It's come to my attention that while I do TOPFIVE Favorite Kdramas posts every year, I've never done any sort of list of books, and I've read some really good ones this year that I want to talk about. Of course, I've also read a lot of not great books this year that did not at all live up to the hype I heard about them, but that's a conversation for another day. All of the books on this list are absolutely brilliant, but I have attempted to order them from most favorite favorite to least favorite favorite, although there may be some overlap because they're all so good.

I literally just finished reading this one — I kind of like that fact that one of the last books I read in 2019 trumps all the other ones read in the past 360-some days. That's not an easy feat. This book is both huge and gorgeous (I dished out on the Waterstones Exclusive, so sue me), and I won't lie: I was very intimidated by both its size and all the love for The Night Circus by the same author, which I still haven't read. This always seemed to me a book you had to think through; it wasn't just something you could read and enjoy. Well, I was right and wrong. You don't really have to think particularly hard - the author does a great job laying everything out; the hard part is definitely in the writing of the book rather than the reading of it - but it also does provoke thought. The story itself - a meta-story of sorts - is so large in its scale, and yet also so small, that it is something you have to wade through. But in a good way — you have to experience it. It's intimidating in the way that The Book Thief is intimidating: it's big, it's fancy, and it's beyond brilliant, but every page enchants the mind. It's hard for me to describe exactly how amazing it is, but I loved every moment of reading this, from page one to the end that's really only another beginning.

I already mentioned this book in another post, but this was about to be my favorite book of the year if The Starless Sea hadn't shown up and stolen its thunder. It's a book about war and segregation and love, and as expected of Julie Berry, it's beautifully written. This aching, lovely story is further encased within the narrative of a trial going on between the gods: Aphrodite and her husband Hephaestus, as well as a few other key mythological players. This is another book that's enchanting from the first page on, and I highly recommend it if you're in the mood for a gorgeous historical fiction or romance.

I hadn't even known that Julie Berry had a book out this year, so I'm extremely glad the cover got my attention.

I also wrote a post about this book — check it out if you want to see the kinds of beautiful illustrations you can find in it plus general flailing. I randomly picked this one up in the bookstore earlier in the year, and what a great decision that turned out to be! It's so rare that I pick up a book without finding it on Goodreads first, plus I just loved it so much and it successfully drew me out of the book slump I was in at the time. It's a cute little YA fantasy novel that combines magic with science, and the romance between the characters was so soft and probably hate-to-love (it's been a while since I read it) considering how much I adore this book. And of course one of the best parts plus one of the reasons I bought it is became there are some really pretty illustrations in it that I just had to own.

This is the only picture book on the list, but it's one of my favorite finds of the year. I kid you not, I cried almost the whole way through. The reason I added the book to my TBR (to-be-read list) is because of the gorgeous art on the cover, but then I saw that the author/illustrator was a POC and I knew it was a must-read. When I finally picked up the book at the library - it was pleasantly large in shape - I was beyond in love (and in tears, of course). The art is gorgeous, and it's amazing that such a compelling story can be told without words. It was a very quick read, but it's not one you're going to forget quickly. Also the puppy is so adorable and I love soft, happy endings.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the first book in the series, City of Ghosts, so I'm very surprised that I not only read, but loved this book. I'm a fan of the author, although not everything she writes ends up becoming a favorite, or even something I enjoy (apparently I read The Near Witch sometime before I purposefully read V.E. Schwab books and I saw on Goodreads that I only gave it two stars — ouch). I hadn't even planned on reading this book, but I picked it up in the middle of my last uni semester and raced through it. I just ended up loving the Parisian setting, the female friendship, and the ghost friend, and even the plot was entertaining, although things weren't as surprising as they would have been if this wasn't written for a Middle Grade audience. I can't wait for the third book!

Hello, everyone! I haven't blogged here in months, but I just took my last uni final exam yesterday (as in yes, I am done with college forever!), and am super psyched to talk about my top five favorite Korean dramas of the year! I will note that all but one of these dramas are from the second half of 2019 — not quite sure if that's because they're more fresh in my head and so I think I love them more, or because these five are all so brilliant that there's no room for the other early 2019 dramas I already talked about in this post. But either way they're brilliant and you must watch them immediately if you haven't already, so let's just get straight into it!

This is hands down my favorite drama of the year, and also the one I watched most recently. Ever since I watched and adored Mystery Queen, I've been looking for a similar drama in terms of brilliant detective/crime cases and two leads with absolutely breathtaking chemistry who have such fun together. I found that earlier this year with Voice 2 - a darker take on the genre, but just as addicting, if not more so - and of course, that just left me wanting more such dramas but not finding any. But then came Catch the Ghost. The leads are brilliant and I have never loved either of them more, and every episode is the finest delight. This drama made me laugh, it made me cry, and I swear just talking about it makes me want to go watch it again. It's perfect in all ways. The drama is about a young woman trying to find her sister's killer (a serial killer dubbed the Subway Ghost), and as part of this attempt, she tries to get a job on the subway police team. There she meets the male lead, a "by the rules" kind of guy who is really not ready to handle this new hurricane of a person who's just blasted her way into the team and thinks rules are suggestions.

Did I swoon or did I swoon? I didn't get around to watching this until it finished airing - and thank goodness, because it would've been a pain to wait for new episodes each week - but I binged the heck out of it and perhaps disregarded my homework more than I should have. The premise pulled me in immediately: a young girl with a heart disease finds out that she's a character in a comic book — and not even the female lead but the supporting character. When she finds out she's expected to die soon, she rebels against the comic, determined to make her own decisions and chase her own love instead of blindly following the author's decisions. The drama ended up being just as amazing and unique as the premise sounds, and it was also so beautifully filmed? I love the actress (who may not be the lead of the comic, but she's definitely the lead of our drama), and of course one of the main draws was Lee Jae-wook who I'm sure we all fell in love with when he played the struggling actor in Search: WWW. I love him when he's playing a cute, nice boy, but even more so when he's an arrogant asshole with daddy issues (he brought back Kim Woo-bin feels from Heirs lol). This is truly a drama that's not to be missed!

Another brilliant story setup, this time by a Netflix drama: an app that tells you when someone in your near vicinity is in love with you. I did not think I would adore this drama as much as I did - especially considering how meh Netflix's My First First Love turned out to be - but errrr I binged all eight episodes in a single night and the cliffhanger definitely destroyed me. Classic Netflix love triangle, but gah, I definitely love one guy more than the other. The most unique aspect of the drama is that it traverses both the characters' high school years as well as their adult years, and they did it pretty well too. There's drama, feels and so much misunderstanding because duh the app is a terrible idea, but like, I need season two right now. I'm really hoping the show gets renewed and we get the second season in early 2020 because the three main characters are great and I'm really invested in their relationships and undoing the misunderstanding between a certain two characters.

Search: WWW is an unforgettable drama, and certainly one of the best of the year. It's a women-centric kdrama with a beautiful, talented cast, amazing writers, gorgeous cinematography and directing, and literally anything you could want in an intelligent, contemporary drama (including man candy LOL). I fell in love with all three of the lead women, and I love how they're all so different and how the drama doesn't present "good" and "bad" as a simple dichotomy. Search: WWW is a character-centered drama that explores relationships, marriage, business, and marketing (the latter through a search engine company that I would love to work for if it was a real company), and each episode is like...well, dessert.  Women supporting women is seriously my favorite thing.

I know Voice 3 isn't perfect - I had a whole rant about it when it finished airing - but apparently I just can't stop myself from adding it to this list regardless. I just love the characters and the drama so much that even a major mishap like that not-so-great ending can't put me off too much. I already discussed my love of Voice 2 earlier in this post, and it's for those same reasons that I was super thrilled to sit down and enjoy Voice 3 week after week while it aired — it was one of the highlights of that uni semester. If you want to give this drama a go, you have to watch Voice 2 first because Voice 3 is a direct continuation of the plot. I'd also highly recommend you start with Voice before watching the second or third season because it comes first and Voice 2 begins from where it leaves off, even though Voice is more stand-alone and isn't as relevant to the rest of the series. TL;DR: you can skip Voice if you're a mega Lee Jin-wook fan, but otherwise you'll get the most out of the drama by watching the seasons in order.