Usual rules apply. These books weren’t published in 2018, that’s just when I read them. My opinions are my own, so they’re entirely subject to my preferences and peccadilloes.
Starting with the books I did not finish...
13. The Female of the Species by Lionel Shriver
The Female of the Species is about a woman who falls in love with a man who finds a secluded African tribe, kills a bunch of its members and then claims to be their God. If it goes anywhere worthwhile after that, I wouldn’t know, because I DNF’d it on principle. When Lionel Shriver is good, she’s fantastic. Sadly, when she’s bad, she’s sympathetic-towards-genocidal-maniacs bad.
12. Murder Most Unusual by Michelle Somers
Murder Most Unusual is about a crime writer who teams up with a sexy detective to catch the serial killer who’s using her crime novels as inspiration. I like the pulpy premise, but the execution was awful. Annoying main character, trying-too-hard-to-be-cute writing style, a romance with all the subtlety of a hammer to the head… I DNF’d this one as well.
11. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Night Circus is about a strange-yet-beautiful circus that only appears at night, and doubles as the stage for two young wizards to compete in a years-long, mysterious battle of skill. I did finish this one, but I was listening to the audio book, and that probably helped get me through the boring parts. And there are many boring parts in this book. Don’t let the blurb fool you, this novel is not really about wizards duelling each other in a circus. Or, it is, but the lamest possible version of that.
10. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
House of Leaves is an academic-style analysis of a documentary that doesn’t exist, about a monstrous house with impossible dimensions that tears a family apart, interspersed with footnotes from a fictional character who is reading the book and slowly going insane. It has a cult-like following, and I can sort of understand why, because of the sheer insanity of it, but I personally couldn’t quite find a way into the impenetrable density that is House of Leaves.
9. Revival by Stephen King
In Revival, the pastor of a small town makes an impression on a young boy (our protagonist), then leaves town after a tragic event, only to continuously re-appear in the protagonist's life, once he has become obsessed with electricity and all the strange and monstrous things he can do with it. The parts of this book about the main character’s childhood, and later, his complicated feelings about being middle-aged, were actually very good. Stephen King is never a bad writer, and he knows how to spin a yarn. Unfortunately, though, the horror elements of this book didn’t quite hit the mark for me. The climax of this book - which I won’t spoil - was quite horrifying, but then the book ended soon after and it all felt strangely… meaningless.
8. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Dark Matter is a fast-paced thriller about one man’s journey through infinite parallel dimensions to reunite with his wife. My main problem with it, funnily enough, is that I disagree with the author on a philosophical level. For this novel to work, you have to suspend your disbelief that each of our choices splits our life into one of infinite possible timelines. However, as someone who finds the idea of free will incoherent, I couldn’t buy into it. Plus, it was a little simplistic for my tastes - the author seemed truly uninterested in exploring the possibility that the main character might have also had a fulfilling life if he focused more on his career than his marriage.
7. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Lathe of Heaven is about a man who has the unfortunate tendency of changing reality through his dreams - a tendency that is soon exploited by his therapist, who attempts to use him to create a utopia. I thought the premise was cool, and quite well-explored in the short space of a 184 page novel. However, there really isn’t any character development to speak of, which is a real drawback for me.
6. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing explores the allure and danger of fame and social media through the mystery of an alien making contact with Earth. Maybe it’s because I’m so familiar with Hank from his YouTube videos, but I often felt as though the story had to stop so Hank could do a Hank-Rant about a thing Hank cares about. It was always relevant to the plot, of course, but that didn’t stop me from wondering if he wouldn’t have been better off just putting all this in his videos. My main problem with the novel, though, is the main character. I hated her. I truly, truly hated her. I hated her even more because I was clearly meant to love her. It can be a very individual thing, how you react to a character, and if the writer misjudges how you will feel about the main character, everything just feels off. Beyond that, it was an easy read, and it’s possible I’m being overly picky because of how well-reviewed the novel has been by other people.
5. The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
The Raw Shark Texts is probably the most original novel I read all year (House of Leaves notwithstanding). It’s about a man who wakes up with amnesia (seen it before), only to discover he’s being hunted by a purely conceptual shark and the only way to save himself is to crawl through tunnels of books and take a ride on a conceptual boat (never seen that before). Occasional pretentiousness aside, it is also very well-written and had just enough in the character department to keep me interested.
4. After the Crash by Michel Bussi
After the Crash falls into one of my favourite sub-categories of mystery novels, in that the central mystery is not that of a murder - although there is still plenty of murder in it. The mystery is the identity of Lylie, a baby girl who miraculously survives a plane crash, because two families appear to have equal claim to her. The novel is told from a few different POVs, but primarily through the POV of Lylie’s adoptive brother, who has fallen passionately in love with Lylie by her eighteenth birthday, and who desperately wants to prove that she is not his sister. To do this, he reads the notebook written by the private detective who spent eighteen years on the case. It is quite pulpy and audacious at times, but it’s a fun read, and it’s certainly well-written.
3. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
Big Little Lies follows three mothers as they leads up to a death - and probably murder - that will occur at the kindergarten Trivia Night. By putting witness statements at the end of each chapter, Moriarty cleverly injects suspense and mystery into what would otherwise be just a straightforward kitchen sink drama. Not that being a straightforward kitchen sink drama is a bad thing - the realism, relatability and humour of the main characters is definitely the reason it was my third-favourite book of the year.
2. The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
The Wise Man’s Fear picks up where The Name of the Wind left off in telling the story of Kvothe - the smart orphan boy who became one of the world’s most renowned wizards. This one easily could have been my number one, it was pretty much a toss-up. I had mixed feelings about The Name of the Wind, but in hindsight, that’s because I came to it with the wrong expectations. The Kingkiller Chronicles is not a revenge fantasy, it’s a coming of age story, and an exploration of the way stories - and in particular, reputations - develop over time. When I let go of the need for a plot, I was able to sink into the book and truly appreciate it for the masterwork of character, prose and world-building that it is.
1.Lethal White by Robert Galbraith (aka J. K. Rowling)
Lethal White is the fourth in the Cormoran Strike series, wherein Strike and his business partner Robin investigate the murder of a politician who was being blackmailed. I gobbled up this novel like it was a bowl of ice cream. The mystery itself isn’t the best of the series (I still think that honour goes to The Silkworm) but in terms of the developing relationship between Cormoran and Robin, I was on the edge of my seat. Galbraith/Rowling has the ability to describe seemingly mundane experiences in a way that delves so deeply into the psychology of the characters that she could describe Cormoran making tea and I’d be fascinated. In fact, with all the tea-drinking in this book, that’s not even an exaggeration.