Shooflypie

I started 2012 with a goal to read 52 books in the year and I managed to meet that goal. I was probably a teenager the last time I read that much in a year, to be honest. It felt good to reach my goal and I really enjoyed the reading year. I read 35 books that came out this year, which is a pretty good total. I even read 9 books that weren't fiction, which is more than I've read in a year ever. Regardless of genre or publication date, here are the books I liked the most... 1. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - A dark page-turner built on twist after twist that's wired into how the book is structured and the alternating viewpoints of a couple with a strained marriage. Disturbing and brilliant. 2. The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson - A virtuoso novel set in North Korea about living under the rule of Kim Jong Il and the lengths people will go to in order to stay alive. Complex and crackling with creative energy. 3. Billy Lynn's Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain - ...

Time for another look at the books I've been reading lately. This covers the period from mid-June to this morning, when I finished the last book in bed. Prepare To Die! by Paul Tobin - It should come as no surprise that I have a fondness for reading novels set in original super-hero universes (they call it "Genre Kryptonite" over at Book Riot ). This is the story of Reaver, whose power is that he takes a year off of a person's life when he punches them. I don't think I've ever seen that as a power before, which I enjoyed. At the start of the book, Reaver is defeated by Octagon and a coalition of villains then is told to "prepare to die." He accepts but asks for two weeks to settle his affairs and is granted that respite. The novel is both his journey back home and a flashback to how he got to this point. It's an origin story and a love story and a story of what it actually means to be a hero. The character of Reaver has a tendency to reduce al...