Favorite Books Read in 2014

Though the year hasn’t come to a close, we’ve certainly reached that time of the year where EVERYONE HAS A LIST ABOUT SOMETHING! The best books of 2014, the best albums of 2014, best films, best actors, etc. etc. Well, as a nerdy librarian, I must admit I craft my own such list every year. Ever since my first year as a teen librarian (2009), I have kept track of everything I read, using everything from the back of my planner to LibraryThing to GoodReads, always organized by year.

When I was a member of the ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults Committee, I read an obscene amount of books. (Or an amazing amount of books, if you want to think of it that way.) For those two years, I read more than 250 books per year. Um, that is insane. I also did pretty much nothing else besides read. (That’s what happens when you read that many books and they are not picture books, but ever-growing-in-girth YA novels.)

Since my time on the BFYA committee, I’ve been trying to focus my reading more on quality than quantity. I still read over 100 books a year, but not as many over 100 (106 for this year, as of today), and definitely not more than 150. (For the record, I do not count picture books; that would be too time-consuming given how long it takes to read them.)

Okay, stop rambling, Jenn, get to that list….

Best plane read of the year:

Isla and the Happily Ever after by Stephanie Perkins

tied with

Complicit by Stephanie Kuehn

Best tug-at-your-heart-strings middle grade:

Nest by Esther Ehrlich

Most incredible voice in a novel:

 I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson

Best read everybody already knows about:

Me Before You by JoJo Moyes

Favorite graphic novel:

Sisters by Raina Telgemeier

Favorite middle grade (unqualified):

Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff

Favorite oldie but goodie:

A Corner of the Universe by Ann M. Martin

Favorite book I read aloud in the car to my nephew:

The Meaning of Maggie by Megan Jean Sovern

Favorite book that captured everything about being a teenager, by a brilliant voice lost too soon:

The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan

Favorite adult fiction:

Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead

Favorite early chapter book:

Dory Fantasmagory by Abby Hanlon

Only book I read this year that made the NYTimes top 100 (and top 10) books:

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant by Roz Chast

Best book I read that isn’t coming out until 2015:

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

Lists of favorite books are always so subjective, and every year I finish with a towering TBR stack, never mind an ever-growing TBR list. So, tell me, what did I miss?