Burrowed in my Brain

Reading Nicole's post about her Most Memorable Reads of 2010 got me thinking about which books really burrowed in my brain. Within milliseconds I knew that the ones that for some reason won't leave my head are not necessarily the ones which I would consider the "best" reads. So I am being a huge copy cat and listing the books which I won't be forgetting anytime soon.

Room by Emma Donaghue making this list will come as no surprise to those who have read it. The story is written from the perspective of a five-year-old boy who has lived his entire life in a tiny shed with only his mother to keep him company. For Jack, our narrator and protagonist, his life is normal, but the clever way Donaghue spins his words leaves the reader with a sickening feeling in his/her gut at the horrid, abusive situation Jack and Ma are in.

The second book to make the list is actually more memorable, in its specifics, for me than Room. living dead girl by Elizabeth Scott is a first-person account of a 15 year old who is being sexually abused. The language is brutal, simultaneously painful to read and wonderfully authentic.  The lack of a multi-layered plot, the simplicity of the language, kept this a bare-bones, full-frontal assault. I don't think I've ever read a book quite as jarring as this one. It didn't make the best of 2010 list, but it is definitely a story that has imprinted right in the front of my mind.


It really isn't surprising to me that the first two books to pop into my head were both about child abuse, especially since both were written from such unique perspectives. Being right there in the abused's head is much different from a more objective standpoint. Stories like this are so evocative in the first place, and the Scott and Donaghue go and give these poor kids such strong, unique, and heartrending voices.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters will stay with me for a long time. I really enjoyed this book, not only because it is memorable, but because it is so very well written and contains characters I fell in love with. Often, months after reading a book (sometimes sooner) I will forget the details of what happened, remember only the basics. With Fingersmith, however, I find myself catching similar scenes in other books or comparing characters. The story, the setting, and the characters really have stayed with me.

The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky is probably my most back-slapping, congratulatory read of the 2010 - I was very proud to have read it - and it was also extremely memorable. How can it not be? Dostoevsky wrote it as a semiautobiographical account of his time in a Siberian prison. Siberian prison, people; this is some memorable stuff. The text is entertaining, beautifully written, thought-provoking, and a wee bit mind-bending from time to time, all of which are things I enjoy with my books.


These are my top four memorable reads of 2010. I was going to do a top five, but I absolutely couldn't decide among the next on the list, so here are the honorable mentions for the most memorable:

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood: Penelope, of The Odyssey, does more than just languish at home for her husband. The really memorable part, however, is the lamentations of the serving girls who Odysseus so brutally slayed.

gods behaving badly by Marie Phillips: The Greek gods are floundering in the twenty-first century.  Slowly losing their power, worshiped by none, they live together in a London home amicably insulting each other and dreaming of better days. What stands out is the hilarity of the story, and a few dirty bits.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness: The first in a trilogy, this book stands out so very much because of the uniqueness of the plot line: all of the men in town can hear each others' thoughts continuously, something they call the Noise.

So there you have it: my most memorable reads of 2010. Not all of them made my "best of" list, for a variety of reasons, but each one really stands out when I think about last year's reading. What books do you remember most? Did they all make your "best of" list?