This topic was actually trickier than I thought it would be. Looking back at release dates, I realised I haven’t actually yet read any books from 2018 or 2019! I need to catch up! So my list spans the 10 years from 2008-2017.
Top 10 Tuesday was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish, but has now moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. If you’re interested in taking part click here.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance
Publishing Info: Kindle edition September 2011 by Hodder (first published 2011)
Pages: 448
Star Rating: 5/5
Back Cover Summary:
Errand requiring immediate attention. Come.
The note was on vellum, pierced by the talons of the almost-crow that delivered it. Karou read the message. ‘He never says please’, she sighed, but she gathered up her things. When Brimstone called, she always came.
In general, Karou has managed to keep her two lives in balance. On the one hand, she’s a seventeen-year-old art student in Prague; on the other, errand-girl to a monstrous creature who is the closest thing she has to family. Raised half in our world, half in ‘Elsewhere’, she has never understood Brimstone’s dark work – buying teeth from hunters and murderers – nor how she came into his keeping. She is a secret even to herself, plagued by the sensation that she isn’t whole.
Now the doors to Elsewhere are closing, and Karou must choose between the safety of her human life and the dangers of a war-ravaged world that may hold the answers she has always sought.
The first in a trilogy, Daughter of Smoke and Bone is a phenomenal book. The world is so imaginative and captivating, it didn’t take me long to fall in love with it. I very rarely give 5 star ratings, because I usually have something to criticise, even something small, or it just doesn’t blow me away enough to warrant 5 stars. I had no hesitation giving that accolade to Daughter of Smoke and Bone.
I didn’t know what to expect from this book from the rather mysterious summary. It certainly piqued my curiosity. I don’t want to say too much about the plot, because it’s not knowing what’s really going on that kept me hooked, so I don’t want to spoil that for anyone who hasn’t read it yet. Karou lives in the human world, but the only family she has known seem to occupy an ‘Elsewhere’ place that they won’t explain to her, leaving her in the dark as to why Brimstone, her guardian, sends her on missions to buy teeth. Karou is so curious about what he uses these teeth for, and I was compelled to keep reading to find out why too. What’s great is that it wasn’t predictable.
This week’s Top 10 Tuesday is a pretty fun topic! There’s a lot of different factors that go into me picking up a book. Sometimes it’s an impulse buy because of a pretty cover and awesome back cover description, other times its because I’ve read lots of really good reviews of it.
Top 10 Tuesday was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish, but has now moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. If you’re interested in taking part click here.
This week we have an interesting topic, as I often find my opinions on a book can change dramatically over the course of the story. I can go from loving it to hating it, or from hating it to loving it. Sometimes books start out strong, but sometimes you nearly give up on them but then they end up surprising you in the end. T5W is a group hosted on Goodreads, if you’d like to participate check it out here.
The Rose Society by Marie Lu
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Publishing Info: 2015 by Penguin (first published 2015)
Pages: 397
Star Rating: 4/5
Back Cover Summary:
Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends.
Then they betrayed her, and she destroyed them all …
Adelina Amouteru’s heart is set on revenge. Now known and feared as the White Wolf, she flees Kenettra to find other Young Elites in the hopes of building her own army.
Her goal: to strike down the Inquisition Axis, the white-cloaked soldiers who nearly killed her.
But Adelina is no heroine. The leader of the Inquisition, wants her dead, and her former friends at the Dagger Society want to stop her thirst for vengeance. Adelina struggles to cling to the good within her. But how can someone be good, when her very existence depends on darkness?
The Rose Society is the second book in Marie Lu’s Young Elites trilogy. Having loved the first book, I was glad to find The Rose Society was just as dark and addictive. As the series doesn’t follow your typical protagonist, it makes the story so much fresher. It makes such a change from the hero-centric plotlines I am used to reading. Adelina is such a complex character, inhabiting neither the space of hero or villain. What makes the book so interesting is that Lu makes me sympathise with her. I understand exactly why she is doing what she’s doing, and it makes me think, is she really bad? Are the others really good? It makes it so exciting not really knowing if any of the sides are truly ‘good’ or ‘evil’.
Once again Adelina is really and truly the focus of the book. Told from her point of view, her internal conflict is such a big driving force for the story. Lu does such a good job of portraying what’s going on in Adelina’s mind. I truly understand her character and feel completely wrapped up in her wild emotions, in a deep way I don’t often find in young adult books.
While I read a lot of sequels and books by authors I know and love, I also ended up reading a lot of books by new-to-me authors last year. There are some I loved and am excited to read more of their works, but there are sadly others who I’m not sure if I’ll be returning to.
Top 10 Tuesday was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish, but as of January has now moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. If you’re interested in taking part click here.
This post comes to you a little later than planned as I started off the new year with a horrendous cold. There are so many books I want to read this year, I know I won’t get round to reading them all. My Goodreads reading goal for 2019 is 20 books, as I decided to set it to something more realistic. If I read more, that’s great, but I would like to read at least 20. I don’t have as much time for reading as I would like unfortunately. So, here are some of the books I particularly want to read this year.
I started re-reading all of the Harry Potter books over the last couple of years and would like to continue that by reading the next one – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I’m looking forward to re-reading this one as I remember when I first saw the film, not long after reading it the first time, that they had left a lot out.
There are a couple of series I have been reading for a while that I want to continue making some progress with. It feels like I’ve been reading Michael Grant’s Gone series for ages. I’m up to the fifth book, Fear, so I want to read that this year. I’m also trying to catch up on Cassandra Clare’s books. She’s released so many I’m really far behind! I only have one book left in the Infernal Devices series to read, Clockwork Princess. A book that’s been sitting on my shelf for a while is Four by Veronica Roth, a collection of short stories about the character Four from the Divergent series. I bought this book ages ago but as Allegiant was such a disappointment Four has been collecting dust at the back of my bookshelf for a little too long.
There are four series I started reading last year that I want to continue. Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray was my favourite book of the year, so I’m excited to read the sequel, Defy the Worlds. Marie Lu’s The Young Elites was also a highlight and I have the sequel, The Rose Society, waiting on my shelf. Last year I read the first two books in Sarah J. Mass’s Throne of Glass series, and I’m totally sucked in, so I need to get my hands on book three, Heir of Fire.
Having finally read A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin last year, I also want to read the next book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Clash of Kings. It’s pretty massive though so I need to psych myself up for reading it.
As well as all these series I’d also like to discover some new authors and read some standalone novels as I seem to end up reading a lot of series.
What books are you looking forward to reading this year? Let me know in the comments!
This year was my first year of reading freedom for quite some time! Having finished my literature degree last year, I was free to read whatever I wanted this year. I ended up being quite in the mood for fantasy and all of my top five books are either science fiction or fantasy. Without further ado, here are the books I enjoyed most in 2018.
There are many books I planned to read this year, but as per usual any ideas I had about what I wanted to read went out the window! I usually read what takes my fancy at the time. T5W is a group hosted on Goodreads, if you’d like to participate check it out here.
This week’s topic is a freebie so I’m throwing back to an old topic that I missed. There are so many series I want to read but haven’t started yet.
Top 10 Tuesday was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish, but as of January has now moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. If you’re interested in taking part click here.
