Wrap-up 2015: Literary, mainstream, and classic novels that I enjoyed reading this year

The two novels I enjoyed the most this year were both sprawling novels that attempted to encapsulate an entire time and place: In The First Circle and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Both of these novels made me wonder, at first, if they were going to be worth it. In The First Circle has a meandering central storyline, involving a telephone scrambling app…