40 Books for 2012: Roundup

#12: Finding Magic by Stacia Kane

#13: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

#14: The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

#15: Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie

#16: Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

#17: Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris

#18: The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

#19: Tempest’s Fury by Nicole Peeler

#20: When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle

#21: Ashes by Ilsa Bick

#22: Fourth Comings by Megan McCafferty

#23: Chasing Magic by Stacia Kane

#24: Shadows by Ilsa Bick

#25: My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher

#26: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

#27: New York to Dallas by J.D. Robb

So... yet again, I did not meet my goal. And um, I may have also stopped blogging my reads mid-year. Oops. So maybe, new goal for 2013? Stop re-reading old books, so I can try more new books? Sounds like a plan.

May Reads: 40 Books for 2012

#11: Sweethearts by Sara Zarr – Childhood friends and outcasts, Jennifer and Cameron, were eachother’s sole confidants, until they were ripped apart. Years later, Cameron comes back, but the Jennifer he knew is gone. She’s reinvented herself as thin and popular Jenna. Now the two have to figure out how they fit into eachother’s lives, or if they do at all. I really liked this story, especially the unexpected ending, but it was heartbreaking and didn’t leave me with any warm and fuzzies.

April Reads: 40 Books for 2012

#10: Sacrifical Magic (Downside Ghosts, book 4) by Stacia Kane – I love this series, but I’ve never seen such a mess of a heroine. A junkie that grew up in foster homes who never learned to trust a single person is attempting to have her first serious adult relationship. It’s heartbreaking to witness, especially because she just can’t seem to keep herself from screwing it up. But she keeps trying, because she’s in love with a man named Terrible, the right-hand man of the neighborhood pimp and drug-dealer. Oh, and there are ghosts.

March Reads: 40 Books for 2012

#8: Charmed Thirds (Jessica Darling, Book 3) by Megan McCafferty – I don’t even know why I continue with this series. Jessica Darling annoys me so much. But I just can’t help needing to know if she makes a recovery of the trainwreck of her life. So far, not so much. Charmed Thirds covers Jessica four years of college. Sadly, her boyfriend Marcus Flutie is absent for most of it, as they are off having very different college experiences. And in typical Marcus fashion, he joins a freaking commune. Jessica does a plethora of stupid, obnoxious, and/or selfish things, and I still hate her. Then, at the end, Marcus reappears and I’m reeled in again.

#9: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen – So I loved Pride and Prejudice, right? LOVED. Then went on to watch the five hour BBC production and loved that too. I remembered liking the Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet version of Sense and Sensibility when it came out, so surely I would like reading it too? No. Many times NO. It took me forever, was so very boring and contained obscene amounts of gossip about how much money people have. So crass. And the Dashwood girls are no Bennett sisters.

February Reads: 40 Books for 2012

"According to Dickens, the first rule of human nature is self-preservation and when I forgive him for writing a character as pathetic as Oliver Twist, I’ll thank him for the advice."

-Jellicoe Road

Yes, my reading list is still pretty heavy with the YA selections. The Young Adult genre has simply produced some of the most amazing stories in the last ten years. It’s so different than how I remember YA from when I was a kid. I adored my beloved Paula Danziger, but I read all of her books in middle school. By high school, I read nothing but adult fiction. If YA fiction had been this amazing and epic when I was in high school, I wouldn’t have had to read all that Anne Rice. And may have abandoned black lipstick that much sooner.

#4: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater – Set on an island off Ireland where the annual sport every November is catching vicious water horses and racing them for a cash prize. This book was scary and brutal, but also incredibly moving and memorable. The characters were all so sympathetic and realistic, and the Irish village setting was so quaint and freezing. The main characters Kate and Sean also had some significant swoon factor. [book club selection]





#5: Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta – This is quite simply, one of the best books I’ve ever read. It was so good, that the moment I finished it, I started reading it all over again. I never do that. Taylor Markham goes to school on the Jellicoe Road where every Fall for a generation, a group of cadets from a military academy descends on the school property, and territory wars erupt between the two schools and the townies. This year, Taylor is in charge of the Jellicoe side, and Jonah Griggs, a boy from her murky past, is in charge of the cadets. There are so many amazing layers to this story, and all of the characters are fantastic, and I love them so much.


#6: Sloppy Firsts (Jessica Darling, Book 1) by Megan McCafferty – Jessica Darling’s best friend, Hope, has just moved away and left her alone in a high school where she seems to hate everyone and everything. The book is comprised of journal entries and letters to Hope about how awful her pseudo-friends are and her growing obsession with oddly hot pothead, Marcus Flutie. I liked aspects of this book, like the awesome stylings of Marcus Flutie, but overall found Jessica to be such a miserable whiner that she’s not at all sympathetic. [book club selection]



#7: Second Helpings (Jessica Darling, Book 2) by Megan McCafferty – So I loved Marcus Flutie so much, that I read the second Jessica Darling book just to get more of him. And this book, though still written as a series of whiny Jessica’s journal entries and letters, was much more rewarding in the Marcus Flutie department, and for that, I am grateful. This is Jessica’s senior year of high school, and she finally has some epiphanies about herself that serve to make her a slightly less obnoxious teenager. And I will probably read the third book in the series, because, you know, MARCUS.

January Reads: 40 Books for 2012

#1: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart – Fifteen year-old Frankie is a sophomore at a prestigious prep school who went from ugly duckling to swan over the Summer. She’s acquired a hot senior boyfriend Matthew, and been accepted into his group of friends - except for the secret meetings that Matthew doesn’t tell her about. Frankie manages to infiltrate the secret club and lead them into their best pranks ever, without their knowledge. Everyone in my book club loved this book, so I expected to like it better. But I wanted Frankie to be more invested in her own life, instead of trying to find acceptance from a secret boys club. It was good, but it didn’t quite live up to the hype.


#2: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green – Sixteen year-old Hazel has been living with terminal cancer for three years. Her life is centered around her parents and her trashy reality shows, and the oxygen tank she has to lug everywhere she goes, until she meets amputee and cancer survivor Augustus Waters at her teen cancer group. I don’t want to give too much away, but the truth is, I have a hard time talking about this book. It’s an incredibly emotional experience, and it stays with you for a really long time. Two days after finishing it, I broke down in tears at a stoplight. It’s not just the best John Green book, it may be the best book ever. My favorite review, from Forever Young Adult: Augustus Waters is MAGIC.

#3: Something Wikkid This Way Comes: A Novella by Nicole Peeler – Capitola, Shar, and Moo, the #1 ladies detective agency from Nicole Peeler’s Tempest Legacy gets their own story. They’re hired to investigate cult-like disappearances at a girls’ Catholic school. This was a light mystery, that I read in one evening on my Kindle for iPhone app. I wasn’t especially attached to the characters. I think the thing that works best about the Jane True series for me is Jane True herself, who is sadly absent from this story.