As I said on my Worst Reads of 2019 post, I’m a pretty easy to please reader. I tend to get swept away in the story and for the most part I enjoy almost everything I read. So when it comes to choosing the best books I read this year, I have to admit that I had a really hard time. There are so, so many good books that I read over this year that it was hard to choose the best, and even harder to narrow it down to the top 5. So in order to do this, I gave myself some criteria. In order to end up on my Top 5 Reads of 2019 list, the book couldn’t be a re-read. It also couldn’t be a sequel, and so I will admit that I cheated a little bit and made a list of the best sequels I read in 2019 just to make narrowing this down a little easier. With those criteria in mind, I was still left with a fair bit of a list, so I had to narrow it down some more. That was the hard part, but I was able to do it. Below the cut, in no particular order, you will find my five best reads of 2019.
Top 5 Thursday | Ashley’s Worst of 2019
I am someone who is rather easy to please when it comes to books. I often fall in love with the books that I read, and it’s not very often that I find a book that I don’t like or even a book that I rate lower than a three stars. I always try to find something redeeming, and maybe that’s a bad thing, but it’s just the kind of reader that I am. I tend to fall deeply into whatever book I’m reading. However, I can’t say that every book I read in 2019 was a positive experience for me. Below the cut, you will find the five worst books I read in 2019.
Top 5 Thursday | Ashley’s Most Surprising of 2019
Conversely to going into books with high expectations, sometimes you go in with pretty low expectations or no expectations. Those are always really nice times because then you end up falling in love with something you never expected. That’s why it felt most appropriate to follow up my most disappointing reads of 2019 with its opposite: my most surprising reads. You’ll find them below the cut.