The Patricia Awards: Books

Here we have the Patricia Awards for books!  Looking for a good book?  Have at it.  All reviews can be found by searching this blog, or on Goodreads.  Note that I probably misspelled a few author’s names.  So sorry.

I knew this was a good book, I didn’t anticipate it would be so quietly funny:
White Teeth
Zadie Smith

Had to return it and then put on hold again, but it was worth it:
Telegraph Ave
Michael Chabon

Maybe you were interested in seeing what the Artful Dodger was up to as a teenager?
Dodger
Terry Pratchett

Most hilarious sports novel I read all year:
Love’s Winning Plays
Inman Majors

Best photo book:
Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows
Cahan & Williams

Best YA historical fiction set in past and present Haiti:
In Darkness
Nick Lake

Best YA set in a grocery store in Australia:
and
Best YA where the push-pull of the characters is particularly dramatic, due to age differences:
Love and Other Perishable Objects
Laura Buzo

Read aloud that had an incredible number of characters:
The Graveyard Book
Neil Gaiman

Best book about teenagers set outside of Omaha, Nebraska during the 1980s:
Eleanor & Park
Rainbow Rowell

Best YA set on a World War I era Montana homestead:
Hattie Big Sky
Kirby Lawson

Worst sequel I read this year:
Hattie Ever After
Kirby Lawson

Fabulous YA title:
and
Reminded me a bit of one of my high school friends (still alive):
A Love Story Starring my Dead Best Friend
Emily Horner

Funniest picture book for anyone with an older sister:
Tiger in My Soup
Sheth/Ebbeler

Best book I read this year written by an actor who also appeared in a movie in my Top-10 list:
Ash Wednesday
Ethan Hawke

Fabulous dystopian novel full of love and hope:
The Different Girl
Gordan Dahlquist

Most whimsical picture book starring a girl and a flamingo:
Flora and the Flamingo
Molly Idle

YA with a very unsatisfying ending, though upon reflection amusing throughout:
The Whole Stupid Way We Are
N. Griffin

Fun/creepy J-novel:
Doll Bones
Holly Black

Grown-up book I perhaps expected a bit too much from:
The Good House
Anne Leary

Best YA novel with a main character who shares the name of a family member:
Shift
Jennifer Bradbury

Best book set in Brooklyn in the 60s:
P.S. Be 11
Rita Williams Garcia

A picture book for all, but especially the youngest in your family:
Black Dog
Levi Penfold

Solid dystopian, slightly disturbing book:
Maggot Moon
Sally Gardner

Book I felt like I probably read before, but never really was 100% sure, even after I finished it:
The Man of My Dreams
Curtis Sittenfeld

Best book set in an Omaha Newspaper office:
and
Best separation of main characters since Sleepless in Seattle:
Attachments
Rainbow Rowell

Best sour grapes picture book:
Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great
Greg Pizzoli

Best children’s book to use poetry:
Gone Fishin’
Wissinger/Cordell

Best book to turn the objectification of women on its head:
September Girls
Bennett Madison

Best book to have Jacob Grimm’s Ghost as a narrator:
and
Book I was completely in love with until it took an abrupt Chelsea Cain/Gretchen Lowell turn for the last quarter of the book:
Far Far Away
Tom McNeal

Best book to read after you are dissatisfied with the Hollywood end of the movie adaption to find that the book ending is much more in keeping with the characters:
The Spectacular Now
Tim Tharp

Book I didn’t want to read because it opened with raccoons as characters, but which totally won me over:
The True Blue Scouts of Sugarman Swamp
Appelt

Book I adored and whose title I feel does it a gave disservice:
One Came Home
Amy Timberlake

Book I liked, but had to put post-it notes on the front and back because I didn’t want to look at a bloody nose:
Winger
Andrew Smith

Book I was entirely obsessed with and spread my obsession to at least five other readers:
and
Book that caused me to immediately read nearly everything the author has written:
Just One Day
Gayle Foreman

Book with the funniest grandparents:
The Thing About Luck
Cynthia Kadohata

Best book about awkwardly going off to college while your twin sister is spurning you:
Fangirl
Rainbow Rowell

Best book that you should just read and not read about, because it will be that much better:
If I Stay
Gayle Forman

Hottest YA book I read this year:
The Infinite Moment of Us
Lauren Myracle

Best book about an out-and-proud gay kid who wanders back into the closet voluntarily:
Openly Straight
Bill Konigsberg

Best book about a teenager’s upbringing in an Evangelical Christian home:
Rapture Practice
Aaron  Hartzler

Best books with (as Danielle termed it) “sexy ghosts”:
and
Interesting historical fiction:
In the Shadow of Blackbirds
Cat Winters

Picture book that sums up my feelings about the whole carnivore thing:
Carnivores
Reynolds & Santat

Best underdog character of the year:
Out of the Easy
Ruta Sepetys

Good story with forgettable title:
Picture Me Gone
Meg Rosoff

Best historical fiction of the year to include many enjoyable paragraphs about moss:
The Signature of All Things
Elizabeth Gilbert

Best plucky heroine:
Counting by 7s
Holly Goldberg Sloan

Funniest picture book with a cat:
Mr. Wuffles!
David Weisner

Sweetest book with a suicidal, homicidal teenager:
Forgive Me Leonard Peacock
Matthew Quick

Best example of two odd characters finding each other:
OCD Love Story
Corey Ann Haydu

Best basic book of cocktails:
The Cocktail Primer
Eben Kleman

Best book set in a frustratingly unidentifiable time period:
All the Truth That’s In Me
Julie Berry

Best book I spurned several times before actually sitting down to, you know, read it:
Glaciers
Alexis M. Smith

2 thoughts on “The Patricia Awards: Books”

  1. I didn't read any books in 2013 that truly wowed me. It makes me sad. I'm going to try to read more this year.

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