#74. "The Silver Linings Playbook" by Matthew Quick

To Matthew Quick's credit, his debut novel has a pretty great premise and runs with it. The story is a deconstruction of the romantic comedy, choosing more to explore what these different forms of addiction bring to our lives. Without ever feeling too weighty, he explores how the cross-section of relationships, family, and sports can impact our emotional health, making us see things that may not always be rational, but give some relief to our stressful lives. "The Silver Linings Playbook" never plays like a conventional novel, and yet still delivers those feel-good moments that make this a fun and breezy read. If you don't like sports, it'll subliminally make you understand why it's sometimes essential to scream "E!A!G!L!E!S! Eagles!" with a group of strangers. This is about understanding ourselves in a contemporary setting and does so with a fluency that is admirable.

#73. "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson

Whether or not you've read Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island," there is a certainty that you're somewhat familiar with it. So much of media based on pirate culture has some basis in this story that finds a boy named Jim Hawkins going on an adventure with a bunch of questionable men on a search for gold. It's the most enjoyable scavenger hunt in literary history, and in the process presents some of the most entertaining plot twists and characters rich with unique vernaculars. This is one of those stories that capture the potential for fantasy in storytelling, to transport us to a different world, and imagine for once that our lives are more exciting. "Treasure Island" deserves its place among the greatest novellas ever written, and it doesn't take more than a few pages to understand why.

#72. "The Beguiled" by Thomas Cullinan

When writing a Civil War novel, there is usually one thing that you need to have: a division. In most cases, this is a straightforward divide of Northern Yankee soldiers and Southern Confederates. For Thomas Cullinan's "The Beguiled," this is only the start of an even more twisted web of deceit, where everything that 19th century America held dear as they were on the verge of a new era. It's a dark, meticulous book, and it features a leg amputation. Even if it is a slow burn that revels too much in monotonous detail, Cullinan's ability to make everything feel at odds with each other only adds to the paranoia that the readers are likely to face. It's a decent book that shows a more perverse look at the Civil War, but one that maybe lacks a deeper purpose by the end.