Hi! My name is Penny and as usual I'm gonna talk about some bookish things
specifically I wanted to talk about the top books that I read in 2019 but since
I read 250 ish books this year, I've decided to split it into
genres. And today we're gonna talk about ones that are primarily mysteries
or thrillers. There are a couple in here that have paranormal aspects or
something going on, something strange, weird going on, because those are the
kind of things that I like, but they didn't quite fit into the fantasy or
science fiction categories because they're definitely more mystery/thriller
so I put them into this category. But I still think we can call them all
mysteries or thrillers. So I'm going to go through my top 5. We're gonna start
with number 5 which was Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight.
I actually read this for Spookathon and I just picked it out as a library
audiobook because it was available and I needed something. And when I read the
synopsis which is just about how they find this dead baby in the lake and they
don't know what's going on with that, I wasn't particularly excited about the
synopsis. But actually I ended up really loving this. We're primarily following
this writer who has just started out as a journalist and she's trying to prove
herself on this story about this baby that they found in the lake. And we're
also following this younger teenager whose messed up mother has gone
missing. Now often I don't like books that are
kind of just about a bunch of screwed up people but what I really liked about
this is that there were just so many mysteries going on and everything was
interrelated and it just slowly revealed things. And at the end there were just so
many reveals, you are finding out what was really going on and then you were
finding out who was responsible and it was just Oh!
The ending was intense and I just couldn't stop listening to it because I
had to know what was going on. There were some things I guessed and some things I
didn't, which i think is kind of how you always want it to go. You want to
feel that satisfaction I'm having worked some things out but you also want some
surprises. So I think this book did this really well. I do often really struggle with
finding thrillers that I enjoy but this is one that I like so if you know more
like this, I would love those recommendations. Then
number four is actually a YA mystery and that is Truly Devious by Maureen
Johnson. I also read the second book in the series the Vanishing Stair
and I am now holding out for the third and final book of the series which is
being released in March next year. There are just so many open mysteries that
I cannot wait to find out how it's all going to be wrapped up. We follow this young
girl named Stevie who's going to this school for gifted students. All of them
kind of have a different interest or specialty they're studying. Stevie is really
interested in true crime and she wants to solve the murder that actually
happened at the school fifty years ago when the daughter and the wife of the
owner of the school were kidnapped. But at the same time new murders start
happening at the school once she gets there and so she's trying to solve those
murders as well. There's a lot going on. It definitely is a YA mystery because
our main characters are all very young and there is some kind of school
relationship stuff going on, so if you are a more adult reader you might not
enjoy that as much. But another aspect of the story is that Stevie suffers from
quite bad anxiety and she often struggles to talk to people and I
thought that part of the story was really well told. There are lots of
riddles and clues because the criminal known is Truly Devious he left a ransom
letter and it's all written in riddles and rhyme. So if you like riddles and
clues then I think you would like this book. Then number three is more of a
horror thriller and that is Bird Box by Josh Malerman. So in this story what
happens is people start seeing things and then once they see these things they
go crazy and violently attack people and eventually kill themselves in really
violent ways. It's definitely an intense book. If you don't like violence, you
won't like this book. But nobody really knows what it is that people are
seeing and what's causing them to do this. Everyone who
has survived the initial outbreak is hiding in their houses and they only
leave the house with their eyes blindfolded. Primarily we're following
this girl named Malorie through two timelines during the initial kind of
attack and then a later timeline where she has two children with her that she
is trying to take down the river to a place of safety. This book has also been
made into a Netflix movie and I watched the movie first and I do think there's a
very similar feeling between the two so I think it was very well translated into
movie form. It's very scary. When I read it it was all stormy and windy and rainy
outside and it made me think that these things that people are seeing were
outside my house and I did not sleep particularly well that night. But it's a
really spooky read but I really enjoyed it and I definitely recommend it if you
like spooky reads. Oh so that one was one that I got from
the library, that's why I don't have it. A lot of these I got from the library but
I do have but number two book in this list and that is Never World Wake by
Marisha Pessl. It is a really beautiful book which is, to be honest, this was a cover
buy. I bought it purely because I thought the cover was pretty. And I had heard
some people say that it was good as well but primarily I bought it for the cover.
So it was lucky and I ended up really liking it. It is a little bit hard to
tell you the plot of this without at least spoiling a little bit of the story.
We follow this girl who has had some kind of falling out with her friends but
now after a year or so she is getting back together with them. But
while they're all together there is a car accident and then they end up stuck
in this time loop, and they can't get out of the time loop until they can all come
to an agreement on something. There is also as part of this a bit of a murder
mystery. So you're trying to work out what's happened with that but you're
trying to work out what's happened with that while you're stuck in this time
loop. I really like stuff that messes with time so that's why I really liked
this book. But I did also enjoy figuring out the murder mystery and along with
that murder mystery is some quite thrilling aspects because you don't know
if some of the people she's stuck in this time loop
with are some of the people who are responsible for the murder. I think if
you like really weird time stuff and you would definitely like this book. it's
actually a pretty quick read so there's no excuse not to pick it up really. Then
the number one book in this list I actually don't have at the moment even
though I do own it. But I lent it to my sister and she hasn't given it back to
me even though she did read it because she read it in like one or two days
after I gave it to her. Which goes to show that she really liked it as well. I think
I read it in just a few days as well. I actually read it at the start of the
year and it kind of blew my mind to think that it was actually this year
that I read it cause I felt like I've been liking this book for a lot longer than
that. But it turns out it was just this year. So the book I'm talking about is
Big Little Lies by Lianne Moriarty. This is a really highly rated book so it
really shouldn't be a surprise to people that I enjoyed it and probably a lot of
you out there who like these kind of books have already read it.
I am also hoping very soon to watch the TV show with my sister so that
will be exciting. So if you haven't heard about Big Little Lies, basically you're
following a bunch of mothers who all have children in this same kindergarten
class and there's a couple of older children around as well. Each of these
different mothers has a drama going on in their life and there's some conflict
between some of them. And then you're told right at the beginning that someone
dies at this trivia night at the end of the book. And so the whole way through
while you're finding out about what's happening, you're trying to guess who it
is that gets murdered and who it is that's gonna be responsible for this
murder. But I think what really makes this story is just that the characters
are really relatable and you find yourself growing quite connected to them
or at least I did. And as you grow connected to them it makes you worry
even more about who is going to die. Is it going to be one of these women that
you are really rooting for? There's also a storyline where some of the children in
the kindergarten class are being bullied by another child and you don't know
which child it is so that kind of feeds into the story a little bit. I just
thought the ending was written in such a way that it was so
satisfying. I really enjoyed it and it was just a great experience. I think I
actually I also read this - I remember now - I read this during a 24 hour read-a-thon
so I read it in a single day. And sometimes 24 hour readathons can be a
bit of a slog if you're reading a book you're not enjoying that much but when
you're reading a book that you're enjoying as much as Big Little Lies,
just sitting down and reading it in one go is easy and such a great experience so I
would definitely recommend picking up this book and just binge it. Just read the
whole thing in one go. This is such a highly rated book, it's very unlikely you
wouldn't enjoy it, even if like me mystery thrillers don't tend to be your
favorite genre. Anyway those are my top five mystery thrillers that I read in
2019. Do let me know if you've read any of those books, what did you think about
them? Or are there any other books that you would recommend to me based on the
fact that I enjoyed those ones? Otherwise thank you so much for watching! I hope
that you're having a really wonderful day and I will see you next time :)