As the end of the year approaches and lists like this pop up everywhere, I thought I’d share the books that I found most impressive in 2013. This year, I’ve been using Goodreads to keep track of the books I’ve read. Here are those that I rated 5 stars this year:

James Meek, The Heart Broke In

I heard about this book after seeing James Meek talk at the Perth Writers Festival in February. I bought it straight away and from the first page, knew I was settling in for a big, sprawling family drama set in the UK. It was beautifully written, witty and very moving.

 

Hannah Richell, The Shadow Year

I read Hannah’s first book, The Secret of the Tides last year, and loved it. The Shadow Year is another big book, and one that I couldn’t put down. It’s dramatic, clever, and full of emotion with a dark streak.

 

 

 

Amanda Curtin, Elemental

Amanda is in a writing group with me, but I promise that’s not why I gave this book five stars! Amanda writes beautifully, in rich, elegant prose. This book is set in both Western Australia (where I now live), and the northeast coast of Scotland (where I grew up) so I was immediately immersed in the settings that are so vividly described. I could feel the chill of the north sea in my fingers and the smell of the fishwifies as I read. Loved it.

 

Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

A big, complex, narrative. It took me a few chapters to get into this book, but when the central event kicked in, I was hooked. It felt Dickensian: larger than life characters who were not completely realistic, but it didn’t matter. I was engaged and entertained throughout the 800 pages!

 

 

David Vann, Goat Mountain

I absolutely loved Vann’s Caribou Island and so had high expectations of this book, and I was so pleased that this was as good, if not better. He has such a talent for evoking a sense of place, and I felt like I was with the 11 year old narrator on the slopes of Goat Mountain as I read this. This is a small, gruesome story and some of the images kept me up at night. It’s as chilling as any horror story, because it’s so realistic. This is not a book I’ll forget.

 

Kate Atkinson, Life After Life

Oh, how I’ve loved this book. I’m actually not quite finished it (I’m listening to the audiobook while I run, so I need to do a bit more exercise!) but the ‘voice’ of this book is beautiful and I’ve been hooked from the start. It’s one of those rare books that I can’t wait to listen to and I don’t want it to end. I have a great admiration for Atkinson’s skill as a writer as it’s a complex, multi-layered story that manages to integrate historical facts into a beautiful drama that keeps you intellectually engaged as you try to piece together the multiple strands. It’s had me in tears many times and I have complete writer envy! I wish I had written this!

 

Ned Vizzini, It’s Kind Of A Funny Story

This was published in 2006, and I’m shocked that I’ve only just read it as it deals with a subject close to my heart as a child psychiatrist: a (fictional) story of a teenager admitted to an adult psychiatric ward. I’m sorry to say that I only heard about it after the very recent death of the author, Ned Vizzini, who took his life this month at 32 years of age. It’s with that knowledge that I read the book, which made the accounts of a teenage boy’s battle with depression all the more affecting. It’s clear to me as a psychiatrist that the author has used some of his own experiences of the mental health system to write this book as it’s incredibly authentic. It’s kind of funny, but it’s also not at all funny. I will now recommend this book to all mental health staff and psychiatrists in training. This is a young adult version of Plath’s The Bell Jar.

How about you? What were the books you rated best in 2013? Do you agree or disagree with my choices?