Best YA Books of 2012.

Today I am going to share what I thought the Top 10 best Young Adult books of 2012 were. These are all books that were published in 2012 and I thought this would make a great post since the year is near an end! I am really excited to read a lot of the upcoming books in 2013 and I posted a list of books I'm looking forward to on a previous blog post that you can view here. Now onto my favorite reads of 2012! Also- these are in no particular order of which was my favorites are such and most of them are parts of a series.

1. Tilt by Ellen Hopkins. I really enjoy reading Ellen Hopkins books and Tilt was one of my favorites. This book had a lot of great characters, and I really love reading verse novels thanks to this author!

2.  City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare. This book is the 5th book in the Mortal Instruments series, and this is one of my all time favorite series and author. I have mentioned how much I love this series before in previous posts.

3. Insurgent by Veronica Roth. This is the 2nd book in the Divergent Trilogy and though I didn't like this book as much as Divergent it was still a great and highly anticipated book this year for me!

4. Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia. This was the 4th and final book in the Caster Chronicle series. It was such a good read and a great finale to this series. It just made me love the series so much more.

5. Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood. This is the first book and the authors debut novel in The Cahill Witch Chronicles and I was really surprised on how much I enjoyed this book. It's a historical fiction book about witchcraft and if you have not read this I encourage you to check it out! I can't wait for the sequel to come out this upcoming June.

6.  The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead. 2nd book in the Bloodlines series. This is another book/author/series that I have talked about loads of time in previous posts. I also cannot wait for the next book in this series to come out this February.

7. Taken at Dusk by C.C Hunter. The 3rd book in the Shadow Falls Series.

8. Whispers at Moonrise by C.C Hunter. The 4th book in the Shadow Falls series. It is definitely a plus when an author releases 2 books in the same series in the same year! I absolutely love this series and this is another one that was mentioned a lot in my blog.

9. The Haunted by J.A Templeton. This is the 2nd book in the MacKinnion Curse series. 

10. The Departed by J.A Templeton. This is the 3rd book in the MacKinnion Curse series. Again major plus when an author releases 2 books in the same year! This series was a recent discover of mine but its one that I fell in love with quickly. You can purchase these books on an e-reader really cheap (the first book is free!) You can read my review for the whole series here!

This concludes my top 10 YA books for 2012! It was definitely a great year for reading and like I said before, I am looking forward to a lot of great books for 2013! I will also have my December reading wrap up posted in a few days! I have stuck to my reading goal/challenge of only re reading books that I have already read all month long with no exceptions!

Thank you all for reading and have a great New Years!

September Wrap up

Last month in September I only read 3 books again. I read Tilt by Ellen Hopkins, Venomous by Christopher Krovatin, and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. However even though I only read three books, I read about 200 pages of A Game of Thrones, which I started at the end of August. I put down that book so I could read different ones because it was taking me forever to read. I hope to finally finish it this month in October.

I really enjoyed Tilt by Ellen Hopkins. It wasn't my favorite book that she wrote, but I still liked reading it. I didn't do a review on this book, but I gave it 4/5 stars on goodreads.

I also enjoyed reading Venomous by Christopher Krovatin. It was a fun and quick read but it has a lot of deep and mature content in it. It was different from any kind of book that I've read before. You can read my review on this book here.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green was my favorite book that I read this month. John Green is a phenomenal writer and this book definitely did not disappoint me. I did a review on this book as well, and I will leave the link to it here.

I'm currently reading The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead, which is the second book in the Bloodlines series. So far I'm enjoying it, but I don't remember all of what happened in Bloodlines so it's a little hard for me to get into. After this book I'm going to be reading The Casual Vacancy by J.K Rowling. I am so so so excited for this book and I can't wait to read it. It was a pleasant surprise that J.K wrote another book!

Thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoyed my (small) September wrap up!

7 Deadly Sins of Reading

Hello Everyone! Today I'm going to do a blog post on the 7 Deadly Sins of reading. This is a book tag that I saw going around the book community on Youtube. I thought it was fun, and even though I wasn't tagged, I still wanted to participate in this book surgery!

Greed- What is your most inexpensive and expensive book? 
My most inexpensive book that I have purchased is The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I bought this at a used book sale for $1 last summer. My most expensive book is probably the 7th Harry Potter book, which on the inside flap has a price for $34.99

Wrath- what author do you have a love hate relationship with? 
I'm going to say Nicholas Sparks. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Nicholas Sparks and I love all of his book as well. However I find some of his books to just be okay and not amazing like some of his others. So I picked him for a love hate relationship because I always have really high expectations when he writes new book and I don't like being slightly disappointed when one of his books aren't as good as the others!

Gluttony- What book have you deliciously devoured over and over with no shame at all? 
Definitely every single book in the Harry Potter series. I've read the books so many times and I just love them and want to read them again!

Sloth- What book have you neglected reading due to laziness?
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R Tolkien. I've read half of the first book, some of the second book and none at all of the third. I've also neglected reading The Hobbit, which is on my fall TBR list because the movie is coming out in a few months!

Pride- Which book do you often talk about to sound like an intellectual reader? 
I don't really talk about books to make myself intelligent, I mostly read YA novels and I have no shame in that!

Lust- What qualities do you find attractive in male and female characters?
I like characters who are humorous, witty, and who can make me laugh. I also like really strong characters who you can see progress through out the novel/series. I love characters who have really strong and real emotion to them as well. This goes for both male and female characters.

Envy- What books would you most like to receive as a gift? 
Any book! Books are my favorite gifts and I love it when people give me a book to read, even if I'm just borrowing them! :)

I hope you enjoyed this post and anyone can feel free to join in on this book tag!

On a side note- I just finished reading Tilt by Ellen Hopkins. I'm still not sure if I am going to do a review on this book or not. I sometimes find Ellen Hopkins books hard to review for some reason. If anyone reading this wants me to do a review on this book then I will, just comment and let me know.I'm about 300 pages into A Game of Thrones. This book is taking forever to read. I took a break so I could read Tilt, but I hope to finish reading this book by the end of this month. I'm currently reading Venomous by Christopher Krovatin on my Kindle and I'm really enjoying it so far.

Thank you for reading! Find me here on goodreads!

August Wrap Up

Sadly I was only able to read 3 book last month in august, so my august wrap up entry is going to be a short one. Hopefully I will have more time to read this fall than I did this summer.

Last month the three books I read were Tricks by Ellen Hopkins, The Pact by Jodi Picoult, and Looking for Alaska by John Green. I also started reading Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin at the end of the month but I'm no where near being finished. I might stray from the book to read some other ones because Game of Thrones is over 800 pages long ha ha.

I really enjoyed Tricks by Ellen Hopkins. I did not do a review for it but it is probably one of my favorite Ellen Hopkins books that I've read so far.

I loved The Pact by Jodi Picoult. I was totally blown away by this book. It's a very emotional read and it's a really amazing story. You can read my full review on the book here.

I also really loved Looking for Alaska by John Green. It's another one of my new favorites and I was really surprised on how much I enjoyed reading this book. You can read my review on this book here.

Overall I was happy with the books I read in August, I hope to have a bigger monthly wrap up post for you this month! Thanks for reading!!

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Upcoming New Releases

Hello Everyone! I wanted to share some upcoming new releases that I'm excited about for this fall. Most of these books are part of young adult series that I've already started reading and can't wait for the new books to come out!

Tilt by Ellen Hopkins. I love Ellen Hopkins books and I'm really excited about this one coming out soon on September 11th.

Shadowfell by Juilet Marillier coming out on September 11th. I have not herd much about this book but I saw it while browsing Barnes and Nobles website and it looked interesting!

Whispers at Moonrise by C.C Hunter on October 2. The fourth book in the Shadow Falls series and I am so excited about this one. I absolutely love this series!

Hidden by P.C Cast, 10th book in the House of Night series.

Finale by Bacca Fitzpatrick, 4th book in the Hush, Hush series.

Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia, 4th book in the Beautiful Creatures series. This series is one of my favorites and I can't wait to see what happens in this book. The last book was so AHHH at the end. :p

Everyday by David Leviathan. I believe this book comes out on August 28th (tomorrow). I have not read any David Leviathan books before but some of them are on my TBR list and I thought this one sounded really good.

The Iron Legends by Julie Kagawa, which is three short novellas for the Iron Fey series. I also believe this one comes out tomorrow on the 28th of august as well! I have two of them already on my kindle which i downloaded for free, but I have not read them. I'm excited you can get all three in an actual book which I would rather read from!

I'm sure there are many other books coming out this fall that are going to be really awesome reads along  with all these that I have listed. I know I've already started my new release TBR list for 2013 as well!
Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day :)

Fragment Friday!

 I watch a lot of youtube videos on book reviews, hauls, discussions, etc and I seen one a while back called Fragment Friday where every friday a youtuber would read a portion or 'fragment' of the book that she was reading. I loved the idea, mainly because a lot of the time it wasn't a book I has read before so it was kind of cool to hear a part of the book that I didn't know and had no idea what was going on in the story. The concept was interesting to me so I've decided to make a blog post on it as well!

The book they I'm currently reading is Tricks by Ellen Hopkins.  I'm sort of on an Ellen Hopkins kick right now and these books are the only ones that I have been reading for the last 3 weeks or so. For anyone who isn't familiar with her books, they are written in verse. It was a little different at first when I started reading them but I've grown to love verse novels. They are such light and easy reads and I've found some beautiful poetry in them which is why I decided to do this post. I found a section of the book that was such a beautiful poem and I loved it so much that I wanted to share it here on my blog.


Reach 

They say you should
           reach for the stars, 
           and I’d like to, but
 my arms
           are much too short. 
           they say to reach 
           out for hope, but I 
don’t 
           understand what hope
           is. They say to reach for
           goals, but I don’t 
know 
           how to define mine, 
           and so I won’t listen. 
           But if you only tell me 
how to 
           love you, I’ll reach 
           into the depth of me 
           and find a way to
 hold you.


I absolutely love this poem. When I read it I thought it was so beautiful and I love things that leave me speechless when I read them.

I hope you enjoyed my Fragment Friday post! Thanks for reading :)

Book review: Identical by Ellen Hopkins

Hey all, today I'm going to be doing a book review on Identical by Ellen Hopkins. I've been contemplating on how to do this review for a day or two because I wasn't really sure how to get started with it. I feel like this story has a lot of mature content in it and I wasn't sure how to go about that or if I should even do a review on it at all. Regardless here I am doing the review because it was a book that I truly did love and enjoyed reading.

Summary
Do twins begin in the womb?
Or in a better place? Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical down to the dimple. As daughters of a district-court judge father and a politician mother, they are an all-American family -- on the surface. Behind the facade each sister has her own dark secret, and that's where their differences begin. For Kaeleigh, she's the misplaced focus of Daddy's love, intended for a mother whose presence on the campaign trail means absence at home. All that Raeanne sees is Daddy playing a game of favorites -- and she is losing. If she has to lose, she will do it on her own terms, so she chooses drugs, alcohol, and sex. Secrets like the ones the twins are harboring are not meant to be kept -- from each other or anyone else. Pretty soon it's obvious that neither sister can handle it alone, and one sister must step up to save the other, but the question is -- who?


First off I want to say that as much as I really did love this book it was a bit hard to read because of the relationship the main character Kaeleigh shared with her father. It was disturbing and it made me sick to my stomach at times. Like I said before, this book has a lot of mature content it in and if you can't handle reading it then this book is not for you. I think that out of all the Ellen Hopkins books that I've read so far this one had the most mature content in it. Maybe that's just me and my own opinion though but I feel strongly towards it.

The main characters Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical twins. A terrible accident that happened has torn their family apart and in the aftermath each twin has their own dark secrets they deal with. Their mother is usually absent and focusing too much on her work. Their father turns to alcoholism and pills to deal with the tragedy, all the while dealing with his own secret past of pain and abuse. Kaeleigh and Raeanne have two totally different personalities and deal with their pain in different ways. Raeanne uses drugs and sex as an escape from life. Kaeleigh is more of a quite and passive person who turns to cutting and she deals with having an eating disorder. She suffers silently while she attracts the wrong kind of attention from their father, which makes Raeanne Jealous.

This story for me kept me very anxious while I was reading it. I could not put this book down until I was finished. This story sparked a number of emotions in me. Like I said before, this book made sick to my stomach at some parts and it also made me angry at some times. I wanted Kaeleigh to be a stronger person and get help. I wanted to punch their father in their face. I hated their mother for not knowing what was going on in their home. I wanted Raeanne to help her sister and vice versa. I was a bit confused on why each sister never talked to each other but the ending gave explanation of that. Also the ending of this book was totally amazing. So many things made since and it just made the book complete. (Possible spoiler alert) Mental illness is something that really interest me, so I think if it was anything different in the book I wouldn't have liked it as much. Overall I think this book was insanely wonderful and I think it's on the top of my favorite Ellen Hopkins books!

Thank you all for reading. I'm sorry if this review was kind of jumbled, it was a bit hard to gather my thoughts and emotions for this one. Plus I'm still new at this whole blogging/reviewing thing :p

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New blog and summer favorite reads!

Hello everyone! Welcome to my new blog :) ! I've been wanting to create a blog for quite some time and I've finally decide to do it! I'm going to be blogging about everything and anything to do with books. I love to read and I love to talk about books so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for me! I mostly read young adult fantasy and fiction, but I'm also trying to branch out and try reading new things. I plan on writing some reviews in the future, but for now I'm going to share my top 5 favorite books that I've read this summer!

1. Burned by Ellen Hopkins
2. Impulse by Ellen Hopkins
3. Notes to Self by Avery Sawyer
4. Insurgent by Veronica Roth
5. City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

I'm sure number 4 and 5 are no big surprise on my list :p
I've enjoyed each of these books, and I plan on doing a review on Notes to Self by Avery Sawyer. I read this one on my kindle and it was a book I've never herd of before then. Currently I'm reading Identical by Ellen Hopkins and I'm going to be doing a review on that as well.

I hope you all enjoyed my first blog post and expect more from me soon!
Thanks for readin!
<3

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