ByMarlida

Goodreads Choice Awards 2015 is set, and the best books of every genre is announced!
We've been reading some of both the winners and the nominees, so we thought we'd share our thoughts about them with you!

The Winner of "Best Fiction" was Harper Lee's "Go set a Watchman". Neither Ida og Marlene has read this yet, but both of us has "To Kill a Mockingbird" in our bookshelves and we can't wait to read it.

We have, however read one of the nominated books, "My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry" by Fredrik Backman.
A beautiful book that shows the modern family's challenges and the world of an eight-year old trying to understand the world when her only friend, her grandmother, dies. We swear to God, Backman is the only one who could manage to make such a theme funny. If you need a beautiful, funny book for christmas, this one is a good choice. You can read our review of the book HERE


Jojo Moye's "After You" is also a nominated book for "best fiction" and Ida can't wait to read this beauty - after being teared apart by all the feelings from "Me Before You". Marlene also has Me Before You on her to-read list.


The winner of "Best Mystery & Thriller" is Paula Hawkins's "The Girl on The Train". A book Ida finished in about three days, while sitting by the window and watch the train passing by. And a book Marlene has on her bookshelf just glaring at her every time she chooses a new book to read.

This isn't a category Marlene often looks at or even reads for that matter, but there were two books that made she want to look at the winners again. She has a huge passion for killer-whales, and one of her all-time favorite documentaries are Blackfish, so when she saw what the winner book was all about, she wanted to check it out. Beneath the Surface by John Hargrove is a book she believes is worth reading! She also believes that its fellow nominee, Voices in the Ocean by Susan Casey, is worth checking out!



So, while Marlene was voting in this contest she was SO pleased to see Victoria Aveyard on the list, not only once, but twice! Her debut book, Red Queen is one of the most amazing dystopian books Marlene has ever read. She believes that it gives "new life" to the already existing and all-too-alike dystopian genre.


This years best YA book, which is, in Marlene's opinion more heartbreaking than the Fault in Our Stars, All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven.


This book made Marlene tear up on the beaches of Crete! It's this beautiful book about love, but also about friendship, about faith, about death and about finding those small, beautiful things in life. It's so damn beautiful, and Marlene can't wait for it to become a movie in 2017!!!!

The worst part is, that Marlene has most of the books amongst the nominees in her to-read list.
P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han, Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen, Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella, Nowhere But Here by Katie McGarry, Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga, The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand, The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West,
Dumplin' by Julie Murphy and More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera. 

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN
BY PAULA HAWKINS
PUBLISHED: 2015
AVERAGE RATING: 3.84
325 PAGES
★★★☆☆

After seeing The Girl on The Train on the bestseller-list at work for a while, I decided to give it a chance. A lot of people was comparing it to “Gone Girl”, which is a book I enjoyed, so I had high expectations for it.

The Girl on the Train is written by Paula Hawkins and was published January the 1st 2015. It holds the genres thriller, suspense, crime and mystery.

Rachel takes the same train every morning. The train passes a wonderful neighborhood where a beautiful couple lives together. Rachel daydream about them every day, imagining how perfect they are together, giving them nicknames and even starting to feel that she knows them.

Then one day, she sees something that changes everything, and suddenly she’s involved in a big murder case. What did really happen? What is true, and what is not?

There is one major thing that makes this book special; The characters. Especially Rachel; She is a complex character that has been through a lot, and we meet her at a point in her life where everything has gone wrong. To compensate for this, alcohol is the answer. Having an alcoholic as a main character in a crime novel makes everything more interesting. In this book, you’ll never be quite sure who to trust and what to believe in.

I enjoyed it a lot throughout the whole story. It didn’t take long for me to finish it, and I found it exciting and easy to dig into.

I get why people are comparing it to “Gone Girl”, but at the same time there’s a lot of difference between the two of them. Personally, I like “Gone Girl” best, but only because I find “the girl on the train” as a kind of soft version. The element of surprise and the characters is a little bit better in “Gone Girl”, but they’re absolutely not bad in this one either. This being said, I think “The Girl on The Train” has more “believable” characters that are easier to relate to, and all over it’s a much lighter read.