Favourite Books of 2015

Hello everyone, hope you all are having an enjoyable festive season. I intended to do a bunch of Christmassy posts last week, but the actual business of it being Christmas took over and I ran out of time before I went home for the holidays. But I’m back now and I  thought I’d kick of the pre-New Year posts with my favourite books that I read in 2015. I read 48 books this year (a massive amount for me) so it was tricky to narrow it down to five but I’m happy with this selection. The titles are links to my fuller reviews.

In no particular order, they are:

Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill

And by extension Asking for It, O’Neill’s second book. Author of the Year for me, for sure. I read Only Ever Yours at the start of the year and the impact has stayed with me. It’s a YA dystopian with a sharp feminist tongue while Asking for It is a contemporary novel. Both are definitely worth a read depending on which genre you prefer.

H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald

This is one of the few non-fiction books I read this year and I loved it. A very lyrical, beautiful book about the author coming to terms with loss and attempting to train a goshawk. The wildness of the bird provides a salve for Helen’s hurt and she begins to lose herself in its world.

The Bees by Laline Paull

This is such an unusual book – it’s a fiction about bees and the story is as dramatic as any dystopian sci-fi I’ve ever read. As sad as it may seem, I kind of really want to learn about bee society from an entomologist point of view so I can re-read this and appreciate all of the elements which Paull has included.

Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow

This is the first free-verse novel I have ever read, poetry is not normally my thing at all but I absolutely adored this book. It helps that it’s super cool and about werewolves in LA of course. I really need to look into more poetry in future, I feel like my eyes have been opened to the possibilities now.

The Good Girl by Fiona Neill

I’ve read quite a few domestic thrillers this year as it’s a genre I generally enjoy and I think this is my favourite. It’s well paced, chock full of drama and very up to date topic-wise. If you like books like Gone Girl, I think you’ll like this.

And so concludes my favourite reads of 2015. I already have a massive TBR pile for 2016 so I’m hoping that there will be a few more favourites hidden in there. Let me know what your favourites have been.