15. Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens ****
16. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
17. Homes - Abu Bakr Al Rabeeah, Winnie Yeung
18. The Tattooist of Auschwitz - Heather Morris
19. Becoming Mrs. Lewis - Patti Henry
20. The Air You Breathe - Frances de Pontes Peebles ****
21. Before We Were Yours - Lisa Wingate
22. Once Upon a River - Diane Setterfield
23. Home Fire - Kamila Shamsie
24. The Spice Box Letters - Eva Makis
25. Looking for Alaska - John Green
26. The Orphan’s Tale - Pam Jenoff
27. My Sister’s Keeper - Jodi Picoult
28. A Mind Spread Out on the Ground - Alicia Elliott
29. The Gown - Jennifer Robson
30. The Immortalists - Chloe Benjamin
31. Whiskey in a Teacup - Reese Witherspoon
32. Boy Erased - Garrard Conley
33. How to Retire Rich - James O'Shaughnessy
34. The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna - Julia Grames
35. A Spark of Light - Jodi Picoult
36. When We Left Cuba - Chanel Cleeton
37. The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls - Anisa Gray
38. The Medicine Walk - Richard Wagemese
39. The Last Romantics - Tara Conklin ****
40. Daisy Jones & the Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid
41. Conversations with Friends - Sally Rooney
42. Normal People - Sally Rooney
43. Common Type - Tom Hanks
44. We Were All Drowning - Layne James
45. We Were All Drowning - Layne James
46. Idaho - Emily Ruskovich
47. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
48. My Sister, the Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite
49. A Well-Behaved Woman - Therese Anne Fowler
50. There, There - Tommy Orange
51. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee *****
52. The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
53. The Great Alone - Kristin Hannah
54. We Were All Drowning - Layne James
55. After You - Jojo Moyes
56. When Life Gives You Lululemons - Lauren Weisberger
57. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark - Michelle McNamara
58. Pachinko - Min Jin Lee
59. Z - Therese Anne Fowler
60. The Clay Girl - Heather Tucker *****
61. The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas
62. The Map of Salt and Stars - Zeyn Joukhadar****
63. Red, White, and Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
64. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
65. Our Homesick Songs - Emma Hooper****
66. Bad Ideas - Missy Marston
67. Sing, Unburied Sing - Jesmyn Ward
68. The Gifted School - Bruce Holsinger
69. A Woman Is No Man - Etaf Rum*****
70. Less - Andrew Sean Greer
71. Ask Again, Yes - Mary Beth Keane*****
71. Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend - Matthew Dicks
72. Rich People Problems - Kevin Kwan
73. A Nearly Normal Family - M.T. Edvardsson
74. We Were All Drowning - Layne James
75. The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
76. The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides
77. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone - J.K. Rowling
78. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling
79. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J.K. Rowling
80. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
81. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J.K. Rowling
82. Marlena - Julie Buntin****
83. The Pisces - Melissa Broder
84. Girls Like Us - Christina Algers
85. The Octopus Curse - Salma Farook
86. The Most Fun We Ever Had - Claire Lombardo****
87. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
88. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
89. Braving the Wilderness - Brene Brown
90. Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
91. The Burning Case for a Green New Deal - Naomi Klein
92. The Whole-Brained Child - Daniel J. Siegel, Tina Payne Bryson
93. On Writing - Stephen King
94. Pity the Reader: On Writing With Style - Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell
95. Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
96. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
97. Dear Enemy - Jean Webster
98. We Were All Drowning - Layne James
99. House Rules - Jodi Picoult
100. Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative - Jane Alison