I hadn’t read The Handmaid’s Tale since I was a freshman in college, and in my second reading I was interested in the way Atwood breaks a lot of the “rules” of plotting. The protagonist, Offred (named because she belongs to a man named Fred), has no rights, and her sole purpose is to bear children. Since the HBO show is getting so much attention, I decided to reread the book, which is set in a near-future dystopian society in which a Christian patriarchy has taken over the United States government. It is now tied with Tipping the Velvet as my favorite Sarah Waters novel. Sarah Waters is an amazing writer, and this book is so full of tension and gorgeous gothic imagery… It’s the perfect novel for a dark and gloomy day, and I might even say it’s one of the very best books I read this year. Farraday, a country doctor, treats a young maid at a crumbling British estate, he forms a friendship with the respectable (but going broke) family and becomes privy to the decline of not only their house but of their mental states as well.

Oh, how I loved this spooky, gothic tale! When Dr. The Best Books I Read in 2017: Adult Novels These days, unless a book really holds my attention, my sleep-deprived brain decides it’d rather be sleeping or watching Netflix.įor all of these reasons, this year I will only be listing the books I read in 2017 that I really enjoyed and would recommend to others. This year I also abandoned a lot of books halfway (or less than halfway) through. I still used goodreads this year, but not as consistently. Normally I use goodreads for my read and to-be-read lists. I also didn’t do a great job keeping track of the books I read. I didn’t read nearly as much as I normally do, and I one hundred percent blame my baby, who was born in January of 2017. In 2016, for example, I read close to 60 books, which I think is brag-worthy.

To be honest, I do it (at least in part) so I can brag. Normally this time of year I write a post called “My Year in Books” in which I describe every single book I read in the past year.

Best books to read 2017