Hi hello and welcome to the final day of #Project14Lists! Today, I am going to be talking about my five favorite books from 2018 and I am so excited to finally share these! 2018 was a rough year for me and it definitely affected my reading. I almost read 100 books in 2017 so I really wanted to try and hit that goal this year, but I was going through chemotherapy and radiation for about half of the year so hitting 100 books was not a realistic goal. Instead, I set my goal at 12 books and was able to surpass it! As of today, I have completed 22 books and almost doubled my challenge goal. Of those 22, I have chosen five of my absolute favorites, which wasn't easy. These books are going to be in order from 5 to 1, with one being my favorite read of 2018. Let's get started!
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5. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

This was my first read of 2018 and it's really no surprise that this ended up on my top 5 of the year. I've been wanting to read this for so long and I finally picked it up on a whim in January. I was so happy that I did because wow, this was amazing. I haven't read the Grisha trilogy yet so if there were any references from that series, I didn't catch them, but I don't feel like I missed out on anything by not reading that trilogy first. Six of Crows was everything I had hoped it would be and then some. I fell in love with the cast of characters almost instantly and even found one that I could almost see myself in. Nina is just...everything to me. She's this fantastic girl who loves to eat and is chubby and not ashamed in the slightest. She's everything I could have ever wanted to see in a character and I have cried over how much I love her and how wonderful it was to see a character that I could relate to and that I could put myself in her shoes in the story and not feel out of place. I could be this girl in this fantasy world! And don't even get me started on the beautiful disaster that is Kaz. Everyone loves him so there's no point in going into detail. But the book itself is so incredible and magical and just everything I was hoping it would be. This world is beautiful and terrifying and unpredictable, just like the characters you follow throughout the story. The writing is also some of my absolute favorite and I really cannot wait to read more from Leigh Bardugo!

4. Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh

So, this was my second read of the year and I actually, honestly, dropped whatever I was reading before to pick this up. There's a whole story behind that in my review so feel free to go check that out if you're interested! I do a pretty terrible job at reviewing this book and basically just gush about how much I love it, but I think you get the picture that this book is incredible. I believe I spoke on it in more detail in my review but I really, really appreciated how well-written Odessa's depression/grief/addiction was. Those aren't topics that seem to be written about often but Sarah Glenn Marsh tackles them head on and writes about them in such a realistic way that I just could not get over it and had to talk about it. It's dark and sad but it's also real and raw and I really think that we need more of this in YA books. Everything about this book, from the characters to the writing and everything in between, is just perfect.

3. The Cruel Prince and The Wicked King by Holly Black

I feel like this is no surprise that these books are on here. And yes, I'm counting these as one favorite book because I can. The Cruel Prince has been talked about all year and the sequel, The Wicked King, is probably one of the most anticipated ARC's in the book community ever since they started making their appearance. I was able to get an ARC of The Wicked King and decided, what the heck let's pick up The Cruel Prince. And I heckin FLEW THROUGH IT. Oh my gosh, this book was so incredible. I've read The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black but I can't remember much about it, honestly. But this book just blew me away and made me laugh, cry, scream, and fall in love with a total jerk of a character. This is one of the most magical books ever and I loved reading every single word. It's dark and fantastical and I can't believe that it took me so long to read it. The ending left me on the edge of my seat (quite literally and I was also screaming and flailing around) and I immediately picked up The Wicked King because (thank goodness) I had it and I needed to find out what happened next. I have pretty much the same feelings on TWK as I do about TCP: fantastic, magical, amazing, WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT ENDING. Obviously, 5 stars to both and I am dying for the third book, The Queen of Nothing! 

2. Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan

Heckin right I put this on here and it most definitely pains me to say that it's at the number two spot and not the number one. I have been seeing this ARC everywhere (although not a lot of people are actually talking about it?) and I have been so intrigued by it. I added this to my Goodreads in January, before it had a cover or a synopsis outside of (I believe) "Something dark and holy is coming." I took a chance and requested an ARC and actually was granted an eARC by some miracle. I am also on the upcoming blog tour for this book (which I'm so excited about)! So, obviously I immediately started reading it as soon as I got it on my Kindle. I don't know how to put my thoughts/feelings on this book into words so I've attached a screenshot of my updates on Goodreads as I was reading.

I really couldn't go into too much detail about what was going on but I really think that if Emily A. Duncan was to look at this, she could probably tell exactly where in the story I was when I had these reactions. Once I got to the 75% mark, I just couldn't put it down so I stopped updating on GR, but my notes are basically just filled with me screaming (writing?) in all caps about what happens. I cannot accurately explain my love for this book without screaming about it, honestly. The writing was witchcraft, plain and simple. Emily has a way with words that really made me feel like she was casting a spell on me while I was reading. I've never read anything so dark and beautiful before and I loved it so much. Nadya is a badass (and I never use words like that on my blog but dangit, she is), Serefin is my precious, tired (because he's probably drunk or nursing a hangover) cinnamon roll, and Malachiaz is sneaky, clever, and wonderful. This book is going to be huge (I mean, it already is) and I am so excited for it to be released because this is one that everyone has to read.

1. Vicious by V.E. Schwab

And here we are, my number one read of 2018. This was a book that I had heard so much about on and off for several years but never really got around to reading (story of my life with like, every book ever). The sequel, Vengeful, came out this year so the hype around Vicious came back in anticipation for the release of Vengeful, so I decided to take the plunge and read Vicious. And wow oh my god I am so happy I did. I don't know if I can put my finger on what made this my number one read of the year because I think it's a mix of several different things, but they all came together in the most perfect way. The writing, the characters, the plot, the everything is just so absolutely perfect and I loved all of it. I am absolutely convinced that V.E. Schwab cannot write a bad book because I haven't read a book by her that I didn't enjoy. I've gotten really bad at accurately conveying my feelings for books so I tend to just fall back to "I love this book" but I genuinely just love this heckin book. Victor and Eli were so deliciously dark and twisted and wonderful and I could not get enough of them doing these messed up things to themselves. For probably the millionth time, I loved this book and not only was it my favorite book of 2018, but it is also my favorite book of all-time.

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And that's it for the final post of #Project14Lists! If you're interested in checking out some of my other posts, feel free to click here and see my master post with all of my lists! I'm so sad it's over but I had such a fun time writing all of these lists and having the opportunity to connect with some other amazing bloggers. It really has gotten me motivated to write more consistently in 2019 and I hope that I can keep up this momentum in the new year. I'd love to hear your top 5 reads of 2018 so that I can have some new books to add to my 2019 TBR. Or, if you don't have a top 5, tell me your number one read! Thank you so much for joining me for #Project14Lists, whether you've read one post or every post. Thank you for joining me for 2018, whether you've been here since the start of the year or have just recently found my blog. I can't wait to show you what I have in store for Under the Book Cover in 2019 and I hope you'll stick around! Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you in the new year!