Me on Top Ten Tuesday (3)

Top Ten Tuesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. :)

Top Ten Books I've Read So Far in 2013

I've read 102 books so far this year. Some were great, some weren't. Some had amazing worlds, some had wonderfully-flawed characters. :)

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater. Putting this book first (on an unnumbered list) when the release date is mid-September is rather telling. If The Raven Boys was curiosity and magic, this is more. This is the aftermath, this is what they didn't expect would come.

Coda by Emma Trevayne. This book was so creative, so imaginative, so intuitive, so musical. Anthem is, so far, the year's best unlikely hero.

Ink by Amanda Sun. Dark magic, ink drawings that come alive, the allure of Japan and its rich culture.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. Sort of kicking myself for not reading this sooner. An intriguing tale of two teenage boys as they navigate a summer together and attempt to discover what the universe is made of.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. Such a sweet, funny, sad, intelligent, geeky little thing of a book. This was so much fun to read, and I was surprised at how much of myself I could see in Cath.

The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider. I imagine tortured, snarky boys like Ezra Faulkner are why some go nuts over contemporary YA. He has his moments, that's for sure.

The Archived by Victoria Schwab. I adore the way Victoria has with words. Mac is all kinds of sad and tortured, and things don't get any easier for her.

Invisibility by Andrea Cremer & David Levithan. At times sweet and sad but always magical. A curious look at wanting to be seen and wanting to be invisible.

Reboot by Amy Tintera. When I picked this up at ALA Midwinter earlier this year, I started reading it that evening. A fast-paced high-tension story of a girl who's torn between following orders and possibly proving she's more that just a soldier with no emotions who never says no.

Absent by Katie Williams. A look at life, high school, friendship, rumours, and what you do with the time you're given if you're still around after you die.

I wonder how different this list will look at the end of the year. ;)

Me on Top Ten Tuesday (2)

Top Ten Tuesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. :)

This week's topic is "Top 10 Books I'd Recommend to Someone Who Doesn't Read X." I'll make it YA, since that's what I review here. And I'm going to try and mix it up a bit, give examples of the different types of YA novels. :) This might as well be a list for my sister, who reads (she likes chick lit, like Sophie Kinsella and some Nora Roberts), but not YA. I've slowly been trying to get her to read it, and the ones she actually reads (instead of skipping to the end) are few and far between.

1. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi. Dystopian with a bit of paranormal/X-Men type abilities. Juliette can't touch anyone or she'll kill them, draining the life out of them. The world outside her cell is dying, grey and bleak, cracked and dried up. Then Adam gets tossed into her cell and she's forced to confront the outside world, a world that pushed her to the brink of sanity. This was, in my opinion, the best book of 2011. It was all about identity and potential and the need to survive and fight, plus some really hot kissing scenes.

2. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. Contemporary romance. Sweet and funny, it's a bit less about the romance and more about Anna figuring out who she is while in Paris for a year and figuring out that sometimes the perfect boy is really flawed, and that he might be perfect. Same goes for Lola and the Boy Next Door.

3. Delirium by Lauren Oliver. A little dystopian lite plus romance. Yes, controlling society, but it

4. Once Every Never by Lesley Livingston. A mix of contemporary and historical, time travel for pop culture nerds. Average (Canadian) teenager Clare heads off to England for the summer with her friend and ends up able to travel back to the time of Boudicca and the Celts. (My sister actually liked this one.)

5. The Space Between by Brenna Yovanoff. Dark fantasy/paranormal plus romance. Daphne is the daughter of Lucifer and Lilith, living in Pandemonium. She heads to Earth to find her brother and searches for his last charge, a broken and bleeding human boy named Truman. If Shatter Me was my #1 of 2011, this was my very very very close #2. Heart-wrenching and breathtaking, all about discovering your purpose in life, about fighting your way back from the edge even if the fall left you broken and twisted, about good and evil and the grey areas, and most of all, about love. What is the space between the dark and the light? This book is about the area where the lines are blurred

6. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Straight-up dystopian. No magical powers, just dismal and dark and brutal and teenagers fighting to the death.

7. Blood Red Road by Moira Young. A little more post-apocalyptic than dystopian, but still just as brutal and dangerous. It's written in dialect, so be warned, but once you get used to it it's an amazing story. Saba's searching for her kidnapped brother and encounters some unique and dangerous people along the way. Like Jack. (What is it about girls in YA books meeting guys that rub them the wrong way but he's totally into her? I'm not saying it sucks, but it happens quite a lot.)

8. Across the Universe by Beth Revis. Science fiction. Honest science fiction. Traveling through space hundreds of years in the future science fiction. And there's the huge mystery of where they are and who's killing the people in sleep stasis.

9. Forgotten by Cat Patrick. Half mystery, a little paranormal, a little romance. London remembers the future but not the past. Every morning at 4:33AM, her memory resets, everything from the day before gone. Then Luke moves to town.

10. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Contemporary, some romance thrown in. This book is quite possibly John Green's best. A book about cancer kids and the harsh reality. It's not all make-a-wish and Disneyland, sometimes it's about the suffering, the honest pain and isolation, the need to live in the infinite numbers between 0 and 1 and love as hard as you can for as long and your body will let you live. This book was raw and emotional. Everyone needs to read this book. It's mid-January and I'm wondering if any book in 2012 will top it.

Other suggestions, for braver souls and those who will honestly read anything, include Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves, Harmonic Feedback by Tara Kelly, Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor, Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake, White Cat by Holly Black, Matched by Ally Condie, and Divergent by Veronica Roth. :)

Me on Top Ten Tuesday (1)

Top Ten Tuesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. :)

It's my first time doing a Top Ten Tuesday. :) I usually post reviews on Tuesdays and Fridays, but since a review came out early yesterday, I figured I'd do something new this week. If people like it, I'll do it more often.

This week's topic is "Top 10 Books I'm Excited to Read in 2012."

Shatter Me #2 by Tahereh Mafi. I adored Shatter Me, it was possibly the best book I read in 2011, and I'm salivating at the chance to read the next offering that Tahereh will give us.

Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins. This book feels like an enigma of sorts. We've known the title for a while now, but no cover, no summary (besides Isla, the meek redhead artist from Anna), but considering it's Stephanie Perkins, it's going to be great. :) (EDIT: Stephanie put out a blog post today (January 3rd) that Isla is now a 2013 release. I read the post and at the end understood why and wasn't upset. Sure, the wait is now longer, but it's not about readers complaining and demanding, it's about Stephanie and what she needs to be able to write this book. I'm happy to wait, it gives me more chances to re-read both Anna and Lola.)

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver. Delirium just about broke me last February. I can only hope that the next will leave me wrecked.

This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers. The cover. It's all about the cover. The cover makes the book for me, but the story also sounds amazing. Courtney, while I've only read Fall For Anything, writes such powerful and honest stories, and this new zombie book of hers is going to be great.

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake. I'm about to start this book, actually, and I'm so excited. It sounds creepy. This is the kind of YA horror that grabs my attention.

Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare. A recent birthday present. I like the series, this one and her other one, and I'm interested to see where this one goes and what happens with Tessa, Will, and Jem. :)

Flirting in Italian by Lauren Henderson. Another contemporary YA romance that involves travel to Europe. There's something about those books that hooks me and sucks me in. Maybe I need to travel or something. ;)

Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock. This might satisfy the part of me that loves werewolf novels and the desire to have more YA novels in bookstores written by Canadians. There need to be more of us out there writing YA books.

Above by Leah Bobet. It sounds so enchanting, and the cover is gorgeous. So magical, yet the city looks torn and ruined around the girl. Plus, it's written by another Canadian. ;)

Crewel by Gennifer Albin. It just sounds so interesting. What reader of YA, at this point, in the middle of the amazingness that YA brings us, who doesn't want a dystopian novel with time-travel? I do. Dystopian is getting a bit stale, a bit overdone. I'll read it, but it's really got to hook me.