Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly book meme brought by T5W on Goodreads.
Another Wednesday, another Top 5!
Embarrassingly, the topic for this week was pretty hard for me. I love my books with romance, and almost all my favorites have some sort of coupling in them. Even 1984 has some sort of romance, even if it does end horribly.
But I've tried! Here are my favorite books with [little-to] no romance! You can click on each book cover to either read my review or check it out on Goodreads for yourself.
Room is one of my all time favorite books. If you've not heard of it, or of the film that got Brie Larson a Best Actress Oscar, it's about a woman and her 5-year-old son, Jack, who have been trapped in a single room for years. Jack, the narrator, was born in that room, and he knows nothing of the world outside. His mother has created the best kind of world she can for him, and keeps him as hidden from their captor, Old Nick, as well as she can when he comes to visit at night. But she wants more for them both and comes up with a plan to get them out. But are either of them prepared to be outside in the world?
This book is narrated by a 5-year-old who has never seen anything beyond what's in his room or what's shown on TV. It's so unbelievably good.
The Wall is about the life of the last woman alive. One morning, a middle-aged woman wakes up to find a wall surrounding the hill she's vacationing on and none of her friends have returned home from their trip into town. At first she thinks the wall is the result of some military experiment, but she soon realizes that she will need to set about the work of surviving. Days turn into weeks turn into years and still she keeps going, chronicling her life for as long as paper and pencil remains...
This is a gorgeous, sad, engrossing book that everyone should read.
Sure, it's about a couple, and sure, it includes some flashbacks to sweet moments, but Gone Girl is no book about romance.
Blonde is Joyce Carol Oates' beautiful and heartbreaking reimagining of Marilyn Monroe's life, as child, woman, and celebrity. Certainly romance plays a part of it, but the story is all about the woman.
You Will Know Me is the creepy suburban thriller about a hit-and-run and a gymnastic-obsessed community of parents. And it's utterly enthralling from beginning to end.
Are any of these books in your favorites, romance or no? Do you disagree with any of my choices? Let me know!