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TS’s Top 20 Books Read in 2019

December 30, 2019 TS Chan Comments 8 comments

The featured image above was specifically designed by Felix Ortiz for Novel Notions’ Top 20 List.

Hello everyone! This is the first time I’m listing my top reads for the year 2019. Initially, I wanted to opt for Top 10 but having read 100 books and rated a lot between 4.5 and 5 stars, I felt that I would struggle to limit it to ten. The parameters for my list are as follows:

Rereads don’t count
One book per author
Not limited to books which are released this year. Those not published in 2019 will be specified.

With exception of #1, none of these are ranked. I’ve merely listed them in the chronological order of when I’ve read them this year. I’ve also included my favourite classic read of the year as we’ve started the Novel Notions Classic Club in July. All of these have been reviewed by me on Novel Notions and Goodreads.

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14

February 28, 2019 TS Chan Comments 0 Comment

14 by Peter Clines
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.

A fascinating and engaging genre-bending novel with excellent characterisation, elevated by the narrator’s superb voice-acting.

14. Firstly, the number, when spoken in Chinese sounds like “will/must die”. Due to this superstition, there are numerous buildings in my part of the world which do not use this number. You will instead get Level 13a or Unit 13a in place of 14, and sometimes even a jump from 13 to 15. I started the book with this notion at the back of my head. And all I knew about the story then was that the building was strange and mysterious. A potent and thrilling combination, and yet I was still pleasantly surprised with the direction the story took.
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