Superlatives for the Books I Read this Year (2018 Edition)

Well, it appears that another year has come and gone. One of my goals for 2018 was to read at least 22 books. Unfortunately, much to my surprise, I didn’t quite hit my mark. I ended the year with reading 20 books instead. I was feeling a bit disappointed with myself until I discovered it was still more books than I had read in the last two years, so at least that’s something?

(Do all the manuscripts I had to read for my internship count? I mean, it’s technically in pre-book form. No? They don’t count? Darn.)

In any case, my annual “Book Superlatives” post is a fun way for me to glance through and remember the novels I read this year. Overall, I read some pretty good books. Only three of them I thought were, “Blah.” Most of them, though, seem to belong to a series. And speaking of series…



Best Sequel

BURIED HEART by Kate Elliott

Not sure if I can call it a “sequel,” since it’s the last book in a trilogy, but it’s not the launcher, so I’m counting it.

I found Elliott’s desert-fantasy setting rich in its world-building while also tackling issues of colonialism appropriately. I thought the series ended in a nice way, even if not all the characters made it out alive. But overall, it had more of a “happy ending,” which I was not exactly expecting for its genre.

Runner-up: THE DAZZLING HEIGHTS by Katharine McGee 

This was the second book in a trilogy, and I felt like it captured the same essence of the first book without being a carbon-copy. (Even if both books ended with a character dying, which is preluded to in the opening pages of the book.)

The Only Stand-Alone Fiction Book I Read

GIRLS MADE OF SNOW AND GLASS by Melissa Bashardoust

This is a fairy tale adaption story of Snow White, written in alternative chapters centering around Princess Lynet (Snow White) and Mina (Stepmother). Half of Mina’s chapters are written in the past, explaining how she wound up at the castle and ultimately marrying Lynet’s father. This novel definitely showcases the sometimes complex relationship between a mother and daughter.







Best New Author To Me

THIS MORTAL COIL by Emily Suvada 

There were only four authors that I read this year who I was reading for the first time, and Suvada was a really nice surprise. THIS MORTAL COIL was her debut, and the sci-fi book made my geneticist heart happy. (Fun fact: Before I decided to pursue writing, I had seriously considered becoming a genetic counselor. Even bought GRE practice books to get myself into grad school for it – which, unfortunately were useless because I never applied to any graduate programs in the end.) I thought the concept was creative, the plot had many twists and turns, and the idea of code and genetics playing such a large portion of the story was refreshing.




Runner-up: CARAVAL by Stephanie Garber 

I don’t read many books centering on a carnival, and this fantasy spin on it was intriguing. The world was written vividly; special attention was placed on the colors.











Most Creative

THE LANGUAGE OF THORNS: MIDNIGHT TALES AND DANGEROUS MAGIC by Leigh Bardugo

This book is a collection of six short stories, all of which are inspired by folklore and fairy tale. (You don’t have to read any of her Grisha books to understand the world, even if she sometimes makes references to Grisha countries.) My favorite story would have to be, “When Water Sang Song.” It’s the longest story of the six, and it’s based off of the Little Mermaid story – but the protagonist is the Ursula character.

This book won the superlative because of its illustrator, Sara Kipin. The stories alternate in either dark blue or rustic red font. But what makes the novel really cool is, as each story progresses, the images along the pages’ border increases until you finish the story, which is when you’re awarded with a two-page spread of a picture. I like to go through them like a flip book, haha.



Longest Book

LIFEBLOOD by Gena Showalter 

Unlike the last two years, Bardugo’s book did not win this category. Instead, Showalter’s novel clocked in at 476 pages. Which is too bad for me, because this was one of the books in the “blah” group I mentioned earlier. 

And in case anyone was curious, I read a total of 7,715 pages during the course of 2018. Therefore, the average is 385.75 pages/book. Surprisingly, despite reading three more novels than last year, I only read 193 more pages.

For next year, I’d like to take another stab at trying to read at least 22 books. (It just won’t be one of my resolutions.) All I know is that I currently have 25 unread books sitting on my dresser, and the pile is getting ridiculously tall.

As always, too many books, so little time.

NaNoWriMo '18 (aka: I Should Stop Doubting Myself So Much)

It’s already been two weeks since NaNoWriMo has ended. Two weeks where I’ve been able to take a breather and not constantly glance at the clock, wondering how much time I have left in my day to fit my daily writing in. Ah, the panic that is NaNoWriMo.

This year, I really leaned in with the idea of “block scheduling.” This practice is basically where you “block out” certain hours of your day to commit to an activity before you more onto something else. Each block is supposed to last only 1.5-2 hours. Sounds like micromanaging to some people, but I would rearrange my “writing block” depending on what I had going on for that day.

Anyway, I knew I needed to set aside two hours’ worth of time to work on my NaNo daily, so I usually blocked out those hours in the evening (which is nothing new). I made it very clear to my family that I needed that time to write, so if they wanted me to do something with or for them in the day, it had to happen before I started to write.

This system worked quite well for me. There were 4-5 days in November, though, where I would write an hour after midnight, so I didn’t have to write so much later in the day (and it still counted toward my word count). I was just very busy during those days, and I didn’t want the added stress of trying to cram two straight hours of writing in between everything else.

I wrote every day. Also, I decided early on in the month that I had to write at least 1700 words/day instead of the typical 1667 words/day. Because apparently I still like to be ambitious with my writing. [insert eye roll here]

In the end, I finished NaNoWriMo with a total of 53,061 words. Not only did I win for the fifth year in row (half a decade!), but I beat my record from last year by 843 words.

(Ignore the word count total at the top. When I went to validate my novel on their website, it tacked on extra words to my NaNo. I go by the number that my Word document tells me.)

Here’s a graph that displays my daily word count rather than an accumulation:

As you can see, I really didn’t have to write so much on that last day. Especially since I had already reached 50k the day before. However, after I got my 1700 words in for the day, I noticed how close I was to 53k, and I made it my goal to hit it. I also had a pretty busy day on November 30, so guess whose after-midnight writing helped carry her to the finish line?

My average writing time was 1 hour, 46 mins. Surprisingly, I never wrote beyond two hours. Although, on November 2 + 3, I was one minute shy of writing the full two hours.

I ended writing eight stories during the month. Literally half of them were in the fantasy genre, so I guess I was just in the mood to write fantasy. Ten days was the most I spent writing on one story – which was a manuscript idea I had tinkered with last year but never really sat down and wrote more than 700 words for. Unfortunately, two of the stories I had left unfinished before I moved onto the next one. I just hit a road block with the plot, and I lost interested in taking the time to figure out how to end it properly.

So overall, this year’s NaNoWriMo went very well. I made a new record, I wrote every day, and I didn’t feel like I was scrambling for the majority of the month, trying to come up with something to write. I think I got some sleep, too. And here I was on Halloween, anxious about how I was going to tackle my NaNo this year. How silly of me.

As usual, here’s my annual grainy photo from my webcam with me and my lovely Winner’s Certificate.

P.S. I feel like I should get a bonus point for also writing a poem early in November. Second one this year, so I guess I’m good now until 2019, lol.

P.P.S. I spent the entire month listening to a wide variety of Sufjan Stevens songs every day. I feel like I need to acknowledge him for keeping me so focused and motivated while writing. Thanks, Subaru.