Top 11 of 2011

Top 11 of 2011:
You do not know how difficult this challenge has been for me.  I have changed my list several times and I am still not quite happy with it.  I decided to stick with YA novels, though I have read some great books tthis year for older readers.  The number one book will be revealed tomorrow.

#11  Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan

I really enjoyed this book because of the alternating viewpoints.  Each author wrote alternating chapters from the point of view of a different boy named Will Grayson. 

#10 The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier  
I read this book for my Young Adult Literature class and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  It makes me want to read more from Robert Cormier.

#9 Nation by Terry Pratchett  
I had heard many great things about Terry Pratchett's books for a long time.  I finally decided to pick up this one and give it a try.  I am not sorry that I did.  Pratchett's style is intelligent and humorous.

#8 The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
I really enjoyed this book. The title immediately caught my attention, and the cover art also intrigued me.  Mary's community is surrounded by a high fence to keep out the zombies who are constantly trying to get in to them.

#7 Gregor the Overlander (series) by Suzanne Collins 
My daughter was interested in reading this book because her teacher read part of it to her class, but she didn't get to find out what happened.  We started reading this series together, but we finished it separately.  I really enjoyed sharing the experience with her and discussing what would happen next.  The story was fun and entertaining with some good lessons along the way.

#6 Looking for Alaska by John Green 
This book turned me into a fan of John Green and prompted me to read Will Grayson, Will Grayson.  I loved the writing style and the depth of this book.

#5 Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson 
I had heard so many things about this book (both positive and negative), that I had no idea what to expect.  I am so happy that I read this book.  It is such a powerful story.  The reader can't help but feel sympathy to the main character as she struggles to come to terms with being raped. 

#4 The Maze Runner by James Dashner 
 I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but then again, I have a tendency to like dystopia novels (one of my favorite genres).  I am looking forward to reading the other two books in this trilogy.

#3 Going Bovine by Libba Bray
I loved this book!  The cover art captured my attention right away, but I was reluctant to read it since I wasn't overly impressed with another book I read by this same author.  I finally decided to give it a try and was rewarded for my effort.  The book turns a serious situation (a terminal illness) into a humorous, impossible quest away from reality. 

#2 The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 
Okay, this one is kind of cheating.  I did read this book this year, but it wasn't my first time to read it.  If it had been my first reading of the book, I probably would have put it at number 1 since it is still one of the best books I have ever read.  I loved this book the first time I read it and I loved it (and cried) again when I read it again this year.  It is a powerful book and I think everyone should read it.







Check back tomorrow for my #1 book of 2011!!!

Holiday Break Reading Challenge - Day 15

For this challenge, I need to set goals for 2012:

Goal #1
This year, I hope to blog about every YA book I read as soon as I finish reading it. Often I have the bad habit of moving on to my next book and then blogging about 2 or 3 books within the same day. I know that when I do this, I don't review the earlier books the way they often deserve.

Goal #2
I would also like to keep up with Goodreads more this year and list every book that I read. This year I only listed around 58 of them, but I know I read closer to 75 or 80. After my blog yesterday, several books came to mind that I had left off. If I had been more diligent on goodreads, I would have had no trouble remembering.

Goal #3
I would also like to read 100 books this year. This might be a little difficult as I finish my MLS though!

Holiday Break Reading Challenge - Day 14

Today's challenge was truly a challenge for me!  I had to make a collage of all the books I read in 2011.  The hardest part was trying to remember all of the books I've read this year.  Unfortunately, I did not record every book I read on Goodreads, or this would have been a much easier task.  As it is, I came up with 58 books, but there are others that I know that I have overlooked.  I am not sure what my true total for the year actually was.

Holiday Break Reading Challenge Day 13

This year, I would like to attempt 2 reading challenges. NThe first is the Chunkster Reading Challenge at http://chunksterchallenge.blogspot.com/2011/12/chunkster-challenge-2012-sign-ups.html
This Is a reading challenge for people who want to read books of 450 pages or larger. There are three different levels. I chose the middle challenge (6 books within the next year).

I would also like to join the Goodreads book challenge this year. I hope to read 50 books in 2012 year. I think I topped that number in 2011, but I didn't really keep track.

Holiday Break Reading Challenge - Day 11

"...from a black bottle, and choke the unfamiliar voice until..."

Today's Holiday Break Reading Challenge is to pick the 26th line on the 26th page of the book I'm reading right now.  I'm reading The Running Man by Stephen King.  I recently found a list of King's top 15 books and this book was listed as one of them.  It is one of the few King books that I have never read, so I thought it would be a good time to pick it up.  The book I'm reading actually has four of his early novels in it, but I decided to look at the 26th page of the novel that I am reading rather than the entire book itself.

Holiday Break Reading Challenge - Day 10

Today's Challenge:
We all have books that are special to us. Today's challenge is to choose a book or books that you have received as a gift/gifts that mean something special to you.

I couldn't just pick one book for this challenge.  There were three books that I received for Christmas presents in consecutive years.  My parents knew how much books meant to me; they are both readers and they instilled their love of reading in me.  They know I love the classics, but they also know how much I love fantasy and science fiction.   One year I received The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare!  I was so excited!  Another year, I received Legends, which was a book that I had been wanting for awhile.  It had all of my favorite fantasy authors in it.  Another year, I received a two volume set of Jane Austen's works. 

Holiday Break Reading Challenge - Day 9

Today's Challenge:

Merry Christmas Eve.  For today's activity I want everyone to think about books that have Christmas as an important part of the story.  Post the cover and the synopsis so we can see what it is about.  

My submission:
I have only read one Christmas book recently.  Christmas is Murder is a mystery book.  Rex Graves is a barrister who is visiting staying at the Swanmere Manor Hotel for Christmas.  As soon as he arrives he and the other guests are snowed in.  Rex must become an amature detective when he discovers that one of the guests has been murdered.   

Holiday Break Reading Challenge - Day 8

Today's challenge:
Sometimes books can surprise us in a good way and sometimes they can surprise us in a bad way.  A book you might have been waiting to come out for a year could be a total bomb once you finally get to read it and a book you drag your feet about reading can turn out to be the best book ever. Today let's explore those books. Create a blog post featuring a HIT and a MISS.  Come back and link it using the Simply Linked.

My Submission:

Thankfully, I have had more hits than misses this year.  I always enjoy a good book, and some people would say that I never read a bad book.  I can almost always find something redeeming about a book.  If I can't, then the book is truly awful.  I can't say that about my submissions today.  I thought it would be fun to add a couple of hits and misses, and I also thought it would be fun to look at a hit and a miss by the same author.

Hit:

Going Bovine totally surprised me as a hit.  It sounded like an interesting premise, but it was a very thick book, and I wondered if the author could keep my attention for that length of time, especially after reading another book by this author that didn't really measure up (see below).  For my full review of this book click here.

Another hit for me this year was Twenty Boy Summer, which was a shock to me, to say the least.  I fully expected to dislike this book.  I only read it for my Young Adult Literature class.  I thought it was going to be a superficial teenage novel with no depth.  I was shocked to find that the book did have depth and that the characters were three dimensional.  I sympathized with them and loved to see them mature and change over the course of the story. 

Miss:

A Great and Terrible Beauty, also by Libba Bray, was a book that I thought I would enjoy.  However, I found it to be lacking.  It has none of the wit and humor of Going Bovine and the storyline drags on in places. I do know people who enjoyed this book, but it just wasn't interesting enough for me to continue on with this series.

Shiver is another book that I looked forward to reading.  It is also a book that I felt was lacking.  I am very skilled at letting my imagination slip into a book, but this book was just too out there for me.  No, it wasn't the premise of the book that was hard for me to buy; the premise intrigued me and caused me to pick the book up in the first place.  It was the characters that were hard for me to believe.  The dialogue seemed so unreal, and the characters did not seem like real people to me at all.  I can enjoy any fantasy book, as long as I can relate to the characters and see them live and breathe.  These characters seemed like shadows on the wall.

Holiday Break Reading Challenge - Day 7

Today's Challenge:

For this activity we want you to dig through your memory and come up with your favorite character of the year.  It doesn't have to be a book released this year, but it has to be a character you read about this year. Create a post and come back and link it using the Simply Linked at the bottom of this post.

This is a difficult challenge for me since I tend to love so many of the characters I read about it.  However, the one who keeps coming back to me, as I try to sift through the huge number of books that I've read this year, is Katniss Everdeen.

Katniss is everything I like in a character.  She is a strong person, but she isn't perfect.  She makes mistakes, but usually when she is least comfortable with herself, her true self takes over and she does the right thing.  I am really looking forward to seeing the movie, yet at the same time, I am wary of movie versions of books that I like.

I just hope that the movie does it justice and that it doesn't saturate everything until we're sick of it.  It seems that has almost happened to Twilight lately.  I also hope that the actress who plays Katniss will be able to portray her as a strong, likeable character. 

I guess I'll have to wait until March to find out!

Holiday Break Reading Challenge - Day 6

Here is the challenge for Day 6:

What you have to do is this - figure out the title of the book by the synonyms I used for them. (I apologize in advance for how silly these probably are, but really, my creativity only goes so far.) Do the best you can.  The person with the most correct answers wins. If there is a tie, Julie and I will draw names out of a hat.

Fill out the Google form below in order to be eligible for the prize.

I'll post the answers after the winner is announced.

1. INTERSTATE TO HADES
2. THE UNENDING GRIN
3. FEMALE ABDUCTED
4. CARDINAL MITTEN
5. FIBBER
6. THE UNENDING SMOOCH
7. THE STERLING CUTLASS
8. ASSASSIN ITALIAN FOOD
9. MURKY EXISTENCE
10. SMALL MALE SIBLING

Holiday Break Reading Challenge - Day 5

Today's challenge:

Reject by Monica D. Cartwright

Tom has felt rejected his entire life by his family, his peers, and his community.  Then one fateful night, he rejects them all and decides to leave his home forever.  What he didn't count on was a life-changing car accident that would send him on a path he could never have imagined.  Will Tom be able to recover and face his demons, or will he always be the reject he believes himself to be?

HBRC Day 5 - Create-a-Cover

This is one of my favorites, folks.  Get ready to get those creative juices flowing.

1 – Go to “Fake Name Generator” or click http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/

The name that appears is your author name.

2 – Go to “Random Word Generator” or click http://www.websitestyle.com/parser/randomword.shtml

The word listed under “Random Verb” is your title.

3 – Go to “FlickrCC” or click http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/index.php

Type your title into the search box. The first photo that contains a person is your cover.

4 – Use Picnik, or something similar to put it all together. Be sure to crop and/or zoom in.
5 - Link your Book Cover post using Simply Linked.

In terms of the activity for the HBRC, we're asking the participants to create the cover and write a short synopsis to go along with it. What is your book about?  We can't wait to read your ideas.

Holiday Break Reading Challenge - Day 4

Okay, I'm late getting started (as usual) with the Holiday Break Reading Challenge.  But, I guess I should say better late than never!  For today's challenge, I had to find a blog that discusses one of my favorite genres of books.  I love fantasy and many of the best fantasy books are written for young adult readers.  I found Wants and Worlds and thought that this would be a good choice for this challenge.