I’m very late to the party but it doesn’t feel right to dive into 2017 without reflecting on some year-end favorites. This year was a challenging one but many of the books, TV shows and movies on this list made it more bearable.
Rather than make a separate list of favorite books, audiobooks, movies and TV shows this list has it all! It’s the big list of lists. Here we go:
Favorite Books of 2016
Goodreads tells me I’ve read 136 books this year (here’s my year in books) This is a quick shout-out to 30 of them:
YA Fiction
I read a lot less YA these days- it still holds a special place in my heart though! Here are some of my faves from last year:
Burn Baby Burn by Meg Medina
American Girls by Alison Umminger
The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You by Lily Anderson
Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum
We Are Still Tornadoes by William Kun & Susan Mullen
When We Collided by Emery Lord
Fiction
I did not get to read all the Fiction I wanted to this year, so I have lots of great carryover to enjoy this year! (The Mothers, The Nest, The Nix, The Girls, Swing Time, and many many more) Some Fiction I enjoyed:
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood
The Choices We Make by Karma Brown
One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Leave Me by Gayle Forman
Britt-Marie Was Here Fredrik Backman
Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty
Mystery/Thriller
There are so many thrillers on the market now trying to be the next Gone Girl/Girl on the Train. I gobble them all up! I still need to catch up with Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series that I’ve heard such good things about. Some faves:
You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott
Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris
The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
Romance
I don’t read a ton of Romance but was happy with the new series that I picked up this year. Many of these books helped me deal with election stress these last few months.
It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne
The Kate and Ian duology by Tracey Garvis-Graves
The Off-Campus series by Elle Kennedy
The Winston Brothers series by Penny Reid
Memoir
I really enjoy listening to memoirs and these are all fantastic:
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West
Talking As Fast As I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between by Lauren Graham
Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen by Jazz Jennings
Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick
Favorite Movies of 2016
I barely saw anything in theaters this year, so I have a backlog of movies to catch up with on streaming. (Moonlight, Edge of Seventeen, Moana, etc.)
La La Land
Rogue One
Zootopia
O.J.: Made in America
Deadpool
Favorite New TV Shows of 2016
Pitch
This is Us
Atlanta
American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson
The Good Place
Stranger Things
Here’s hoping 2017 brings more entertaining distractions our way! What were your favorites this year?
It’s nice to see we still share very similar tastes! I’ll have to put some of those adult and YA books I haven’t read yet on my TBR piles! Happy New Year!
What a great list! There are so many on your lists that I want to read and that I missed. And you’re right, reading makes dealing with the stressors of life that much easier. Hope you have a great reading year in 2017!
We have quite a few overlaps in our best of books lists!
Great list! I enjoyed a lot of the books on your list too (The Missing Girls, Behind Closed Doors, are some of them). I wish you some great reading for 2017!
How was Being Jazz? I’ve watched some of the show and wondered about the book. I’m into memoirs a lot lately. I have Scrappy Little Nobody in my TBR as I rewired it for Christmas and I’m going to borrow Talking As fast As I can from the library. I’m also looking forward to Sorry, Not Sorry by Naya Rivera.
Last year I loved Mindy Kaling’s two books, Kunal Naya wrote a great book and The House In The Sky was Ana amazing story about one woman’s experience big a captive in the middle east. Listened to them all as audio books.
Happy New Year, Lucy! I recently bought Tell Me Three Things so I’m happy to see it on your list. All the Ugly and Wonderful Things made my favorites list as well (thanks, again!). I’ve heard nonstop good things about The Hating Game and It Ends With Us. I need to read those! Thanks for sharing your lists!
Fantastic books listed here, a lot ending up on my wish list 🙂 When Breath Becomes Air is just… so incredible, glad to see it here!