Top 5 fave novels… so far
Readers are always subjected to the same question. In the same way, a gamer or a mover lover is posed with the difficult task of ranking their all-time picks, we readers are asked: what’s your favourite book?
Most of us agree this isn’t as easy as people think.
There are so many genres and author styles, and book tropes out there. When you’ve read an assortment so vast you’ve lost count, how can you narrow it down to one?
I’ve attempted this but made it somewhat easier on myself by picking my top 5 (which still took me hours of deliberation!)
From romance to memoir, here are five of my current favourite novels:
#5 Educated - Tara Westover
If you’re going to read a non-fiction, this should be it. This book brought me out of one of the biggest reading slumps I’ve ever been in. Each page had me thinking,
”wait, this actually happened?!” Educated is written by Tara Westover, a woman who was raised in a strict, off-grid seven-day Adventist family. Westover recounts her childhood, the traumas she faced, the scenarios she found herself in or witnessed, and the most critical decisions she made in her life about who she wanted to be.
#4 The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
The novel tells the story of Achilles through the eyes of a sensitive young man named Patroclus, who falls for the young hero. Reading this was like reading poetry. It was both cryptic and beautiful. Miller pulls you into an unexplored version of a myth most people know. There’s beauty in tragedy, and if that’s your vibe, then just like me, you will love this one.
#3 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid
Evelyn was the biggest star of her time, known for her gorgeous looks and sex appeal. Behind this is a woman and her story of making her own life and loving beyond measure. We learn all about Evelyn as she’s interviewed by a young woman named Monique, who finds a kind of guidance in Evelyn’s strength to take back her own life.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been so excited to talk about a book than after I read this book. I literally sat my fiance down and was like, “I have to tell you about this!” Again tragedy meets romance rears its magnificent head. Something about TJR’s writing seems to always grip me, but this one stands out for me the most.
#2 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone - J.K. Rowling
Follow Harry as his life is turned upside down when he discovers he’s a wizard. This book will always have a place in my heart. It’s where it all began, and when I pick it up, I enter into the one fictional world I wish I could live in above all others. This is comfort in a book. If I had to pick one novel I could read again for the first time, it would be this one.
#1 The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton
If I had to pick the one book that took me from a girl who read for fun to someone who loved books, this would be it. I read this one when I was 13, and it was the first time I sobbed while reading. There is something so delicate about this story, despite the subject matter. It’s a story that has and will continue to stand the test of time. Told through the eyes of sensitive Ponyboy, this novel is about family, loyalty, and class discrimination, but mostly, it’s a story about how we’re not all that different.
Honourable mentions: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson, Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
