Favorites of 2014: Part 2!

The Secret Ingredient by Stewart Lewis

Gosh, I loved this book. I enjoyed Olivia's refreshing narration so much. She has two dads and had not wondered about her mother for most of her life but then she gets the urge to know who it is and how it all unravels is just like it was meant to be. There is a boy as well but even though Theo sounds great, the story is about Olivia finding herself with a little help from her british friend, Lola.

P.S. one of my favorite books is You Have Seven Messages by Stewart as well so read that too!

Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern
Say What You Will is a beautiful story about Amy, a girl that will not let the world define her by her physical disabilities, and Matthew, a boy that's always had her in his sights. Matthew has some serious problems of his own because of his struggles with OCD and his denial of the problem in the first place.

When Amy insists that she has peers take her around school instead of aides, she insists that Matthew signs up because of an incident when she was younger where he confronted her and said that this facade she had where everything was calm, cool and collected was total bullshit. It was great to see how they both slowly let their guards down around each other and really grew to care for each other through all the trials that the world threw their way. Stories like this make it so easy to view the world around you in a different light and see how unique everyone's particular story really is.

The Strange & Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Lesyle Walton

This is such a lovely story that is full of just beautiful and bittersweet moments. Lesyle's lyrical writing style made me feel  so invested in the lives of the Lavender women and I grew to care for Emilienne, Vivienne and Ava and just wished the best for them. I love how magical and whimsical this story is while at the same time feeling totally realistic. A must read.

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira
Laurel's story is beautiful and this is one of those books that is going to stick with me for quite some time. I am a lover of quotes and beautiful prose and this was chockful of it. I loved the letter format and I even listened to some of the music and sang along as she and her friends did in the book. This book deals with some heavy stuff and it does it in such a manner that I felt both angry and sad while I read it. Laurel's self discovery and growth is not an easy one and I'm glad to have gotten to read and learn from it.


The Archived & The Unbound (sequel) by V.E Schwab
"Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books. Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive." Mackenzie and Wesley's story is one that you need to pick up and when you reach that climax, just get ready for the ride of your life!

Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe By Benjamin Alire Saenz

This is one of my new favorite books. Ari is a beautiful soul and Dante is just stunning and I wish I could meet them and just hug them. I got chills reading this because of the connection I felt with Ari when it comes to how he views himself in this world as a Latino. It's just brilliant and so so true. A must read!

The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson

LHA has done it again folks. This novel is breathtaking. Literally, I felt myself holding my breath because Hayley's story is just so heartbreaking. Dealing with a father going through PTSD is something not many people know about but with this story it's like I was thrust into her shoes. Her point of view, her narration was just chilling. Another favorite for sure.

Ask the Passengers by A.S. King
This was the year of me discovering new favorite authors and Lady King is one of them. This is my favorite of her books thus far. I really enjoyed how real Astrid felt. A.S King's writing style is so different from anything I've read and I loved it. I loved that Astrid did not want to be and did not allow herself to be put in a box because there is so much more to a person than who they love. A book full of great quirks.

Ends to trilogies:

Champion by Marie Lu
I was scared that this was not going to end well but Marie Lu has surprised me and I even ended up tearing up at the epilogue. June and Day have gone through hell thus far and with Champion it is no different. There are so many battles and emotions and I could not put the book down. I sincerely love when authors do switching points of view because the reader gets to see both sides of the narrators. I normally get annoyed with the female narration and love the male one but in this case I equally enjoyed June's narration as I did Day's. I did always look forward to Day's because gosh I just love his voice and how at this point we know him so well and see the deepness to his character while the Republic and the Colonies might not. I love that they both have their weaknesses but that does not break their resolve and they get business handled even when it hurts. 

The One by Kiera Cass

I am sincerely happy with this series and I adore America. The whole world of Illea is not an easy place to live in and especially with the situation she was thrust into and there were so many ups and downs. I normally hate love triangles but I was so confused with this one because Maxon and Aspen were who they were because of the circumstance they were born into and it is what it is. I have hearts in my eyes for Maxon though because MAXON. The letters from her Dad and from Maxon are my favorite thing ever. I love letters and I literally teared up with her while reading the one her Dad had left her because he is brilliant. I'd love to get more about him and his whole background. I also grew to like the girls after getting to know them and the surprise for us all was Celeste of course. All in all, this is another trilogy that I shall call my favorite. A+ Kiera! :D

4 other series I began and finished this year and enjoyed through all the ups and downs:
The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken
Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
Across the Universe by Beth Revis
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Favorites of 2014: Part 1

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan (Pride & Prejudice in an Asian setting!)

A captivating story that  sucks you in with its vivid descriptions of the setting, clothing and the people. The writing style and how this story was set up added a lot to my enjoyment in that every chapter was a different character's point of view as well as some characters would have their own little clips within the chapters. It kept the events feeling fast paced and me wanting to flip the page to see what else Nick Young's family would do in order to sabotage his relationship with Rachel Chu.  The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker The Golem and the Jinni is such a powerful book. This story brought together two outcasts and made me care for them individually. I was cheering for them to have their happy ending, whether that was together or not. I like how this was not a love story by any stretch of the imagination but I still found myself rooting for them to end up together. It was important that each of them had their own journey to go on and go through hardships to find out about the world around them. I adored that the dual POV's were so wonderfully intertwined with the points of view of people in the community, so you got to see how people viewed Chava and Ahmad outside of what they thought of themselves. I also loved the glimpse at New York at a time where there was so much hope in every person that reached Ellis Island and the subsequent glance at how every person had to deal with many difficulties to find some sort of comfort.

China Dolls by Lisa See
This unique tale made me go through a range of emotions from: happy, sad to mad because these girls did go through it all. Stereotypes played a big part in some of the decisions taken by these ladies and I think that the time (1938 through the attack on Pearl Harbor and beyond) it was all occurring played a huge part as well. I think it's definitely worth the read to get an insider's look into an entirely different world.

Wanderlust by Elizabeth Eaves
Oh, this book. I knew I was going to love it because wanderlust is something everyone has and since I've begun traveling I have it oh so much. Elisabeth takes the reader on quite a journey, emotionally and physically. The revolving door of men from Stu to Justin to Raphael to Dominic just made me feel for her even more in that she used them as a way to propel her travels forward while simultaneously falling for them. Her inability to be attached to anyone she was romantic with is something that I also connected with. "Girl, I feel you!" was said every other page in this book. Will ignite the traveler in you!

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr What a beautiful story. I fell in love with Marie-Laure and Werner and cared about everything that was going to happen to them and that did happen in this crazy time of Hitler. Marie-Laure's blindness was just a secondary aspect and I loved how the disability did not hinder her and made her so much more captivating. Her love of stories and the sea was something I could relate to and felt so much. The tale of the Sea of Flames felt like a main character as well and I loved how it added this air of mystery and what if to the story. The timeline propelled the story forward in such a way and while you'd think it'd be easy to get lost in the switching of perspectives and years, the sections made me not want to put the book down. There was so many cliffhangers within the sections that were just captivating and made me want to keep reading. This book is just brilliantly setup and it's difficult to explain. I can feel the change that this story has made in me already. I can go on and on. A new favorite and a must read for a lover of tales and history for sure.

Vicious by V.E Schwab
Just read this book full of twists and devious, complex characters and let me know who you think the villain is. Is there a villain? Convinced to read it yet? Go!

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The Dunnes are brilliant. I did not think I'd enjoy this as much as I did but the mystery on top of the intelligent, chilling, suspenseful narration got me good. A must read.

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
Lincoln's the IT guy for the newspaper called The Courier. He is basically paid to read people's emails when they are flagged for "inappropriate" talk. The reason that's even in quotations is because the reason he meets Beth and Jennifer is over innocent emails in which they talk about their lives, which end up in his flagged folder. First,the way this story is written is brilliant. It alternates between Lincoln's life narration and then the emails between Beth and Jennifer. It makes the reader feel super attached to all the characters. At least, that's how it was for me. Lincoln becomes invested in Beth and Jennifer's life without having met them and so did I. I felt their ups and downs and they felt like people I actually knew so that's why I definitely understood and sided with Lincoln when he decided not to report them and just keep reading. So pick this book up and do just that!

Stats of 2014 Reads and Thoughts

I've read 87 books this year. Awesome! (Favorites list to come)

I've never sat down and calculated my stats and I just did so and man was I surprised. I went out of my comfort zone (young adult) and read more fiction which was only read 12 fiction books. I included fantasy, mystery & sci-fi in that section. Since 12 is not that many, I will definitely work on increasing that number in 2015.

I did read more middle grade as well which is cool, 12 as well. Highlights: I read the Percy Jackson series which was fun & reread The Giver & the first two Harry Potter books. :]

One of my goals was to read more nonfiction and while I read only 4 I feel like I took a lot from each story. Lean In, Wanderlust, The Opposite of Loneliness & Esther Earl's book will stay with me for years to come. I want to continue to read more nonfiction in 2015.

One of my other goals in 2015 is to read more comics and graphic novels. I've always wanted to and never known where to start so I think I'm going to read some of Marvel's New 52 as well as Y: The Last Man, Ms. Marvel, The Saga comics, & some Superman, Spiderman & Batman comics as well.

Something I did try to do more of this year was read diversely and to see that I'd only read 9 people of color was shocking. I've always thought I read more diverse books but I guess it's more of those books on my to be read pile. Time to rectify that for sure!

Lastly, I calculated how many women vs men I read. I've always read many ladies so I think I went out of my way to read men and the books I did read were pretty great. One of the favorites of the year being: Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

This little exercise inspired by Rincey over at rinceyreads onYoutube is something I want to learn from and continue doing. Here's to more diverse, fun, eye-opening reading in 2015!

Stats: 87 books read
YA-53
Middle Grade-12
Adult Fiction (includes fantasy mystery, scifi)-12
-Non Fiction-4
E-Novellas-4
Graphic Novels-2

Some where repeats:
POC-9
White-40
Women-39
Men-13

In the Holiday Spirit!

I've been thinking a lot about the holidays since they are steadily approaching.

When you're a kid, it's so exciting because presents and such and it's not that it's lost as an adult but the excitement dissipated for me. With university, it was more of an excitement to go home and fill up on food and catch up on sleep and now that uni is over, the excitement was still there but it felt different this time.

This time I'd been away on my own, doing big girl things as I call it: working a full-time job, living by myself. So going home, felt comforting and like an actual vacation. Seeing friends made me the happiest because we just wanted to be in each other's company.

I have felt very happy and energetic today and I think it's because it's the beginning of a new month and the last month of the year at that! It's an opportunity to finish anything you wanted to do this year and in my case, just continue to carry this energy. Of course, some days will be tough but I think it's important to just take things day by day. That was one of my mottos of the year and I believe I've done pretty well so far.

Let's see what tomorrow brings!

Sincerely,

Betty :]