This week on Broke and the Bookish we’re asked the impossible question: What are you top ten books of 2016? I really have no idea how I’m supposed to pick 10 – it’s near impossible to pick 10 favorites from a single month! But, I’m going to try, and by try, I mean pick 20.

The Trees by Ali Shaw

“The world keeps no secrets. Look it in the eye if you can. Everything is there to see.”

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

“All your life you wait, and then it finally comes, are you ready?”

Light Between the Oceans by M.L. Stedman

“You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things.”

The Sage of Waterloo by Leona Francombe

“Life cannot be lived secondhand, William… No one can truly describe a dandelion, you must experience one yourself – even if it means taking a risk. And you can’t say you’ve really lived until you’ve taken at least one risk. Can you?”

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

“She had never entirely let go of the notion that if she reached far enough with her thoughts she might find someone waiting, that if two people were to cast their thoughts outward at the same moment they might somehow meet in the middle.”

Jane Steele by Lindsay Faye

“Oh, I knew who I was – a scarlet-toothed tigress, one forever burdened by the iron weight of her own black stripes.”

The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee

“A singer learned her roles for life – your repertoire was a library of fates held close, like the gowns in this closet, yours until your voice failed.”

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

“Two warring nations gripped Poland like girls fighting over a doll. One held the leg, the other the arm. They pulled so hard that one day, the head popped off.”

A Blessing On the Moon by Joseph Skibell

“…when you killed me, you took everything. My home, my wife, my children. Must you have my forgiveness as well?”

Court of Mist and Fury by Sara J. Maas

“He thinks he’ll be remembered as the villain in the story. But I forgot to tell him that the villain is usually the person who locks up the maiden and throws away the key. He was the one who let me out.”

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

“Ove had never been asked how he lived before he met her. But if anyone had asked him, he would have answered that he didn’t.”

The Hike by Drew Magary

“This future you live in… would I like it?” … “Honestly, it’s probably not that different from the world you know. Some people are happy. Some people are angry. There are wars. I don’t know if time makes much of a difference. The world changes, but people act the way people always do.”

City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg

“But I guess what I would want to leave each of you with finally — tender some Evidence of, against a life’s worth of signs to the contrary — comes down simply to this: You are infinite. I see you. You are not alone.”

Mischling by Affinity Konar

“Auschwitz was built to imprison us. Birkenau was built to kill us. Mere kilometers bridged their attached evils. What this zoo was designed for, I did not know – I could only swear that Pearl and I, we would never be caged.”

Maestra by L. S. Hilton

“Choices are made before explanations, whether or not we care to know it.”

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

“I’ve seen so many versions you. With me. Without me. Artist. Teacher. Graphic designer. But it’s all, in the end, just life. We see it macro, like one big story, but when you’re in it, it’s all just day-to-day, right? An isn’t that what you have to make your peace with?”

A Wife of Noble Character by Yvonne Georgina Puig

“I don’t know everything, but I do think you’re confusing freedom with money… People compromise their integrity with that kind of thinking all the time.”

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

“She wanted to be in control of her own life, and now, clearly, she wasn’t, and simply thinking about the fact that someone else was going to decide the direction of her future…the helplessness crushed her.”

A Monster Calles by Patrick Ness

“Who am I? the monster repeated, still roaring. I am the spine that the mountains hang upon! I am the tears that the rivers cry! I am the lungs that breathe the wind! I am the wolf that kills the stag, the hawk that kills the mouse, the spider that kills the fly! I am the stag, the mouse and the fly that are eaten! I am the snake of the world devouring its tail! I am everything untamed and untamable! It brought Conor up close to its eye. I am this wild earth, come for you, Conor O’Malley.”

City of Thieves by David Benioff

“They’re trying to burn down our city. They’re trying to starve us to death. But we’re like two of Peter’s bricks. You can’t burn a brick, you can’t starve a brick.”

My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows

“He pretended to stretch his arms, in order to shift even closer to her. (this isn’t in the history books, of course, but we’d like to point out that this was the first time a young man had ever tried that particular arm-stretch move on a young woman. Edward was the inventor of the arm stretch, a tactic that teenage boys have been using for centuries).”

What were your 2016 favorites?