Showing posts with label 2011 favourites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2011 favourites. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Top Ten Books of 2011



Look at me being all featured on The Broke and the Bookish!!

But just in case you missed it ;) I'll crosspost my list here.

I hope you have all recovered from the food-induced sleepiness that is always sure to hit me at Christmas and have had a wonderful time with your loved ones!

On to the business part of this Top Ten Tuesday, this week's topic:
The Top Ten books you read in 2011

This is gonna be hard for me, cause I want to list so many, but here goes.

1. The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss: I have waited SO LONG for this book!! And it was AMAZING! If you haven't read the first book in this series, the Name of the Wind, and you enjoy fantasy, you should read it, cause it's awesome! Also, I need the next book, like yesterday!

2. The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab: this book! THIS BOOK! It was so insanely amazing I wrote a gushing review about it! This book made me believe in fairytales again and it was wonderfully beautiful!

3. Witchlanders by Lena Coakley: EPIC FANTASY! I love fantasy, as you can probably guess from my list and this one was fabulous! I wonder how this has not gotten a lot of buzz, cause it's amazing! This is a book I want to shove at everyone and make them read it, and bonus: this book works for boys as well as girls. Virtually no romance, but lots of amazing storytelling.

4. Delirium by Lauren Oliver: I was a bit hesitant to read this at first, but OMG, this was SO GOOD! I didn't want to stop reading this and the ending left me needing cuddles and wishing I already had the next one waiting for me, cause this wait is SLOWLY KILLING ME! I am so pre-ordering Pandemonium...

5. The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley: this book took me by surprise, as I hadn't expected to love it so much! It is a pretty clean historical and contemporary romance novel as the main character travels back and forth in time and it is simply wonderful! I felt shocked, I cried, I was yelling for them to KISS ALREADY!! And I didn't care it got me funny looks!

6. The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson: another fantasy, this was a good fantasy year it seems ;) I LOVED this book! It has a strong female lead and I'm dying to find out what happens next for Elisa! The Godstone is fascinating!

7. The Demon King, The Exiled Queen and the Gray Wolf Throne by Cinda Williams Chima: I am naming the whole series, because it was fabulous! And another series I would give to a boy (I'm making my boyfriend read them right now). I love the main characters Han and Raisa! They are both so beyond amazing! And I love to hate the 'bad guys' in this one, which is always fun :)

8. Unearthly by Cynthia Hand: so, confession: angel books haven't really been working so well for me, but THIS ONE DID!! Seriously, there's virtually no preaching and Clara is wonderful and I am so Team Tucker with his amazing boy-ness being swoonworthy and all! I have been lucky enough to have already read Hallowed, and it is also amazing!

9. The Kingdom of Gods by N.K. Jemisin: I have fallen in love with this whole series and I think I can safely say this one is my favourite of the trilogy! It focuses on Sieh and is just wonderful. I read this during the Dewey 24-hour Read-a-Thon and didn't once feel the inclination to sleep. It was THAT good.

10. Die For Me by Amy Plum: REVENANTS! They are SO cool! Seriously, I loved this book! I am also so pre-ordering Until I Die :)

And, cause you really didn't think I could narrow it down to just 10 (you didn't right?:

11. Princess for Hire and The Royal Treatment by Lindsey Leavitt: SO EXTREMELY CUTE! These are the first 2 books in a MG series and it is fabulous! I love the whole idea of substituting for princesses! I wish I had a little girl in my life I could give these books to!

12. Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George: another MG and ADORABLE! I had a huge grin on my face while I was reading this and I loved every minute of it! As the abovementioned Princess for Hire series, I would love to have a little girl I could give this to!

So, that's my list. How does yours compare? There are lots of books I think I'll see on all of your lists that have not made mine for the simple fact that I have not read them yet (I am thinking Divergent, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Shatter Me, Lola and the Boy Next Door, The Night Circus...). Let's hope they're on next year's list :)

Saturday, July 9, 2011

2011 In Books So Far

So I thought I'd reflect back on my reading over the first half of 2011. And it's been a GREAT year reading-wise so far.

The stats:
Books read: 88 (seriously, I read 91 books in 2010, this is huge)
Pages read: 31411
YA books: 45
Historical romances: 18

Those two are my major food groups, so to speak. I've been neglecting my fantasy addiction and gone more toward Paranormal Romance. I've branched out with some non-fiction, a classic and some literary fiction, but mostly it's been YA and historical romance, two genres I love with a passion!

Some of my favourites of the year:



-Delirium by Lauren Oliver (I CANNOT wait for Pandemonium, I mean, that ending!!!)
-Die For Me by Amy Plum (revenants have got to be one of the most unique supernatural beings I've read about in a long time)
-The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter (Greek Mythology fan-geeks unite!)



-If I Stay by Gayle Forman (seriously, how could I not have read this sooner???)
-Wither by Lauren DeStefano (eerily realistic and beautiful..)
-Unearthly by Cynthia Hand (who showed me that books about angels can be awesome)
-The Princess for Hire series by Lindsey Leavitt (gosh, how awesome are those books?? I wish I could be a stand-in princess...)



Special mention goes to The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, which I had been not-so-patiently-but-gritting-my-teeth anticipating for a looooong time and it finally got here and I just love my nice and shiny hardcover! (see, it's right over there --> isn't it PRETTY??) I love Rothfuss' writing and am now back to tearing-my-hair-out waiting for the final instalment...

And another special mention to Sarah MacLean, whose Love By Numbers series I have loved so much! She really knows how to write great romance!

Favourite Quotes of this Year:

"Books are more real when you read them outside"
- Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

"One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls."
- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

"I have an apple that thinks its a pear. And a bun that thinks it’s a cat. And a lettuce that thinks its a lettuce.' 'It’s a clever lettuce then.' 'Hardly,' she said with a delicate snort. 'Why would anything clever think it’s a lettuce?' 'Even if it is a lettuce?' I asked. 'Especially then,' she said. 'Bad enough to be a lettuce. How awful to think you are a lettuce too."
- The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (incidentally a conversation between my favourite characters: Kvothe and Auri)

So, that's me so far. With all the amazing books coming out soon, I expect the second half of 2011 will be just as great :)

What are your favourite reads so far?