This year I decided to pick up my old hobby of reading. I couldn’t remember the last time I read a novel for leisure. I used to read a lot back in middle school and high school and dropped it off after I went to college. After that, I made up excuses of work, lack of time or that I didn’t have the attention span for it anymore. But then something in me changed for the better this year. Getting back into the habit of reading was difficult at first, but I slowly gained momentum and finally realized what I’ve been missing out on these past few years.

When I started to read again this year, I didn’t set up any goals on how many books I would read in a month or how many I wanted to read by the end of this year. I didn’t want to set too high expectations so then I could easily get discouraged.

I don’t think I’ll do a reading goal for next year either. For me, it’s not about the quantity of books. It’s about the quality that I read and finding ones that resonate with me.

Without further ado, here are the best 9 books I read in 2017 in no particular order:

Non-Fiction

• Memoir: Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling
• Poetry:The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur  

Fiction

• Contemporary: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
• Historical: Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
• Mystery: Emma in the night by Wendy Walker
• Short Stories:Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
• Romance: Meet me at Beachcomber Bay by Jill Mansell
• Thriller: The Good Samaritan by John Marrs
• Young Adult: Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo