Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 2019

The Bernadine Evaristo is great; I've read a lot of novels recently where every chapter is from a different perspective and she's very good at it.

I haven’t read Girl, Woman, Other yet but there’s absolutely no way that The Testaments deserved to share the Booker prize with it. The Testaments was such a mistake! It’s everything The Handmaid’s Tale wasn’t: bloated, forgettable, bland (can you imagine finding The Handmaid’s Tale bland?!) and she shouldn’t have written it. Easily one of the most disappointing things she’s written in years.

Also I think I may have heard of this at the time but must've memory-holed, holy shit at this:

Annelies is a 2019 novel by David R. Gillham, which has a depiction of Anne Frank surviving her term in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and reuniting with her father, Otto Frank.

A project of obvious moral turpitude but the reception section of wikipedia is a doozy too:

Susan Ellingwood of The New York Times stated that Gillham "does a good job" in showing an Anne affected by survivor's guilt, but that the scenario between Anne and Otto annoyed her and "leave the reader disappointed with this girl they once loved." Ultimately Ellingwood believed the readers were already well-served by the original Diary of Anne Frank

Disappointed with a dead girl because some dead dude made up a fictional life for her? And readers being "already well-served by the original", like this was some reboot of an old sci-fi franchise or something.

er, the dude lives, sorry for that stray dead

The Testaments was such a mistake! It’s everything The Handmaid’s Tale wasn’t: bloated, forgettable, bland

Hard agree, and the conversion of Aunt Lydia was desperately unconvincing.

I enjoyed the multiple perspectives of Girl, Woman, Other though I think that style does makes it hard to fully lose oneself in the book. The Old Drift was even more discombobulating with nine different and long sections featuring three different generations of three different characters/families.

The Lying Life Of Adults: 'the most about a bracelet that a book has ever been' (Patricia Lockwood). Breasts And Eggs took a while but really won me over long before the end, very eye opening about gender attitudes in japan (lots of women complaining about their good for nothing / absentee husbands). Olive, Again is as good as if not better than Olive.

Runaway winner for me though is Ducks, Newburyport. I started it two or three years ago and inexplicably abandoned it about half way through, when I picked it up again last year I just swam through it, love the way the story (such as it is) imperceptibly builds up from fragments, and how all those "the fact that"s fade into the background the deeper you get into it. Still not exactly sure who Abby is though.

I read a bit about Breasts and Eggs having never heard of it and it sounds like something I’d like so I’ll order it the next time I’m in town. Thanks!

This is a great year! Torn between Ducks, Newburyport and Nickel Boys.

Breasts and Eggs is on my list; I’ve heard great things.

I liked Girl, Woman, Other; it is a fun read but kind of…slight?

I do not think the Lying Life of adults is great, although parts of it are v good.

write in for animalia by jean baptiste del amo

Whitehead by default.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I think this is the first year where I've read (or finished) nothing. I did start The Topeka School, having enjoyed Lerner's previous two novels, but I couldn't get into it.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

damn this closed fast. black leopard, red wolf was the only of these i've read but it made enough of a mark on me that i would've thrown it a vote

I can't remember whether I remembered to vote in this! Would have voted Lying Lives so if I DIDN'T vote then that's the unofficial winner.

Topeka School had its moments but didn't live up to 10:04 or Atocha Station for me, felt too much like Lerner taking a big windup and delivering his Big Book

write in vote for nell zink's 'doxology'

are we going to get to vote on 2020 and 2021?

write in vote for nell zink's 'doxology'

Same for me. Haven't read any of the others.

I do have a couple of these that I picked up in charity shops but haven't read tehm
Have the Jeanette Winterson which I will eventually read , when i get through ordering books from teh interlibrary loan system at too great a speed.

Oh yeah, had teh Marlon James but took it back when I realised i wasn't going to get through both that and A short History of 7 Killings at teh same time within a month. I'm still slowly reading that several months later alongside about 10 other things at the same time.
Well, will eventually get through things and then get onto other things.

Oh my god reading both James books simultaneously might actually kill you! 7 Killings is the better book imo. They both sprawl, but BL,RW felt unfocused at times to me and the characters a little less vivid; though I'm looking forward to reading the sequel as the world is definitely enchanting. After reading it I picked up a copy of Maryse Condé's Segu but haven't started it yet, which might be up your alley too

Co-sign rob’s take on Marlon James. BL RW is good, but I’m ambivalent about committing to two tome-sized sequels. On the other hand, I couldn’t get enough of BHo7K.

I’d like to see these polls keep up at the same pace, going right into future years, with entirely speculative options.