A running tally of the books that I have reviewed this year, updated and reranked after each book that I finish.

★★★☆☆ A woman's life is upended when a half-brother she didn't know she had convinces her to join him on a road trip to find their father.

★★★★★ A girl grows up in a remote cabin in Montana with just her father, whose distrust of technology and government grows with each passing year.

★★★★★ A small town, a love triangle, a murder, and a trial form the foundation of this twisty, emotional novel set in mid-1900s England.

★★★★★ A sweet and heartfelt story about finding love when you least expect it, told with a distinctly British cheekiness and sense of humor.

★★★★★ Two writers compete for the opportunity to author the memoir of a reclusive heiress while coming to realize they might just be soulmates.

★★★★★ A teacher's aide who dreams of adopting a young boy from her school competes in a contest for the sole copy of a reclusive author's new book.

★★★★★ Collins returns to give us the origin story of Haymitch Abernathy in a way that might make this the best Hunger Games novel to-date.

★★★★★ Goo's sweet time travel tale sees a 17-year-old from 2025 transported back to 1995 to try to help her own mother win homecoming queen.

★★★★★ When a woman washes ashore on a remote island, the lone family living there nurses her back to health. But both parties have secrets...

★★★★☆ A multi-generational novel that focuses on a Chinese-American family while tackling issues of class, race, technology, and belonging.

★★★★☆ A young mother falls for a strange, disfigured man and chooses to live with him and her 6-year-old daughter in a remote Alaskan cabin.

★★★☆☆ A recounting of the fictional life of Frankie Howe, from Ireland to London to America and back, spanning the 1950s to today.

★★★★☆ A woman tries to break a curse which causes the women in her family to transform into a tree forever if they stay in a place too long.

★★☆☆☆ A non-binary monk leaves on a journey to find themself and in the process encounters a robot who is seeking to learn what humans need.

★★★★★ A quick 50-page read, the story of a young girl who is delivered by her father to stay with a family in a neighboring town in Ireland.

★★★☆☆ Exploring addiction, incarceration, and the impact of tragedy on a family, the story follows a father serving a 3-year sentence.

★★☆☆☆ A menopausal mother narrates her family's week at the beach on Cape Cod—their 20th in a row—while musing on the changes life brings.

★★★★★ More than a retelling of "Huck Finn" from the point of view of Jim, this is a brilliant treatise on race and slavery in 1860s America.

★★★★★ Whitaker delivers another masterpiece of character development while tackling several tough topics -- a challenging but uplifting read