2018 is almost over, y’all! This year I’ve read 80 books (so far…it’s currently mid December) and I’ve narrowed my favorites down to 10, which I’m going to share with y’all today.
2018 was a good reading year for me, but it’s been different. I have been much busier this year than last and that didn’t leave as much time for reading as I have had the past two years. I have my teaching job and my TpT business, and I also started building a house this year, so the second part of the year was spent packing and getting my house ready to sell. I normally have a lot more “back porch reading” time, and I can’t wait to get that back when the house is done! Spring 2019, hurry up!
Out of the 80 books I read this year, I am sharing my top 10 favorites today. Be sure and check out my favorites of 2017 and 2016, too. I enjoyed a lot of books this year, but these 10 are the ones that I enjoyed the most and that have stuck with me. These are in no particular order except for the last 3. Those are my actual 1st, 2nd, and 3rd favorites of the year.
I always get excited about a new Renee Carlino book, but I don’t always love them. Renee Carlino is an author that I either love or hate. I still read everything she writes though! Blind Kiss was released in August and I devoured this one, y’all. Oh my goodness gracious it was phenomenal. It’s about a girl and guy who meet in college and immediately hit it off, but the girl doesn’t want to pursue a relationship with him. They become best friends and then the book spans over their adult life. I could not put this one down. I was so invested in these characters’ lives. SOOOO good!
Just like with Renee Carlino, Christina Lauren is another author that I get really excited for and then am disappointed with sometimes. Nevertheless, I read every new book. I was shocked at how much I LOVED Love and Other Words. This was the sweetest, swoon worthy story about two kids who meet when they are 11 or 12 years old. The girl has just lost her mother and moves to a new house and meets the neighbor. They develop a friendship that eventually turns into love when they are in high school. I smiled the entire time I was reading this. Definitely my favorite Christina Lauren book.
I discovered Lisa Jewell last year and since then, I’ve made it my mission to read all her books. I was so excited about her new 2018 release, Then She Was Gone, that I ordered the UK edition from Amazon so I could read it in January instead of waiting for the US release in April. Y’all, this is my new favorite Lisa Jewell thriller. It’s about a 15 year old girl that goes missing. Her mother desperately searches for her, but never finds her. Years later the mother starts dating a man and when she is introduced to his daughter, she looks exactly like the woman’s daughter that went missing years ago. I absolutely loved this book.
Isn’t it the best feeling when you’ve had a book sitting on your shelf for the longest and when you finally pick it up to read, you end up loving it and regretting that it sat on your shelf for that long? That was Jar of Hearts for me. I had heard such great things about this book and it definitely lived up to the hype. It’s about a woman who is arrested for the murder of her best friend 20 years ago. The book jumps back and forth with the timeline so you get to hear about her life after she serves jail time for her role in the murder and what really happened all those years ago. This one is full of twists and shockers, and I loved every second of it. If you love thrillers, pick this one up! It’s darker and intense, but so good!
Michele Campbell wrote her debut novel, It’s Always the Husband, last year and I loved it, so I knew I would be picking up her 2018 release, She was the Quiet One. This book was a slow burner, but such a good plot. It’s about twin sisters who go to a new boarding school after their mom dies, and they are forced to move in with their grandmother on the other side of the country. One of the girls immediately fits in, while the other struggles at the school. Throughout the book you know that one of the sisters has been murdered by the other and you are trying to figure it out as you read. This one keeps you guessing until the very end.
The lightest, quickest read on my list has to be The Accidental Beauty Queen. Teri Wilson also wrote the book, Unleashing Mr. Darcy, which has been turned into a Hallmark movie. This one features two main characters-both sisters. One is a “professional Instagrammer” and beauty queen while the other is an elementary school librarian. That was all I needed in order to know that I had to read this book. I smiled throughout this story and loved the romance between the male and female lead. I also loved how the romance wasn’t the main plot in this book. The relationship between the sisters was really sweet. This is a just a feel good story that everyone needs at some point in their lives.
Okay, here are my actual top 4 favorites of 2018
#4
I am always on the lookout for a good southern fiction book, so the title and the cover of this one stuck out to me at the bookstore. I bought it and sat it on my shelf and then a week later Reese Witherspoon named it her pick for her bookclub, so I picked it up and started it.
And y’all I hate it.
I HATE descriptive writing and this story was FULL of it! I put it down and picked it back up several times. I posted my struggles on Instagram and y’all told me to stick with it. I did and I am SOOOOO glad! Y’all, this story is brilliant and beautiful and inspiring. Yes, there is a ton of descriptive writing and because of that I struggled to get into the story, but I ended up absolutely loving it and adoring this book. This is a special book, friends. You need to read it.
#3
I have had my struggles with Emily Giffin. She was a sure fire author for me until she wrote The One and Only. Then she wrote First Comes Love and I had issues with it as well. I was very nervous about her 2018 release. I shouldn’t have been though. I was captivated with this book from the very first page. All We Ever Wanted is a story that is so present and now. It deals with such an important topic and looks at it from all angles. I don’t want to say much about the premise of this story because I don’t want to spoil anything, but do yourself a favor and read this one. It deals with a heavy topic in an engaging, unputdownable way.
#2
I love when I discover a book that I haven’t really heard much about and then end up loving. I heard about All These Beautiful Strangers from one of my favorite Youtubers and I became obsessed with this story. It takes place at a boarding school, which was all I needed to know. I love a good boarding school story. This is like Pretty Little Liars meets Gossip Girl. It is amazing. It’s quite lengthy, but I read it in a day. It’s that good.
#1
And my favorite book of 2018 is The Neighbors by Hannah Mary McKinnon. I read this book back in April and I knew it would be my favorite of the year. I have NEVER read an ending like this book. I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that I was speechless for at least half an hour after finishing this book. It’s about a woman whose brother dies in a car wreck and she was the driver. She has a hard time dealing with the aftermath of losing her brother and her role in the accident, so she breaks up with her boyfriend and moves away. She ends up marrying the guy that came along to help rescue her from the car. Years later, the house next to her and her husband and daughter goes up for sale and guess who moves in… her old boyfriend and his wife and child. Oh y’all. This book is explosive and unforgettable. Out of the 80 books I read this year, none of them came close to this book. I recommend it to evvvvveryone. Absolutely wonderful. Bonus: Hannah Mary McKinnon has a new book coming out in May called Her Secret Son. You better believe I’m counting down the days until its release!
Okay, so those are my top 10 favorites of 2018. Now it’s time for 10 days of giveaways! Each day I will be featuring one of my top 10 favorites on my Instagram and Facebook accounts. Simply comment under the picture of the book you want and on Christmas Eve I will announce all 10 winners. You can follow my Instagram account here and my Facebook page here. 🙂
I’d love to hear what YOUR favorite book of 2018 was! Have you read any of these? I’d love to hear what you thought 🙂
Check out alllll the books I read this year:
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I would definitely add I See You by Claire Mackintosh and The Lies We told by Camilla Way. LOVED Then She Was Gone and All We Ever Wanted. The Neighbors was good too but was a bit predictable I found. :). Can't wait to read Where The Crawdads Sing ❤️
I want Love and Other Words to be made into a movie! Love. Love. Love this one.