Earl Grey Books

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This weeks prompt is Books I loved but never reviewed.

I don’t write full reviews for things very often anymore, but I do always write a few sentences for Goodreads, mostly for myself. What this post made me realise though was that I hardly ever write reviews for my favourite books.

Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore

This was one of the first (and remains one of my favourite) historical romances. It’s a downright adorable book with the added bonus of feminist characters and discussions. Even now, I don’t know what to tell you other than that I loved this book a whole lot and I’m so excited for the sequel.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

I consider this to be one of my top three favourite books of all-time. This was the first book I read in 2019 and nothing bumped it off it’s top spot the whole year. I can’t even explain how much this book ruined me—I genuinely sat there and cried for a solid half an hour after I finished it. After that, I instantly wanted to reread it too.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

I know that The Handmaid’s Tale is generally considered Atwood’s best work, but I love Alias Grace just a little more. Like all of Atwood’s books, this is a strange mix of things—it’s a historical story based a little on a true story of a woman jailed for murder, but it also has a few supernatural aspects to it. There are discussions of class and gender, as well as the whole question of, did Grace Marks actually commit the crime she was charged for?

On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis

I didn’t review this one because at the time I was writing my Honours thesis partly on this. I wanted to try and stay objective, though I loved it so much that I highly doubt that actually came across in my thesis. This is about a young girl named Denise who is living in Amsterdam at the start of the apocalypse and it follows her and her family searching for shelter. Denise is autistic, and this is #OwnVoices, which is already amazing but one of my favourite aspects is the fact that it’s sci-fi as well. I’m all here for books featuring disability/neurodiversity that aren’t just love stories set in modern day. Corinne Duyvis is an absolute queen at those!

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Another trend I’ve noticed is that I rarely review the books that make me sob like a baby. I’ve read this book twice and both times it ruined me. It’s been a few years since the last time I picked this up, but even thinking about it now makes me emotional.

Unbroken edited by Marieke Nijkamp

I’ve talked about this one a few times in different posts, but I haven’t written an actual review of it. This one is hard because it’s a collection of short stories from different YA authors. I loved it as a whole—it’s an incredible collection of #OwnVoices disability stories in a range of different genres.

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

I love Octavia E. Butler. I could’ve easily put Bloodchild and Other Stories on here too, but I’ve talked about that one recently as well. Kindred was the first of hers I read and I pretty much instantly fell in love with the way Butler writes. She has a way of sucking you into her world unlike any other author.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

I talk about Agatha Christie a lot. She’s one of my favourite authors. She comes up in my different TTT posts a lot for that reason. But I’ve never reviewed this one. This is another one of my top favourite books, though I still can’t decide whether I love this or And Then There Were None more. Either way, what do you even say about a book like this?

How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee

I technically wrote a mini-review of this when it was nominated for the Women’s Prize this year, but it didn’t really represent my true love for this book. This is another one where I just don’t know what to say about it other than it was beautiful and heartbreaking and that I hope more people will read it.

There Was Still Love by Favel Parrett

This is pretty much the exact same deal as the one above. I read this for the Stella Prize this year. Absolutely loved it. It made me sob for ages afterwards. Just beautiful, you know? I don’t know what else to say about it.

And that’s my list for today!