My Reading Year 2016

Girlxoxo.com is hosting a month of faves #amonthoffaves2016 to recap the year of 2016. They've got different themes everyday all planned out so you can participate any time!

My list throughout the year usually consists of non-fiction and young adult or children's fiction. I try to throw in some literary fiction along the way and around the holidays I try a scary book or two and maybe a silly cozy mystery around Christmas.

How I Read: 10 on audiobook; 44 physical; 6 ebooks

17 non-fiction so far

25 young adult or children's books

15 literary fiction or adult fiction

1 cozy mystery

1 thriller

7 horror

10 fantasy

My favorites so far were Malcolm X: A life of Reinvention by Manning Marable. It's keen insight into a man we usually only get one narrative on. He's neither gushing nor overly negative. He presents the good, the bad, and the in-between.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche. Such insight into the lives of black immigrants. She specifically focuses on Nigerians. Her tale is woven beautifully.

Best horror: Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist and The Heart-shaped Box by John Hill.

Let the Right One In was haunting and real all at the same time. Good horror and good fiction rolled into one. The Heart-shaped Box was a great listen too. How do you get rid of an evil ghost who follows you everywhere and controls your perception of reality?

Best Young Adult: Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira and Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier

Love Letters explores one girl's tragedy when her older sister dies. We see her after but the book explores her experience from before, during, and after her sister's death. And all through letters she writes to dead people like Kurt Kobain and Amy Winehouse, etc. Tragic and beautiful.

Ghosts also deals with death or at least impending death and what that means when we might lose those we love. It's also a cultural experience. We learn about the Day of the Dead and why it's celebrated. And family ties. All done through a graphic novel form. My son loved reading it with me.

Kid Artists: True Tales of Childhood from Creative Legends by David Stabler

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"Kid Artists" tells the tales of childhood from the artists we know best. What were they like as kids? What happened to them in order for them to become the great artists we know today?

The book is divided into 3 parts: It's a hard-knock life, practice makes perfect, and call of the wild.

The first section focuses on artists who grew up poor or experienced severe hardships from war to death. Yoko Ono was fascinating. She started off as pretty much royalty and then through World War II became destitute. She wanted to work it all out through poetry and created a style called Conceptual Art.

Part two focuses on kids who had some amazing mentors to help them on their way to their greatness. Frida Kahlo was a fascinating kid. Loved her father, loved nature, overcame illness.

Part three are kids who were greatly influenced by nature and the great outdoors. Vincent Van Gogh was a big nature lover. He pretty much spent his whole childhood out there. Nature was truly the only thing that made him happy. He poured all of his sadness into his art. At least he had that.

All the stories featured art. They all had interesting facts and anecdotes. It's a small and diverse introduction, one that gives kids a taste and a desire for more information.

My son and I really enjoyed reading about these artists together.

*I received an advanced copy from the publisher in return for an honest and fair review.