Warning: Most of these reviews contain mild spoilers.
14) Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder
It feels mean to describe a book as dumb, but this book was dumb. It contained one of the most obvious mysteries I have ever encountered in a novel. (What are these mysterious brown beans? On a separate, completely unrelated note, what is the missing ingredient in this chocolate? Hmm, how is she ever going to Sherlock her way out of these two utterly unrelated mysteries???) It also has one of the dumbest romances I’ve ever encountered. (“Ugh, this handsome older man doesn’t like me AT ALL and I don’t like him AT ALL so why do I get so nervous and tingly when he’s around? It must be my DEEP HATRED FOR HIM!”) Perhaps it’s biggest problem, though, is the truly horrific rape/torture backstory for the main character that this novel did not in any way earn. I believe any writer should be able to write about any topic, no matter how dark, so long as they put in the time and effort to give the content its due. If your novel is going to be unspeakably dumb and lazy, it should at very least be light and fluffy and harmless. If you want to describe the repeated rape and torture of a young girl, you’d better have a fucking point to make. Otherwise, it’s just exploitative and gross. Snyder didn’t seem to have a point to make. She was just being exploitative and gross.
13) Bad Choices: How algorithms can help you think smarter and live happier by Ali Almossawi
The title is somewhat misleading. Instead of being about how algorithms can be applied in real life to help you make better decisions, it’s sort of just an introduction to the basics of computer programming, with cutesy stories as introductions. So, it depends how much you find that interesting. It might be unfair to even put it on the same list as a bunch of novels, but for the sake of being comprehensive, here it is.
12) The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047 by Lionel Shriver
Ah, my least favourite Lionel Shriver novel (at the time I read it – I have since attempted to read The Female of the Species, which trumps it). The first half wasn’t actually too bad, but by the second half Shriver’s conservative streak shines through and the novel turns into “old woman yells at cloud.” She acts like pensions and health care are ridiculous indulgences for pansies. I could maybe have made peace with our political differences, though, if the plot was good. Instead, it all felt like a slow set-up for this cross-country trek the family is going to go on, and then the family finally begins to go on the trek, and then… Hard cut to ten years later, skipping over what could potentially have been the most interesting part of the book. She should have just written an academic paper instead of a novel, because that’s clearly what she wanted to do. Plus, one of my pet hates is overused futuristic slang, and this one is full of it.
Oh, and one last thing: Putting yourself into the novel as a self-insert character is fine, but then having that self-insert character being the hero who saves the day? Now, that’s just egotistical.
11) The Light between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
Each of the characters in this novel is defined by one single emotion and motivation, and the drama comes from these one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs opposing one another, with the most heightened emotions possible. Nuance doesn’t play a role in any of the characters, except for Tom, the only one who feels any internal conflict, and unsurprisingly, the best character. The female characters, however, drove me up the wall because they seemed (mostly) incapable of seeing outside their own points of view. Then again, it’s possible I’m being too harsh on it because I knew the entire plot before reading it, and also I read a lot of it on planes and in airports when I was often tired and distracted.
10) Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
This book interweaves a young girl’s experience in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, with a young soldier’s experience as a Nazi during the Holocaust, with a modern day woman’s friendship with an old man who reveals that he used to be a Nazi, with a vampire love story the first young girl is writing. I think it’s difficult to write a Holocaust story that feels different to all the other Holocaust stories – and the parts of this story that deal with the Holocaust certainly don’t feel any different – but the addition of the modern day angle added a certain something. It had a good ending. Bit slow in parts, but not badly written.
9) Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
A very fun, witty, scattered novel that I wished would stop moving around so damn much. It never settles on any one character for very long, and it keeps introducing new POVs, seemingly for the hell of it. It makes it hard to feel grounded and invested in the story. However, I absolutely adore the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale, and part of my complaint about how they flitted between unnecessary characters is that it took time away from their wonderful friendship, which was both funny and thematically resonant. Two birds, one stone! Also, kudos to Pratchett and Gaiman for co-writing a book and making it stylistically seamless. Plus, there are some golden throwaway lines peppered throughout.
8) Wild by Cheryl Strayed
I picked up Wild because I love Cheryl Strayed’s Dear Sugar advice column. It’s true that a lot of what I love about Strayed’s column comes through in Wild but it’s also true that I’d prefer to just read more of her advice column. Wild is occasionally profound, funny and moving, but it is also a lot of descriptions of someone walking through the forest while her feet hurt. It’s a universal fact that no one wants to hear about how great someone else’s holiday was, especially not for 311 pages. However, it did achieve one impressive feat, which is that it made me understand why on earth a non-backpacker would semi-spontaneously (stupidly, recklessly) decide to hike across the country with a too-heavy backpack. Sometimes the best way to fix our lives is by reminding ourselves of what we’re truly capable of… or something like that.
7) Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
My experience of this book is inevitably coloured by two things: It was my first ever audiobook, and I listened to it after being a fan of the TV adaptation. I still prefer the TV show, partly because I preferred the pacing, and partly because I think they make the Jamie character a lot more romantic. In the book, he can get a little… rape-y. It’s still a good story, though.
6) A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab
This book had some good writing, characterisation and world-building, but it has the problem that a lot of fantasy novels have: The Evil MacGuffin plot. In other words, that’s your standard ‘evil magical object must be destroyed’ plot. The villains were archetypal and way-too-easily killed. All the conflict was external. Some external conflict is necessary and good, but without a little bit of internal conflict to back it up, the story felt lacking in substance. I never once doubted that the protagonists would succeed, which made it harder to get invested. Also, I only felt like the story properly began about halfway through, and that’s just too slow for me.
5) More than This by Patrick Ness
I read two Ness novels in 2017, and they both had the same problem: The villain is just a mindless killing machine that tries to kill the protagonists, so they run away, then it tries to kill them again, so they run away again, then it tries to kill them again, so they run away, so it tries to kill them one final time, and the protagonists kill the villain. See the problem? Maybe if I’d read it as a teenager, I would have found its message more mind-blowing, but as it is, I thought it was all a bit obvious. (Yes, life is hard, but ultimately worth living, blah blah blah.) On the upside, Regine and Tomasz were great, and it had some good sci-fi stuff going on.
4) Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
My second audio-book ever. Now, this book has some stupid stuff in it (you’re telling me teenagers in the future are going to be un-ironically obsessed with all things 1980s, just because a rich billionaire is? Please). However, good plotting is good plotting, and this book moves along at a good clip. A fun, entertaining read.
3) The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
This is the other Ness novel I read this year, and it one beats out More Than This for a bunch of reasons. The first-person narrative voice is spot on; the premise is genuinely original; it is sprinkled throughout with some viscerally emotional scenes; there is some really sweet thematic stuff built into the relationship between the two main characters; and the use of cliff-hangers and thriller-pacing was effective. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, though – the plot was repetitive after a while (refer to problem with More than This), and the message of the novel got a little muddled during the final climactic fight. But all in all, an impressive novel.
2) The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
Emma Donoghue wrote my favourite novel of 2016, and she was only beat out in 2017 by one. Although it starts out slow (it took about 100 pages before I was hooked), The Wonder turns into a mystery of the most compelling kind – a non-crime mystery with a lot of emotional punch. The reveals (multiple) were perhaps more effective because of their relatively small scale, and the subtlety with which they were built up. The romance was subtle and believable. The character development was gradual and honest. Just an honest-to-goodness, well-executed novel.
1) Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Hands down my favourite reading experience of 2017. The writing, the world-building, the sense of place, the depth of research, the characters, the dialogue, the humour, the tragedy, the uplift… I loved it all. I know I often criticise books for their plots being slow, or lacking in active protagonists, etc. The truth is, this novel doesn’t exactly have a taut plot, but I didn’t care! I loved it anyway! If a novel is engrossing enough, it will suck you in, plot or no plot, and that’s what this one did.