Jessica's Top 5 of 2019

Jillian posted her top 5 of 2019 book choices yesterday.  If you haven’t read her post, make sure you do! She had some great suggestions.  Below are my top 5 choices for 2019. Not all have a stand alone For the Love of Dewey Review, but since not all of Jillian's do either, I don’t feel as guilty. 

A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler: I just finished this novel yesterday! Whoo hoo!!  It’s my 142nd book read this year! This book is to be published in February of 2020, so make sure you write this title down on your to-read list!  It is about first love, race, and family secrets, and is extremely well done.   

The novel is about a new Caucasian family who is the new backyard neighbor of an African American mother and her mixed son.  The Caucasian family is rich. They have not only knocked down their house and rebuilt it but also put in a large pool and fence, which has disturbed the roots of an old tree in their neighbor’s yard.  A lawsuit begins, followed by a forbidden romance between the son and the neighbor’s eldest daughter that has no chance of ending well.  

The narrator makes the reader feel like they are looking in on these two suburban families and getting a special view of secrets they're not supposed to see but that go on around us everyday.

Verity by Colleen Hoover:  I don’t know why I didn’t write a review for Hoover’s first thriller, but I should have.  Verity is absolutely gripping and entirely different from what Hoover normally writes.  This novel is about a novelist named Verity who was permanently injured in a car accident.  She can’t continue writing her series, so her husband picks a lesser known author named Lowen to stay in the home amongst Verity’s notes and continue the series for her.  But Lowen begins to suspect that Verity wasn’t who she claimed to be and that EVERYTHING including the present may be a lie. 

Stargazing at Noon by Amanda Torroni: Stargazing at Noon is an amazing poetry collection by Amanda Torroni. It made me cry on my lunch break at work. 

I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella:  If you’re searching for a book that will make you literally LOL and look crazy in front of strangers this book is for you! It was hilarious and is also the one book here that I actually wrote a real For the Love of Dewey Review for that you can view here. 

Educated by Tara Westover: I decided I wanted to read Educated after I watched a clip of Westover speaking on Ellen.  I decided to opt for the audiobook and was so glad I did.  Westover’s narration of her own story is everything I hoped for and more.  I did not want to get out of my car and it left me with an audiobook hangover. 

Now as for the new year, I’m starting 2020 with The Wives by Tarryn Fischer, a thriller about a woman who knows her husband has two additional wives hse has never met before. Creepy, right?

 What are you reading?

~Jessica