pick#libfaves16 #1 A Libyan dissident, Jaballa Matar was arrested by the Egyptian government and turned over to Qaddafi. His whereabouts were unknown. When he loses contact, the situation turns into an obsession. What happened to his father? Matar would spend over twenty years trying to find him. With the fall of the Qaddafi regime, he gets no resolution. In the end, he must accept the inevitable without any proof of what happened.
pick#libfaves16 #3 Didn't finish this before the end of the year. Wrapping it up.
We meet victims of Assad's secret police, Assad supporters, and the learn of the result of an endless war. It is living under the threat of being shot or killed by a bomb, but also the complete breakdown in government, where even basic services are no longer met. We see the destruction in slow motion. The book will be part of the testament of what happened before.
Final 2016 Stats
212 books read
178 Romance
25 Fantasy (including urban fantasy)
4 Science fiction
1 Non-fiction 😒
I've mentioned some of my favorites through #libfaves16. The ones pictured here are ones I also really enjoyed.
Today's #libfaves16 is Satie's last book in her No Better Angels series. This whole series is amazing. This one has a rake who is a true rake. He does not care one whit that the heroine is married, he wants her, so he pursues her. Sabine is smart and lovely. The play between these two is so much fun. It's heart-wrenching and beautifully done.
pick#4 #libfaves16'What I took away from the book was the concept of mercy and forgiveness, that we have the power to forgive and wipe away past wrongs. It becomes a universal message of peace. We can treat each other with dignity, forgive those that trespass against us, and move forward. It is a powerful message for anyone and it is particularly good to hear this message from the Catholic Church.
I didn't post yesterday's #libfaves16, but it was Luck Is No Lady by Amy Sandas, a book I've mentioned my love for on here before. Today's is Magic Binds. This is one of my favorite UF series ever and each book is consistently amazing.
pick#5 #libfaves16 Yaa Gyasi's novel takes us through time. Two half-sisters, unbeknownst to one another take parallel journeys. Each story is told a generation apart. This holistic novel's beauty is told in small pieces. Each story is like a short story. Every twist shows us both the oppression in the colonization of Africa and the slavery in America. They swirl around each other like a DNA helix. A story of one people in two continents.
Today's #libfaves16 is Nevernight. Adorable, smartass protagonist, who's obsessed with revenge, goes to a school to learn to be an assassin. Many people are labeling as young adult fantasy, but there is a lot of violence and some sexual content.
pick#6 #libfaves16 An experimental novel wrapped inside a test booklet. Themes of fathers, being a family man, and the Pinochet dictatorship are some of the themes. It becomes an examination of what you can add and take away as a writer. Does it mean the same thing or does that slight pivot alter it significantly?
#7 #libfaves16 Now we get into a little fiction. Reviewed this here a few weeks ago. Here is a brief recap. The main drive of the book is a marriage during the Franco dictatorship and its consequences. People both suffered based on deceptions and self deceptions. Only time solves these problems, but time lived during these difficult years are not wasted. They are the light and the dark that makes up ones life and darkness often reveals the light.
