Zarya, 20 months old

Good books I've read in the past year or so

I love reading, and after having recently finished a few good books, I thought I should share the bounty! It can be tricky to figure out which books are worth the time, I know. And so, having done some legwork to find these gems myself, maybe you're interested, too. If you think they are a lot of junk, well, maybe one of us should re-examine their taste in literature (which means you). ;-)

FYI, I record and rate all the books I read on www.goodreads.com, so you can always go there to check out my bookshelf and ratings. Unfortunately, I had to wade through lots of 1, 2, and 3 star books in order to find these, so you can find all of those titles there, as well as ones I've rated highly in the past. I have over 300 books on my list and my average rating is 3.37, so if a book gets a 4 or 5 star rating, it (IMHO) actually deserves it.

Over the past year to year, these are the books I've given 5 stars:
These is My Words by Nancy E. Turner
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
The Host by Stephenie Meyer (sure, go ahead, judge me on this one)
I'll Watch the Moon by Ann Tatlock

And these ones have received 4 stars:
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Mrs. Mike by Benedict and Nancy Freeman
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
And the Mountains Echoed by Khalid Hosseini
Mine is the Night by Liz Curtis Higgs
The Fault in Our Stars by John Greene
The Daughter's Walk by Jane Kirkpatrick
The Outcast by Jolina Petersheim
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese