Top Five Books of 2009

I like reading, which will come as no surprise at all to anyone who knows me even a little. If I don't have an actual book on me, I have about fifty or so on my iPod touch to keep me occupied in case in I ever feel like reading. Over the course of 2009 I made a point of writing down which books I read, as I was curious as to how many books I would read in a year. Despite being in university for a good chunk of this time I managed to finish 64 books, 62 of which were for fun. These books averaged anywhere from 300-1300 pages in length and the vast majority of them were in the fantasy genre. I thought I'd post a list of my five favourite books that I read over the year.

Top Five

1. The Virtu by: Sarah Monette
It probably isn't fair that I'm including this book, as it's been my favourite for well over a year. But, I did read it in 2009 and I still think it's amazing. It's the second book in Monette's Doctrine of Labyrinth series and follows the story of two brothers: Felix and Mildmay. My favourite thing about this book would be these characters; they're stunningly written, and are anything but cookie cutter. I'm pretty sure Felix would be cast as the villain in any other story, and rightly so. He's awful and I hate him. Mildmay however is my favourite literary character ever. The world is fantastically detailed and I love how ever single character has their own unique voice.

2. The Gargoyle by: Andrew Davidson
This book is a bit of a departure from what I'd usually read, but it's definitely one I really, really liked. I had seen the book around work (Chapters) and loved the cover, and the description on the back while it was still in hardcover, but couldn't rationalize spending the thirty bucks on something that I might not end up enjoying. So, when I saw it finally in paperback, I figured I'd pick it up.

The prose in this book is great. The book is told from the first person point of view of our (unnamed) protagonist. He spends the first portion of the book confined to his hospital bed in the burn ward, contemplating suicide and briefing us on his life up to this point. We get a lot of interesting information from here, including a whole bunch of random, but interesting facts on everything from burns to the physical structure of hell. I have a huge weakness for interesting information, so I found these meanderings fascinating. However, it was when Marianne entered the story that things got strange.

Marianne, a schizophrenic patient in the hospital, claims that she has known our protagonist since the 13th century Germany. From Marianne we get to hear the intriguing history of their life in Germany, as well as other historical stories set in Iceland, Italy and Japan. At the end of the novel it is left up to the reader to decide whether these stories are a hallucination of Marianne's or whether that maybe, just maybe, this actually happened.While I will admit that I didn't quite like the ending, this was a fabulous book that I highly recommend. Plus, the author is Canadian, which is always nice.

3. Fool's Fate by: Robin Hobb
Loved this book, and loved the entire 6 book series leading up to it.

4. Warbreaker by: Brandon Sanderson
Brandon Sanderson is generally good for three main things: an awesomely creative magic system, cool characters and some nifty plot twists so it's no surprise that this book had them all. The book is centred around three main characters: Vivenna, the Idrian princess who has spent her entire life being groomed to marry the Hallandren God King, her impulsive and loud sister Siri, who actually ends up marrying said God King, and Lightsong. Lightsong is the reluctant God of bravery who enjoys being useless and witty. The gist of the plot is that these three work to prevent a war between Idris and Hallandren, with varying degrees of success.

Have to say that I didn't really care much for Vivenna, but Siri and Lightsong more than made up for it. The book was interesting, and kept me entertained throughout. Although I bought the hardback, Brandon Sanderson has put an entire copy of novel online here.

5. The Lies of Locke Lamora by: Scott Lynch
I really, really enjoyed this book. Not only was it witty and entertaining, but more than anything else this book was clever. The twists and turns of this book were fantastic, and there were times where I was honestly in fear that we would be left without a main character. (well, as in fear as I could have been knowing that there were two hundred odd pages left, and a sequel, but still). The characters were also really great, and quite believable