I was thinking about saving this post for the next couple of weeks, but I'm hoping to get some feedback and even a few reading suggestions.

I was looking over my Goodreads list and realized that I have only given eight books five-star rating this year, two of which were a literary reference book and two were by the same author. This is compared to the 20 five-star ratings I gave last year. Granted, this past year I read 72 books (that doesn't include a lot of paper backs I never bothered to record on Goodreads) while the year before I had read 85, but that is still a huge differential. So I've been thinking. It's not that the books that have come out this year aren't as good as the ones from last year. In fact, in a lot of ways, the books I read this year were much better than the ones I read last year. I think the difference is how I read and my expectations from a book.

When I started this blog, one of the things I set out to do was record what it is like to write a novel from start to finish. And I think one of the biggest changes this experience has brought upon me is my critical analysis of what I am reading. Now I don't just expect a book to entertain me, but I expect it to change me. I don't just want characters I can empathize with but ones that call me to action. Now that I have made a connection to a novel that has lived inside my head for so long, I look for that same connection in other books. I'm not saying my own novel is some extraordinary work of literature that will change the way people look at character development, but it has changed who I am.

I will get off my soap box and now address the five books I read this year that truly changed me. And, thank you, New Yorker Magazine, but I don't think it is any mistake that all of these books were marketed to young adults.

I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle

I think it is fair to say, this was my surprise of the year. I had heard a lot of good things about this book--that it is funny, awkward, delightful--and while all of those things are true, that is not what made me love this book. The story of the two main characters fascinated me. It was like they were on two different timelines heading in the opposite direction, and the day this book takes place is the only time their lives would ever overlap. This book made me think about all those people who have past through my life for a moment and still managed to make a difference in where I was going.

Airman by Eoin Colfer

This book was very different from the majority of the books I read this year. While I usually read character-driven literary books, this was a plot-driven adventure novel. But there was something about the underlying theme of what motivates us to overcome horrific conditions, even when we think we are alone, that touched me to the core. This novel was so imaginative it took me back to a time when books were full of wonder for me, when I could see a fairy tale unfolding before my mind's eye. Yet there is still a contemporary feel to the writing style and time-appropriate themes that connected me with my life today.

Sweethearts by Sara Zarr

I was seriously blown away by this book. Okay, so maybe I'm a little bias--it takes place in a Salt Lake City charter school, and at the time I read it, I was working at a Salt Lake City charter school. But I also identified with the main character in a way that I never have before. I saw so much of myself in this book that it almost frightened me, but it also helped me see that I am not alone in my fears and that some people see me for who I really am and not for who I project myself to be. This book made me examine who I am and what I want to be.

Smiles to Go by Jerry Spinelli

Jerry Spinelli never fails me. His books are always powerful forays into the adolescent mind as it makes that giant leap into adulthood. Maybe it's because I still see myself as a teenager trying to live an adult life, or maybe it's that you never truly overcome those feelings of loneliness and inadequacy you experience as a teenager, but I always get this feeling like Spinelli is exposing my soul to the world in his books. If I could write like him, these are the books I would write and the stories that I would tell. I hope I have smiles to go before I weep.

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

This book held an especially powerful message for me this year. Like the main character in this book, I had felt as if I was floating along, not going much of anywhere in my life. I too was in my twenties, hadn't finished college and was in a job that trapped me. But this book is all about making a better situation for yourself and becoming a better you by becoming a hero to others. While I didn't stop a bank robbery or help a battered woman escape an abusive relationship, I did go back to school and finish my degree and am now doing what I have always wanted to do. And the writing style? Zusak is mind-blowingly amazing. Consequently, the other fiction book I gave five stars to was "Getting the Girl," also by Zusak.

So do you have a book suggestion you think will send me blow me away? There are still two weeks in the year for me to be amazed by books, and I'm willing to give anything a try.