Best of the Best: 2015 to 2022 [Book Reviews]

Best of the Best: 2015 to 2022

Welcome to another seasonal “Best Of” list featuring my best reads of the year from 2015-2022.

Best of the Best 2015-2022 (image: a young woman holds a tall stack of hardback books rin her arms and balanced by her chin)

Image Source: Canva

Inspired by Davida @ The Chocolate Lady’s Book Review Blog, I’ve put together my own “Best of the Best” list which I’ll add to each year.

Each year I’ve been blogging, I’ve put together a most memorable reads of the year list. Now, inspired by Davida, here are my top EIGHT reads of the last EIGHT years. I’ve only been blogging for five and a half years, but I started keeping records eight years ago, so I’m including all eight years. I’m also linking to my year-end blog posts so that you can see the honorable mentions if you’re curious. It’s excruciating to pick the best of the best and I’ve excluded many favorite reads. However, these are the books I still think about years after I’ve read them and will probably want to reread at some point.

*This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

2015:

The Intention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd (cover) (white lettering over a goldish redish sky background) featuring a few small flying birds)

(Preblogging) The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
(reviewed the first year I started blogging)

2016:

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi cover (yellow background with red and blue and black designs)

(Preblogging) Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (not reviewed on the blog)

2017:

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (cover)

(I didn’t choose a favorite this year because I chose to use categories.) Looking back at the list now, I will have to choose Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman as my favorite of the year (not reviewed on blog).  See my complete list for the year here: 2017 Really Recommendable Reads

2018:

A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza (cover)

A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
See my complete list for the year here: Most Memorable Reads of 2018

2019:

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson (cover)

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
See my complete list for the year here: Most Memorable Reads of 2019

2020:

The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Dare (cover)

The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
See my complete list for the year here: Most Memorable Reads of 2020

2021:

a woman dressed in a rose dress stands with her back to the camera overlooking a balcony and a gold wall

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn 
See my complete list for the year here: Most Memorable Reads of 2021

2022

The Girl From Guernica by Karen Robards (cover) Image: a young woman looks to the side and behind her at planes circling a town

The Girl From Guernica by Karen Robards
See my complete list for the year here: Most Memorable Reads of 2022.

Ranked in Order:

Ok….this isn’t my favorite thing to do but Davida has set the bar high, so I’ll give this daunting task a try! All of these are on my lifetime favorites list and I have vivid memories of reading each one. I have awarded each of these books five stars, so they could all be #1. Tomorrow I might arrange them differently.

#8

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

#7

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

#6

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

#5

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

#4

The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

#3

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson

#2

The Girl From Guernica by Karen Robards

#1

A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza

(The book with the most emotional, heartfelt, and poignant ending.)



QOTD:

If you ranked your books over the past few years, which would be your #1 read?
Do you keep a list of favorites from year to year?



Happy Reading Book Buddies!

“Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke

“I love the world of words, where life and literature connect.”
~Denise J Hughes

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad ones.”
~Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“I read because books are a form of transportation, of teaching, and of connection! Books take us to places we’ve never been, they teach us about our world, and they help us to understand human experience.”
~Madeleine Riley, Top Shelf Text



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***Blog posts may contain affiliate links. This means that at no extra cost to you, I can earn a small percentage of your purchase price.

Unless explicitly stated that they are free, all books that I review have been purchased by me or borrowed from the library.

Book Covers are credited to Amazon or an author’s (or publisher’s) website.

© ReadingLadies.com

18 comments

  1. This would be so very hard to do. If there is one book I still think about years later..it might have to be The Sinking of Bethany Ann Crane. It was a delightful speculative fiction. I became rather close with the author when I began proofreading for her. Her illness & death devastated me and I sill remember all the work we did together and her books fondly.

  2. This would be such a hard list for me to do! Well done. I loved The Rose Code and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine too

    • Sorry about the delay in my response….found this in my spam this morning! It is a difficult list to curate! I can’t think about it too much or I’d want to revise it!

  3. I listed to The Invention of Wings while I was painting my guest room in early 2015. I found it so fascinating that I kept forgetting to paint! I also enjoyed The Rose Code and went to visit Bletchley Park in June. If you can get there, I recommend it!

    I do keep Best of Lists but don’t think I could pin it down to one book in each year.

    • Thank you for sharing! I would love to visit Bletchley Park! Have you read Kate Quinn’s new short story, Signal Moon? It’s Bletchley Park adjacent. I found it free on Amazon Prime.

      Yeah, one book a year is tough! For me, it usually comes down to the Wow factor!

    • Thanks Davida! Do you ever think that maybe a book that came close to being #1 for one year might actually be better than the #1 the next year? Or is it just me who overthinks this?! 😂

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