2017 Book of the Year – Vote here!

Yes, it’s time for me to work out which is my book of the year for 2017.  Last year I copped out at the last five. This year I’m going to narrow it down, and you’re going to have to vote to find out who wins.  You don’t have to have read the finalist books yourself (although if you have that’s fine), but I’ll link to my reviews and leave you to decide.  I might vote myself, I don’t know!

Book of the Year shortlist

So… I’ve considered all those books that have achieved that ‘unfortunately not very rare, even though I try to be quite stingy with them’ award – 5 stars from me on Goodreads. The winner will be announced at my Best of 2017 Giveaway hop, which runs from Jan 15-31.  Everyone who votes will be given three extra entries in that Giveaway.

But I need to narrow the field down before then, since there are TWENTY of them.  Okay I’ve read around 60 books, but last year I read the same number, and I didn’t give out so many five star ratings, and I’m trying to be quite picky about them, so they really mean something. The five star books are these:

How to Stop Time, The Graveyard Book, Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance, Journey to the River Sea, Gasp of the Ghoulish Guinea Pig, The Outcast Dead, Kit’s Wilderness, Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Equus, The Ship Who Sang, The Fourteenth Goldfish, Shirley Link and the Black Cat, The Queens Envoy, Blood Sister, Did You See Melody?, Uncorking a Lie, Pair Alleles, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, The Whispering Skull, and Dying Fall.

As I type those titles, I realise that some of them are outstanding, memorable, did something to me that lingered.  Even, in the case of one book, the concept of aubergines as never considered before.  Those books are:

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance by Emmie Ruth Lang

Equus edited by Rhonda Parrish

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal

Interestingly three of these books were from Net-Galley. The other was a First-reads from LibraryThing.  They didn’t all work out that well, by any means. Maybe I should do a review of ARC sources 🙂

I continued to dither over whether to add Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and the Graveyard Book, which really means that neither of them make it onto the shortlist. Even going back to link to reviews made me wonder whether to include others, but no, that was the first and immediate reaction, so it stays.

I realise I have a lot of crime/thriller/suspense in the list this year. Congratulations to Elly Griffiths for getting two of the Ruth Galloway series into 5 star territory. Sophie Hannah got one, and very nearly a second.  I nearly added Did You See Melody? back into my shortlist!

There are no MG books in the shortlist – Gasp of the Ghoulish Guinea Pig nearly made it, as of course, did Mrs Frisby and Graveyard Book.  Maybe I should run a second poll for MG books?

My Book of the Year – vote here!

You only have one choice – sorry!  Voting ends 31st December, or maybe 15th January, depending on whether I remember or not.