…Book You Read This Year

Recommend A… is a SUPER meme hosted by Shanyn from Chick Loves Lit that lets us get a little random, and a little off the radar. I LOVE IT.

I’ve read SO many great books this year, guys. Seriously. Obviously I have a hard time only recommending one book as it is, but suffice it to say, this was an especially difficult list to narrow down. Here are three of my favorites so far:

Unraveling (Unraveling #1) by Elizabeth Norris. Guys, this book surprised me with not only how much I loved it, but with how much it WASN’T what I thought it would be. The twist was pretty much the opposite of what I thought it would be. It was awesome.

Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard. A solid contemporary/travelogue/coming-of-age/romance/AWESOME. There aren’t a ton of books around that are so vibrant that the places and the people just kind of hum themselves off the pages. WANDERLOVE is like that. Good stuff.

Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer. If you haven’t yet read this sci-fi/dystopian retelling of Cinderella…you need to fix that pretty much ASAP. I’m not a huge science fiction reader/viewer/consumer, but when I do find something from that genre that I love, I love it HARD. CINDER is pretty genius. It’s clever, well-written, gripping, and a super beginning to what’s sure to be an amazing series.

…Book by a Male Author

Guys, I can’t tell you how ecstatic I was when Shanyn from Chick Loves Lit announced that she was starting this awesome meme. Shanyn’s AWESOME Recommend A… meme is finally giving me the chance to cater to my inner nerd for specificity and randomness!! AND I LOVE IT. So props to Shanyn, who is fab for starting this up. I’m looking forward to giving some attention to books that might have missed everyone’s radar for one reason or another. Woo hoo!

Trying to find some books for this week’s prompt wasn’t hard, guys, but it did spotlight something that I’m sure lots of us noticed: I don’t read very many books written by male authors AT ALL. I’m not sure if that says something about me or YA/MG literature, but it’s a shame either way. These two books REPRESENT, though. They’re fantastic.

Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby. Guys. THIS is a solid historical middle grade fantasy. I’m talking LEGIT. It’s the story of a young girl who is the daughter of a Viking king. He’s under attack, so he sends his children–led by the youngest girl, Solveig–to a faraway, secluded stronghold in the mountains. BUT. Turns out the king’s family isn’t safe there, either. There’s a traitor in their midst, and shizz hits the fan. ICEFALL is AMAZING, friends. One of my favorite recent middle grades.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. I don’t know how much more I can say about this book and how much it literally SLAYED me to tiny pieces. It’s the heartbreaking story of a young boy who’s mother is dying from cancer. As a means to help himself cope, he begins to see a monster who is a big Yew tree. He’s a badass, and the way he helps Conor (CONOR! He’s an outstanding, sad young boy) understand life and death, and come to grips with his mother’s sickness and all of the emotions he’s feeling is just perfect. No lie. A MONSTER CALLS is perfect. Sad, but brilliant.

…Contemporary Book

Guys, I can’t tell you how ecstatic I was when Shanyn from Chick Loves Lit announced that she was starting this awesome meme. Shanyn’s AWESOME Recommend A… meme is finally giving me the chance to cater to my inner nerd for specificity and randomness!! AND I LOVE IT. So props to Shanyn, who is fab for starting this up. I’m looking forward to giving some attention to books that might have missed everyone’s radar for one reason or another. Woo hoo!

Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley. This book is Aussie magic. I loved it, and the way the romance between Lucy and Shadow is MAJOR slow burn. It takes place over just one night, and that’s the perfect atmosphere for this book. A stellar contemporary.

Ditched: A Love Story by Robin Mellom. AH! This book is so much fun! There’s the hideous prom dress, apropos of a HIDEOUS prom. DITCHED is cute, funny, heartwarming, and a great, promising debut.

Playing Hurt by Holly Schindler. I need to review this one, friends. It is LEGIT. The relationship is hot and sexy, the emotional baggage is kind of intense but not overly emo, and the atmosphere is super. Big fan of this one, guys.

…Book That You Thought Was Funny

Guys, I can’t tell you how ecstatic I was when Shanyn from Chick Loves Lit announced that she was starting this awesome meme. Shanyn’s AWESOME Recommend A… meme is finally giving me the chance to cater to my inner nerd for specificity and randomness!! AND I LOVE IT. So props to Shanyn, who is fab for starting this up. I’m looking forward to giving some attention to books that might have missed everyone’s radar for one reason or another. Woo hoo!

You know what I realized while thinking on this prompt? I don’t read funny books. I read books that sometimes have funny PARTS, like a line or a scene, but the overarching story is either dramatic or action-packed or intense or sad. But very rarely is it funny. Even one of the books I chose here is a basically sad book that was simultaneously funny. They both made me laugh, though.

The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy. This was a humorous,REALLY clever and amusing take on fairy tales, told from the point of view of the princes instead of the princesses. It was super, and I laughed throughout. Not because it was particularly gut-busting hilarious, but because it was light-hearted and the characters were kind of bumbling idiots, or pompous fools, or total oddballs.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews. This book made me laugh all the way from the bottom of my toes. It has that sort of vulgar, cynical teenage boy humor that I find completely hysterical. But as funny as this book is, it’s also a little dark. It’s about a girl who is dying of cancer, and a boy–who isn’t really her friend–who is trying to make a movie for her. I laughed, and then I cringed a little. Still funny as hell, though.

…Book That Made You Emotional

Guys, I can’t tell you how ecstatic I was when Shanyn from Chick Loves Lit announced that she was starting this awesome meme. Her AWESOME Recommend A… meme is finally giving me the chance to cater to my inner nerd for specificity and randomness!! AND I LOVE IT. So props to Shanyn, who is fab for starting this up. I’m looking forward to giving some attention to books that might have missed everyone’s radar for one reason or another. Woo hoo!

So, books that made me emotional. To be honest, that’s not really a hard thing for a book to do. I’m an easy weller, and once I’m welling up, it almost ALWAYS turns into real tears. These three books made me cry for different reasons, but MAN. WATERWORKS.

The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder. Friends, this book just killed me. Really heartbreaking tears. Cam Cooper is one of those characters who has so much personality and is dealing with so much horrible crap that I couldn’t help but adore her spark, and feel real sadness for her troubles. I know that some people thought Cam was really abrasive and cynical, and I guess she was. But to me, I could tell WHY, and I couldn’t hold those things against her.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. THIS BOOK. Oh my God. Ok. This book gave me ugly, heaving, horrible, devastating sobs. I can’t even talk about it too much because basically, I DIED. Really. But you know how sometimes you just need a really good, hard, heartbreaking cry? Don’t even TRY to tell me that NONE of you know what I’m talking about. Just read this book, and you’ll understand.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith. SIGH. I loved this book, guys, because it made me cry, but not for the typical reasons that books make me cry: I wasn’t emotional because someone died. I cried because a pretty cool girl was dealing with a really difficult thing in life that LOTS of young people deal with–divorced parents–and it was heartbreaking in a different way. Thankfully, the parts that squeezed my heart were soothed a little bit by the romance. Oliver and Hadley are sweet together, guys.

…Book With A Bad Boy

Guys, I can’t tell you how ecstatic I was when Shanyn from Chick Loves Lit announced that she was starting this awesome meme.  Recommend A… is finally giving me the chance to cater to my inner nerd for specificity and randomness!! AND I LOVE IT. So props to Shanyn, who is fab for starting this up. I’m looking forward to giving some attention to books that might have missed everyone’s radar for one reason or another. Woo hoo!

I feel like we all know some books with bad boys in them, guys. But I’m trying to dig through the archives, friends. Maybe pick a few that I don’t see mentioned all the time. This is what I came up with. 

She’s So Dead to Us (He’s So/She’s So #1) by Kieran Scott. So guys, you probably know by now that I’m from New Jersey. You probably also know that I’m pretty psyched about it. Maybe you also know that my hometown pride pretty much prevents me from skipping over books set in my home state. I HAVE to read them otherwise I feel guilty. SHE’S SO DEAD TO US, the first book in Kieran Scott’s series not only takes place in Jersey, but it also has all the drama and excess and shenanigans that come with rich teenagers. One of whom happens to be a bad boy, and thus the reason for this book’s presence here. Jake Graydon is one of those rich, popular, hot boys who I don’t even need to describe any further. He hooks up, drinks, flunks out of class, and gets pissed when his dad takes away his new Range Rover. But he wants to reform, ladies, so that he can get with Ally Ryan, the “she” from the title. These are FUN books, guys, made even more so by Jake. 

Legend (Legend #1) by Marie Lu. Often when I’m reading this book I tell myself that Day,the street urchin/thief/minor criminal/general trouble-maker/now fugitive of the Republic, is really older than he’s supposed to be in the books–15–so that I don’t feel so gross having a little crush on him. But he’s got that swagger, guys. That bad-boy confidence. Plus he’s smart and sneaky and flirts like a pro. Not surprised that June both hated him for a little bit and then fell for him. Big fan. 

The Demon King (Seven Realms #1) by Cinda Williams Chima. Han Alister, guys. He was an effing STREET LORD OF THIEVES. A criminal. Who also happens to be hot, smart, clever, confident, and MAGIC (literally). Han is the epitome of a bad boy to me.  There’s no question that he has that charm. The magnetism that gets people to follow him and do what he asks. He has exes who hate him and powerful people who hate him, but he also has Raisa, who couldn’t hate him if she tried (which she does). I LOVE HIM. A bad boy of the most excellent nature. 

…Book With A Green Cover

Guys, I can’t tell you how ecstatic I was when Shanyn from Chick Loves Lit announced that she was starting this awesome meme. Recommend A… is finally giving me the chance to cater to my inner nerd for specificity and randomness!! AND I LOVE IT. So props to Shanyn, who is fab for starting this up. I’m looking forward to giving some attention to books that might have missed everyone’s radar for one reason or another. Woo hoo!

The Lost Conspiracy by Frances Hardinge. This book has a green cover because it takes place in a JUNGLE! Holla! But seriously, this is one of the better, cleverer, more imaginative, completely unique fantasies I can remember reading, all because Frances Hardinge did something that I almost never see: set a fantasy world in a steamy, lush, dangerous tropical jungle. The result is pretty effing awesome. I wouldn’t recommend this to people who don’t usually like fantasy or who are just dipping their toe because it’s pretty in depth and sometimes hard to follow. But still, AWESOME. 

Fablehaven: Fablehaven #1 by Brandon Mull. Keeping it with the fantasies this week! FABLEHAVEN is the incredibly solid beginning to one of my favorite middle grade series about secret magical preserves that safeguard fairies and other magical creatures good and evil, until the shizz hits the fan. Conspiracies, lies, traitors, and dangers lurk at every turn as siblings Kendra and Seth must try to save everything they know, and the people they love, from the bad guys. SO. STINKING. GOOD.