For the last few years, rather than talk about the best books of the year, I’ve instead chosen to talk about my favorites. These are books that stuck with me for one reason or another, books that I know will be in my mind and my heart a little bit longer than most. A favorite to me is a book that I can, and usually have, found myself rereading and revisiting.

I usually like to hold out until the last minute — the final week of December — to share them, but I feel pretty confident in this year’s choices. These aren’t in any particular order, since I think it’s impossible to rank favorites. Each favorite has a different reason for being a favorite and how do you choose one reason as being a better reason than another? Every book on this list was published in 2012, despite the fact I have been lucky enough to read a book or two publishing next year that I believe may end up on next year’s list already.

I have a little bonus, too: a giveaway of one of not just my 2012 favorites, but one of the books that has found space on my all-time favorites list.

Antonia Michaelis’s The Storyteller broke me as I read it. It’s an exceedingly dark story, part told through fairy tale but balanced with being wholly realistic. The way Michaelis weaves the story of a girl who lives a charmed life against a boy who has had anything but is masterful. The heavy themes and the tough-as-hell passages to read through make not just Anna learn how to empathize, but they force the reader to do so, too. Likewise, the incredible translation work on this book is to be commended. I think this is a contender for the Printz still, and I think it’s a book that hasn’t gotten as much attention as it should for all it accomplishes.

The Storyteller isn’t for the faint of heart, and while it’s a contemporary novel, it’s not straightforwardly so. There is a fairy tale aspect to this, so I can see this being appealing to fans of not just realistic, but also fantastical tales.

Speaking of dark, haunting, stomach-turning stories, I have no qualms about including Adam Rapp’s The Children and the Wolves on my favorites list. Told from three voices, this is the story of middle schoolers who are caught up in playing a series of horrific power-wielding games. There’s the abduction of a small child by these three as a means of revenge. This isn’t a book with a hopeful ending. This is a book without any hope at all. But the way Rapp taps into the psyche of three very aching middle schoolers is commendable, and he does so with few words and few pages. Literary YA at its finest.

I can’t shake this one from my mind because of where it goes and how it gets there. It is so easy to hate everything these middle schoolers are doing. They’re rotten. But it’s also painfully easy to understand why they choose to do what they’re doing. All three of them want and deserve so much more than what’s in front of them. They’re acting in a way they think will get them there. It works — and it hurts — because these are middle school kids.

Trish Doller’s debut Something Like Normal has left me thinking “then what?” since I finished the book earlier this year. While I loved how the story tackles PTSD, the struggles of returning to a life so different than it was just months earlier, what really stood out to me about Doller’s novel was how imperfect Travis was. Where it would be easy for him to be a hero upon his return from Marine service, he is not. He’s made mistakes and he owns that he’s made them. But more than that, he doesn’t become perfect even then. He still continues to be human and do dumb, irrational things. Travis’s voice is believable and it’s honest.

The writing is tight and the pacing for this shorter book is exacting. Although not an entirely easy read because of what Travis is dealing with mentally, it’s worth it for the satisfying — if not completely tied up — conclusion. I wish I knew what happened after because I cared about him and Harper that much. Something Like Normal made me cry, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

The excitement I had in seeing Laura Buzo’s Love and Other Perishable Items on this year’s Morris shortlist was huge. Where most stories come about because of a big event happening in the lives of the main character, what made Buzo’s book so stand out to me was this wasn’t like that — this story is about Amelia and about Chris, and while both of them come with baggage to the story, it’s not their baggage that defines their story. Rather, it guides it.

This Australian import was not a love story, though there was much talk of love and what it means, and neither was it a story of loss or change, even though those things were big, too. It’s about everything. About life, feminism, about family and friendship and romance. I love the way Buzo shows us the perspective of a smart and determined young teen Amelia and the more mature, more worldly but never, ever pretentious or creepy Chris. It’s a story that made me happy reading it and made me happy when I finished it. The dual perspectives worked well, the two voices were incredibly distinct, and I could see myself at 16 or 17 thinking this book was the best book in the world. At 28, I think it’s pretty damn good, too.

I am not a huge genre reader, which means I don’t read a lot of mysteries. It’s not that I don’t like mysteries — I do — but I like them when they’re somehow tied into a bigger, more contemporary story. That’s, of course, just one reason Kat Rosenfield’s Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone worked for me and stands out this year. Becca’s desire to get out of the town she’s always known, the longing to try something new and different and be somehow bigger than everything around her is palpable. But all of those things that make where she is the place that it is are inextricable from her, too, and this all comes to a head when the dead body of Amelia shows up on the side of the road.

Rosenfield has a gift for lyrical writing, and paired with the mystery of who the dead girl is, Becca’s voice and drive and, at times, utter fear for the unknown future sears. This is a raw and powerful story and never once does the styling of the book impede the character development. The parallels between Becca and Amelia are savvy, and both girls have great voices. And really, I love a story about getting free from a small town. Especially when that small town is still part and parcel of who the character wanting out is. Even if you can get out, you can’t always escape completely.

Maybe this was really the year of the multiple point of view. Siobhan Vivian’s The List knocked me out with eight — yes, eight — distinct voices. But what this book does is examine, question, and dismantle the perceptions of beauty. Of what it means to be the prettiest or the ugliest. Does what a person looks like define them? Or is it only a very subjective, tiny part of who they are? Aside from being an incredibly feminist novel (which I do not think there are enough of in YA), this is the kind of book I feel like I could hand any teen girl and have her identify with one — if not all eight — of the characters here.

The List is not just a favorite because of the topic it takes on or the ability to give eight girls eight distinct voices, but it’s a favorite because it’s well-written. Vivian tosses readers into Homecoming week at Mount Washington High School. It’s easy to visualize and sink right into.

I don’t read books from page one to page 400+ in one sitting, but I did that with Lindsey Barraclough’s Long Lankin. This book was sold to me at ALA Midwinter from the publisher as a creepy book, and it delivered on that promise. I’ve read a fair number of horror stories and I have seen more horror movies than I can count, but I was still in awe of Barraclough’s ability to give me chills with this one.

Long Lankin is not so much about the scares at the end of the book — as a reader you might see it coming if you’re paying attention — but it’s much more about the journey to get there. Barraclough builds tension, and she builds incredible atmosphere in this book. For me, that’s what takes a scary story from good to great. This well-paced horror novel is one I’m still thinking about and one that I would love to see adapted on screen (and I rarely ever say that).

The last book I’m putting on my 2012 favorites is Courtney Summers’s This is Not a Test. This little zombie novel is so much more than a story about zombies. It’s a story about humans and coming face to face with horrific things that exist outside ourselves . . . and maybe even more about the horrific things that exist inside ourselves. Sloane, who has no reason to live and wants to die, is forced instead to survive and endure against her will. In doing so, in realizing that everything in her life is within her own control now, it’s possible she’s able to see that despite how awful the world around her has become, she has reason to live. And that reason is for herself.

This is a book I’ve read more than once already, and I just wrapped up listening to the audio production of the story. It’s always interesting to hear how a performer voices characters you’ve read and know and have developed perceptions about, but this production is a worthy one. Sloane’s voice is great, and there’s a surprise in hearing Rhys given a southern accent. But it works. In each reading of Summers’s novel, I’ve found myself picking up on new and subtle aspects of the story that make it even more powerful. I wouldn’t say it’s easy to like any of these characters nor what actions they take, but I did. I love how complicated, how frustrating, and at times, how utterly unlikeable Sloane is. I love more watching her arc go from wanting to die because she had no reason to live to wanting to live because she had no reason to want to die anymore.

Zombies are terrifying as hell. So are human beings.

A few other noteworthy titles this year for me included Amy Reed’s Crazy (for an incredibly realistic and painful depiction of bipolar disorder), Ilsa J Bick’s Drowning Instinct (for going there and doing so without undermining incredible character development), A. S. King’s Ask the Passengers (specifically for the way it portrays the value of loving people for who and what they are), Megan McCafferty’s Thumped (the longer I think about this book and its predecessor, the more I absolutely love what McCafferty does — the messages, the satire, and the critique of modern society are so spot-on), and Jennifer E Smith’s The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight (wait for this one: I love how the romance plays out and how it’s complicated and not easy and yet so simple).

As I was thinking about this year in review, about my favorite things I read, I couldn’t help but think about the favorite things I wrote this year, too. This was the first year I really felt like talking outside book reviews and books, and I think that giving myself permission to do that let me explore a lot of things I’d always wanted to, but had maybe been a little reluctant to. These include:

• To be a woman and speak your mind
• Weight, Body Image, and Body Portrayal in YA Fiction
• The value of reader’s advisory
• Being authentic
• Blogging about taking up the 30 Day Shred (and yes, I am still doing it! If you’re curious, I’m down somewhere near 36 or 37 total inches since starting which is insane)
• On Passion and Igniting It
• You Can Like What You Like
• Guys reading and girls reading and the implications of gendered space and books
• On being critical

It’s been a good year for reading — even though I read no where near as many books as I hoped I would — I’m pleased with having read about 160 books. The titles above represent the ones that stood out to me and will stick with me long after this year passes. If you haven’t read any of them yet, I suggest getting on that.

I have a signed copy of This is Not a Test to share with one reader. All you have to do is fill out the form below. This is a US/Canada giveaway only. I’ll draw a winner on December 31.