best books 2016 | recommendations

Best Books of 2016

29th December 2016

This is one of my favourite parts of the year, looking back on the books read and reliving the joy and remembering the favourites of the year. The best books of 2016, the ones which made an impact that left me reeling or just left me sobbing in a heap. This is their list!

A Song of Ice and Fire

Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun.

As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must … and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty.

The old gods have no power in the south, Stark’s family is split and there is treachery at court. Worse, the vengeance-mad heir of the deposed Dragon King has grown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities. He claims the Iron Throne.

This was my personal challenge for the year – to finally read them all. I did. They have a firm place in my favourite books pile. The story is so diverse and the characters were well rounded, each with their own flaws that made you desperately want to know more about them as people. It is a daunting series, but it is definitely worth it when you get to the end!

The Lunar Chronicles

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

I read some really awesome series this year, something that no doubt will be reflected on the best books of 2016 list. I had read the first two earlier but completed the series at the start of this year. I love this series, it brings a new air to the fairytale retelling, the stories are bold and well written. There is an originality to them that feels like a breath of fresh air.

Sarah J Maas’ epicness

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.

As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

I read Empire of Storms and A Court of Mist and Fury this year and I was blown away by both of them. The characters and the plot lines are fantastic. There is always something happening, something to take your breath away and wanting more. Both of these books have left me completely heartbroken as I keep waiting for the next installment! But well deserved place on the best books of 2016.

A Six of Crows series

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone…

A convict with a thirst for revenge
A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager
A runaway with a privileged past
A spy known as the Wraith
A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums
A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes

Kaz’s crew are the only ones who might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

This duology is one of my all time favourites, let alone best book of 2016. The characters in this story are so flawed it becomes so interesting and the political intrigue is something I have never experienced before. The way this series rounds up, and has one of the best twist and turn path I have no words. After hating the Grisha trilogy as much as I did I had my fears, but I am happy to say they were unfounded.

A School for Good and Evil


The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. But if at first the choices seemed random, soon the pattern became clear. One was always beautiful and good, the child every parent wanted as their own. The other was homely and odd, an outcast from birth. An opposing pair, plucked from youth and spirited away.

This year, best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to discover where all the lost children go: the fabled School for Good & Evil, where ordinary boys and girls are trained to be fairy tale heroes and villains. As the most beautiful girl in Gavaldon, Sophie has dreamed of being kidnapped into an enchanted world her whole life. With her pink dresses, glass slippers, and devotion to good deeds, she knows she’ll earn top marks at the School for Good and graduate a storybook princess. Meanwhile Agatha, with her shapeless black frocks, wicked pet cat, and dislike of nearly everyone, seems a natural fit for the School for Evil.

I can’t believe this book has made it’s way onto my best books of 2016 list, but here it is. I loved this series, there was something fun and whimsical about the entire thing. I was drawn into a world of stereotypes and watched as some were vanquished and others remained. It was a fun series, and one I can see me rereading over and over again. Definitely a secure addition to the best books of 2016.

There you have it, my best books of 2016. It’s been a good year for reading. I read most of what I wanted too, and I loved it all. Very happy reader.

What were your best books of 2016? Did you read any books that completely surprised you? Let me know in the comments below.

The following two tabs change content below.
24 year old reader. Marketer. Spare time blogger. Desperate book buyer.

Latest posts by Jordann @thebookbloglife (see all)

Only registered users can comment.

    1. The Lunar Chronicles was definitely top of the list this year. They were just such fun books to read and enjoy. Thanks for your comment! xo

  1. My best discovery was probably Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett. It’s funny, I didn’t like it at first, than it started to grow on me *after* reading it. Merrow by Ananda Braxton Smith, and Eva by Peter Dickinson were books I’d been meaning to read, and boy did they deliver!

    1. I will definitely have to check them out! I love the idea of a book growing on you AFTER you’ve finished reading it. I don’t think I’ve experienced that before. I’ve hated books more as time went on but never loved them more!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
https://thebookbloglife.com/best-books-of-2016
thebookbloglife.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2018-17
62835
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:3T4WTDAYY6CU47J2YKYTI66TB6XSV2IL
<urn:uuid:01dc24d9-285f-4104-b076-45946a844bcf>
2018-04-25T14:26:40Z
217.160.0.167
text/html
sha1:OZ66WJQ3X5GKINSHS2PL4RETRTRHMQCI
<urn:uuid:614006c1-bf22-463b-90e3-da4b355f03ed>
https://thebookbloglife.com/best-books-of-2016
length
response
<urn:uuid:90aeb44f-9bd5-43dc-a839-82006871a228>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-152-23-81.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2018-17
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for April 2018
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf