Books I Read in 2018

At the beginning of 2018, I resolved to read more books because my usually voracious reading habit had waned severely in recent years. I longed to start writing again and what better way to fuel the desire to write than to read? I'm happy to say, I stuck to my resolution and finished a whopping 33 books (at least, that's how many I remembered to document in my Read in 2018 Pinterest board), which are broken down into the following categories:

21 fiction novels
6 graphic novels (3 of which were compendium volumes)
6 non-fiction/research books

I've decided to briefly review and reflect on the books I read this year because I discovered some authors that I'm now a huge fan of while also revisiting some tried and true favorites that are always comforting and nostalgic to read through again. I will try to go in chronological order, but no guarantee. I kept track of the books I read through pinning their covers on a Pinterest board. I intend to do the same thing for 2019! It's fun to reflect on what I have read!

A Practical Wedding: Creative Ideas for Planning a Beautiful, Affordable, and Meaningful Celebration

by Meg Keene

At the beginning of this year I was freshly engaged and eager to read and learn all I could about planning our big day. This book was a breeze to read and a great book to start with because it repeated over and over that a wedding is for the couple and should be special and meaningful to them. Family traditions are important and can be honored, but don't let family expectations or societal expectations bog you down. A wedding is really just a party with a little structure! It was freeing to read this at the start of my wedding planning. I recommend it to any brides-to-be!

A Priceless Wedding: Crafting a Meaningful, Memorable, and Affordable Celebration
by Sara Cotner

This book emphasized a lot of the points made in A Practical Wedding by Meg Keene, but with added DIY projects and charming stories of the author's offbeat and beautiful wedding. I really enjoyed reading her real-life tales of choices she made to save her budget and still make her wedding as meaningful and memorable as possible.

Stone Fox Bride: Love, Lust, and Wedding Planning for the Wild at Heart 

by Molly Rosen Guy

This book was very stylish and I enjoyed reading it. The style and prose was whimsical and inspiring. It definitely goes outside of the box in terms of wedding planning, decorating, wedding fashion, and more. It was a fever dream for wedding planning!

Final Girls: A Novel 

by Riley Sager

This book jumped off the store shelf and into my hands because the title made my eyes widen and my breath catch in my throat. For those that know me, I have been fascinated with the trope of the Final Girl in slasher films forever. I even wrote my final thesis in college on the subject. I've tried to write a novel from the point of view of a final girl for a long time, but darn it, Riley Sager has beaten me to it! This book was entertaining and taught me an important lesson: no matter how much I think my ideas aren't good enough for a full-fledged novel... they are! They are good enough that someone else will write them if I don't!

Ink in Water: An Illustrated Memoir... or, how I kicked anorexia's ass & embraced body positivity 

by Lacy J. Davis and Jim Kettner

I greatly enjoyed this illustrated memoir. It gave a scathing look at anorexia, body dysphoria, and body image issues. The art style was also original and I liked it a lot!

Sunburn 

by Laura Lippman

Lippman is one of my great discoveries of this year, and you'll see many of her books on this list because once I finished Sunburn, I couldn't stop reading her! I had never read much suspense/thriller genre books, but she had me hooked. Her prose is great, I love how realistic and layered her characters are. Sunburn was a page turner and I finished it in one day!

I'd Know You Anywhere 

by Laura Lippman

This book solidified my love affair with Lippman this year. The plot of this book was straight from my dreams and the characters were poignant, interesting, and compelling. The main character survived a kidnapping by a serial killer. She manages to get away and he is put in jail. Fast forward decades and she's raising her own family. The killer, from jail, hires a PI to find the woman after he glimpses her image in a magazine. It's fascinating watching the plot unveiling with a great twist at the end! This book could easily be my most favorite read this year.

Tell No One

By Harlan Coben

This book was a relatively standard thriller, and I was testing to see if I could read a thriller that wasn't written by Laura Lippman and enjoy it just as much. This book was a fun read, but I struggled a bit as it was missing that poignant character building that Lippman had me used to by this point. But I still enjoyed it and the plot twists were surprising for me.
Bonk
By Mary Roach

Mary Roach, if you've never had the pleasure of reading her work before, takes a topic like sex and makes the scientific approach to it... hilarious. I was first introduced to her work with Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and only she could make me laugh out loud while reading about how human bodies swell up post-life. This book is about human copulation and the science behind it and it couldn't be funnier. Highly recommend any and all of her books!

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

by Matthew Sullivan

This book caught my eye as it was featured in the 'Employees Recommended' section at my favorite local bookstore. (I love the cute simplicity of that: finding a book about a bookstore employee recommended by... a bookstore employee...) The book was a fun read, I remember enjoying some of the prose in it and the mystery at the center of the novel: a bookstore patron commits suicide and leaves their meager posessions to their favorite bookstore clerk who works to unravel the mystery at the center of it all, was well paced and I remember quite enjoying it. 

Every Secret Thing

By Laura Lippman

I read so many Laura Lippman novels last year, I honestly don't remember the plot of this book but I know I loved reading it, all of her books are such quick reads in the sense that I can't put them down, they get me wrapped in and dying to know what happens next!

What the Dead Know

By Laura Lippman

This one I do remember the plot of because it was like nothing I had ever read before, from Lippman or elsewhere. It was about a woman claiming to be a girl who went missing decades before who comes back to her hometown and has information on her presumed-dead's sister's whereabouts but won't share. What gives? It's a twisting turning novel of suspense and anticipation and Lippman, as usual, ramps it up expertly and keeps you guessing until the end.

Hack/Slash Omnibus Volume 1, Volume 2, & Volume 3By Tim Seeley

I came across this comic years ago and re-read the first omnibus volume quickly followed by the second and third in 2018. I love love love the artwork of this comic, Cassie Hack is a dynamic character that I root for from page one and it covers my favorite genre ever: 80s slasher horror. It's campy, it's violent, it's bloody, and there are so many callbacks and references to classic slasher villains and movies, I can't ever get enough! Chucky himself even makes an appearance! If you're a fan of 80s slasher movies and/or comic books, I highly recommend.

Horrorstor and My Best Friend's ExorcismBy Grady Hendrix

Horrorstor came across my radar while searching for spooky novels to get me into the Halloween spirit. When I read the synopsis for this one, it sounded kitchy and lame, to be honest, but I so enjoyed it, I might have to read it again for Halloween this year. It's about a group of IKEA employees, yeah, you read that right, who get trapped and tormented in an IKEA overnight by a demonic presence. I enjoyed the book so much I immediately looked up other books by the author and found My Best Friend's Exorcism. That book was just as great! It's about a high school aged girl who's best friend starts acting very strangely and the creepiness and horror factors just keep ramping up and up until a final battle against the demon that left the hairs raised on the back of my neck! It's a fantastic exorcism story in a modern day backdrop that I thoroughly enjoyed. 
Tramps Like Us, Vol. 1
by Yayoi Ogawa

I occasionally dabble in manga series and this one caught my eye because of it's title and somewhat provocative cover. It's about a single career woman, very driven and set in her ways, who comes across a younger man that she... well... keeps as a pet. What was compelling about the series, though, is that their relationship never turns sexual as one might expect and she even has some character growth when she starts taking him for granted and he leaves and she realizes how much it's meant to her to have him around. It's actually a sweet kind of story and I really enjoyed the artwork of it and I need to look up more volumes of it!

I am Not a Serial Killer, I Don't Want to Kill You, Mr. Monster, & The Devil's Only Friend

By Dan Wells

I may have this series out of chronological order, but I devoured the entire series one right after the other in rapid succession. Now, this series has some faults, but it was so very original and each sequel brought something new and compelling to light. To simplify it, I would call it a high school aged Dexter story, but... it's not quite. And I won't ruin the elements of the story that caught me off guard and elevated it to something new and fresh and original. I really enjoyed the protagonist and the plot and it's a fun series to read.

The Replacement

By Brenna Yovanoff

This book was atmospheric. The plot was compelling, the characters were great, but what I think I liked most about this book was how well the atmosphere was painted. I felt... damp... reading this book and I don't mean in THAT WAY, you perv. I mean... the world is described as wet and rotting and decaying and I swear I could smell the musty molded smell of the town and it's inhabitants through the pages. I adored the setting descriptions, it was like the setting was a character and plot unto itself. I very much enjoyed this book, even as parts of it made the main protagonist come off a bit whiny and annoying. 

Fat Vampire

By Adam Rex

I remember seeing this book on the shelf, reading the sleeve, and being very excited to give it a go. But the protagonist was ultimately so annoying I remember struggling to finish it. The idea behind it was compelling (being turned into an immortal being but being fat and awkward instead of the typical svelte/sexy vampire of supernatural romance novels and films) but the protagonist (or maybe it was the writer, let's be real) kept getting in the way.

A Writer's Tool Kit

by Carroll Dale Short

This is a book, clearly, about writing. I was determined to not only read more in 2018, but also to get back into writing and this book was the first step to ignite that passion. It has 12 tips, each chapter explaining a different tip, and it had some great advice and direction. 

Witch Baby 

By Francesca Lia Block

Francesca Lia Block is one of the most trans formative writers I have ever read. Her writing reads like long form poetry, the words beautiful and captivating, and I feel like I'm floating on air for days after reading any of her novels. I was pretty obsessed with her in high school and read so many of her books I've lost count. So this was a return to nostalgia for me, and a few times a year I find myself looking her up, seeing if she's written anything new, and if not, I go back to a classic Block and dive in. Reading her is like visiting my childhood bedroom and remembering all the angst and beauty and nuance of experience heartache and love and escape for the very first time.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir)

By Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess

This was one of those books that jumped off the shelf at my local library and wanted me to read it and wouldn't take no for an answer. I don't remember a whole lot about it, I'll be honest, but the writer had a great style and voice that had me laughing and excited to read more and more. 

In the Forests of the Night & Hawksong
By Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Atwater-Rhodes is another nostalgia kick for me. I remember finding her first book in my school's library in middle school and devouring it. I loved everything about it, it was so original and fun and exciting. Her prose was very deep and beautiful and I read so many of her books that summer, again, I lost count. She's amazing! Her first book is the start of her vampire series, every book of which is fantastic. Hawksong is a separate series in a new universe where there are avian beings and reptilian beings. It's almost a take on Romeo and Juliet and, again, her descriptions are magical.

The Most Dangerous Thing

By Laura Lippman

I couldn't stay away from Lippman for long and yet again I devoured yet another of her books. If I recall correctly, this one was about a group of friends who witnessed something heinous as kids and the book picks up after they are grown and are brought together over a funeral of one of the group. Mysteries and secrets are revealed and nothing is as it seems. Yet another great one from Lippman. 

DUFF: The Designated Ugly Fat Friend

By Kody Keplinger

This one is definitely for the YA audience, but I still found myself enjoying it. I related the main character a bit until the rugged hottie with a body falls for her. But it's not all that cliche and it didn't annoy me like stories about that sort of thing often can. It didn't feel forced or illogical to me, it flowed pretty naturally. 

Little Moments of Love: A Catana Comics Collection 

This is a comic series and artist that I truly enjoy. It feels like she's drawing me and my husband and her comic strips always make me smile and go, "Awwwww, that's so us!" I tried to flag each page that reminded me of me and my husband and I realized I was flagging nearly every page, so I stopped. 

The Outsiders & Taming the Star Runner

by S.E. Hinton

So, The Outsiders is a classic YA novel written by a young woman about a gang of 'greasers' who clash against the socially elite 'socs'. The framing device of this novel is what has always stuck with me and has kept it at the tippy top of my favorite novels list my whole life. Ponyboy is an intelligent kid caught up in the greasers life, but he wants to be a writer and has to write an essay for school. You find out at the very end that the story you're reading is his essay and I always thought that was so brilliant. Taming the Star Runner is set in the same universe, although I don't think Ponyboy and his gang show up. I do love the main protagonist and really enjoyed this book. It didn't surpass The Outsiders as my favorite, but it was still really good and had a magic all it's own.