Best of 2011: Most Anticipated of 2012

It's the last day of Sarah's Best of 2011 blogfest. Today's topic is the five books we're most looking forward to in 2012. This is hard. I didn't expect it to be this hard. There are a ton of books I'm looking forward to next year. I have several friends with books (debuts or otherwise) coming out next year, and I'm excited about all of them. Plus there are millions of other books coming out that sound awesome, too. And sequels to books I enjoyed. So it was hard, and I changed my mind a lot when writing this list, but these are my top five choices at the moment I wrote this post. And since some of them don't have revealed covers yet, I'm going to not post pictures with this post. 

Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard. I've already read this. And seen the illustrations. But I am so excited to get an actual, physical copy of this book with the drawings in it. It is going to be beyond awesome. 

Insurgent by Veronica Roth. So much happened at the end of Divergent. How could I not be anxiously awaiting the sequel?

Daughter of Smoke and Bone sequel by Laini Taylor. Well DoS&B was on all my lists that it could possibly be on this week, so yeah. I'm just about dying for the next book.

Crewel by Gennifer Albin. I have wanted to read this since I first saw it on PM. It sounds so. awesome.

Wrong Side of Dead by Kelly Meding. I had to pick one that wasn't YA, didn't I? It's hard for me to find adult urban fantasy series that I want to stick with book after book, but I'm really enjoying this series.

Best of 2011: Recommendations

Today's topic for Sarah Enni's Best of 2011 blogfest is the top five books we recommended to people in 2011. I really like this one, because it feels less restricting to me somehow than yesterday's topic (top 5 books of the year). Here are my five, in no particular order: 

Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard. 

This was easily the book I recommended the most in 2011. It's just a book that I feel like has something for everyone. The writing, the characters, the setting. It's beautiful and it makes my heart happy every time I read it.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.

I have always, always loved fantasy. High (and epic) fantasy is where my heart is, as much as I love other genres. I don't know why. I just love it. And this series is easily the best in the genre I've ever read. Also, the TV show is such an amazingly done adaptation that I want everyone in the world to read the books and watch the show and have their minds blown by the awesomeness.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor.

It hasn't been out that long, but I've been telling people about it since I read it after getting an ARC at BEA. I knew from page one that I was going to love it, and it completely lived up to the high hopes I had from that first page.

Divergent by Veronica Roth.

I recommend this one a lot because a) it is awesome and b) people are really into this genre right now and I don't think anyone's dystopian reading life is complete if they haven't read this yet. Not only because it is action-filled like The Hunger Games, but there's also something about it that makes me think strongly (in a flattering way) of The Giver, which is one of the best books ever.

Shade's Children by Garth Nix.

In all honesty it's not specifically this book but ALL books by Garth Nix that I've recommended a lot this year. But this one is my favorite, and it's less well-known, because he wrote it before his popular Abhorsen trilogy. This is my actual favorite book of all time. So whenever there is an opportunity for me to recommend it to someone, I do.

Best of 2011: Favorite Books

This was hard. I read a lot of amazing books this year, as I was reminded when I went back through my excel spreadsheet (and Goodreads) to see what I'd read. To make myself less confused, I had to block out books I had read before 2011, even if they came out in 2011. And not all of the books on this list came out in 2011, but it's when I read them for the first time. And this post is doubling as both an RTW post and a participation in Sarah Enni's best of 2011 series. 

Daughter of Smoke and Bone was not only one of the best books I read this year, but one of the best books I've read ever.

Hex Hall is one of my favorite books, so Demonglass, its sequel, had a lot to live up to. It was certainly different than the first, but it was still just as fun and action-filled. I have never read anything with such an awesomely-and-not-obnoxiously sarcastic narrator as this series.

So, I'm definitely one of Those People who didn't read A Game of Thrones until the TV series came out. I'd always meant to, but never made it a priority. Then I watched one episode of the show, and bought a box set of books 1-4 immediately. I also read A Clash of Kings this year. It is equally awesome. This series deserves all the praise it gets. However, I am sad that there are about 53.6 million different covers for this book, and none of them (that I could find) feature Khal Drogo. I did spend a really long time google imaging him to find one, though, so I guess we can call it a win.

I am actually not quite finished reading Froi of the Exiles yet. But I will be before the year ends. And the rest would have to really fall apart for me to want to rescind it from this list, and I know it's not going to. Finnikin of the Rock is one of my favorite books, so reading a sequel to it just completes my life.

A Monster Calls chewed up my heart, but in a good way. I don't even know what to say about it, really. It's beautifully written, a beautiful story, and has beautiful illustrations. 

Best of 2011: Best YA Girls & Boys

This is the second day of Sarah Enni's best of 2011 series, and today's topic is the top 5 girls and top 5 boys in YA this year. I actually found this challenging! I'm sort of particular about characters who actually stick with me. Plots and emotions and prose tend to hook me more than the actual characters. But I looked through the books I read, and picked out the characters who stuck with me the most.

Girls:

Alex from Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick. 

She was just generally badass, and as a bonus, she wasn't cold and heartless in the process. She was just a really well-rounded and relatable character.

Karou from Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. 

If I could actually become any character I've read this year, I think she's the one I'd choose.

Sophie from Demonglass by Rachel Hawkins.

Yeah, I'm including a couple characters on these lists who are in sequels that came out this year, even if I met the characters last year. (Or before.) Sophie is witty and hilarious and I cannot imagine reading this series with any other narrator. 

Grace from Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard.

So I know that it seems like the obvious choice for a character to love from this book would be Mandarin. And yeah, Mandarin rocks. But the reason I love Grace so much is that I felt like I could be her. She is the awkwardness and uncertainty of that age, where you feel like everyone else has got it figured out but you.

Calla from Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer.

What I actually like about Calla is that she's flawed in a very realistic way. She was in Nightshade, and she kept it on in this sequel. She doesn't always make the perfect choices, but you always understand why she does what she does. And I like that. She's also a strong character, and I like that too.

Boys:

Balthazar from Afterlife by Claudia Gray.

This is definitely kind of cheating, because I've loved Balthazar for four books now, but I did read Afterlife this year, so I'm counting it. I don't know what it is about him, specifically, that I like so much, but Balthazar is one of my favorite characters in any book. Ever.

Will from Angelfire by Courtney Moulton.

Will is very badass, but also very sweet and very dedicated. Which makes him a particularly awesome YA love interest. 

Otto from A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan.

Otto isn't a love interest in this book (although I like to imagine that maybe if the book had kept on, there could have been something there). He also isn't human. And he is a great character. My favorite from this book. 

Akiva from Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor.

This book definitely featured a bit of instalove, and yet, I did not care at all. Because I would probably instalove Akiva too.

Sean from The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater.

I don't know what it was about Sean that I liked, but when I read this, I found myself looking forward to the parts narrated from his POV. 

Best of 2011: Top 5 Favorite Songs to Write To

This year, I'm participating in Sarah Enni's annual best of the year blog series. It was harder than I expected to condense my year in books into lists of five. But also very fun. There are tons of other people participating too; check out Sarah's post to find them!

Today's topic is: Top 5 favorite songs/albums to write to in 2011. I don't write to albums, so I'm going with songs for this topic. I looked through my playlists and thought about all the songs on there and how much I've listened to them, and I picked the five that I think I listened to the most this year while writing. They may or may not actually have anything to do with my writing, but I listened to them anyway.

Call Me and Diamond Eyes both by Shinedown. I thought maybe I should only do one song per band since I'm not doing it by albums, but Shinedown is my favorite band and I listen to them a lot.

Dragonfly by Shaman's Harvest. I came across this song randomly and then proceeded to listen to it practically on repeat for like five months.

King Nothing by Metallica. I know this song is ridiculously old, but for some reason, it just was really effective for setting me in a good writing mood.

So Far Away by Avenged Sevenfold. I'm also obsessed with several other songs on this album. But that's the one I've listened to the most.

Beautiful cover: IF I LIE by Corrine Jackson

So it has been quite a while since I blogged. I'll try to pick up again soon. I'm participating in some fun end-of-the-year posts next week, so hopefully that will get me back into the spirit! 

Now, I'm posting because my friend Corrine Jackson revealed the cover for her book IF I LIE today, and it is amazing! I love that the whole thing is grayscale except the title. I am so drawn to things like this in stores. Here it is, for those of you who haven't seen it yet:

And here is the book's summary:


A powerful debut novel about the gray space between truth and perception.


Quinn’s done the unthinkable: she kissed a guy who is not Carey, her boyfriend. And she got caught. Being branded a cheater would be bad enough, but Quinn is deemed a traitor, and shunned by all of her friends. Because Carey’s not just any guy—he’s serving in Afghanistan and revered by everyone in their small, military town.


Quinn could clear her name, but that would mean revealing secrets that she’s vowed to keep—secrets that aren’t hers to share. And when Carey goes MIA, Quinn must decide how far she’ll go to protect her boyfriend…and her promise.


It sounds amazing, doesn't it? I can't wait to read this one (but I will have to wait a little while! It's out August 28, 2012.)

RTW: All-Time Favorite Book Covers

It has been a while since I did an RTW! I have been a slacker. But I couldn't resist this one. And I should warn you, when you enter the YA section and a sea of black covers await you, I am the person who is lured in by such covers. Narrowing down my favorites was NOT EASY. But I tried. There are still a lot. In no particular order:

I like this one because it is creepy. I also really, really like the covers of her entire WAKE trilogy.

I actually don't think an online image does this one justice. It is even prettier in physical form. Also I love the cover of its sequel, RAGE.

I also think that this one looks even prettier in physical form.

This cover was just revealed! But I love it, I love everything about it. So it had to be on my list.

The other covers in the trilogy are pretty too, but this one is my favorite for some reason.

I don't know how it would be possible to pass this in a store and not at least pause to admire it.

This cover is so. creepy. It's half the reason I read the book.

I don't know why, you guys. I don't know what it is about this cover that I like, but when I was in late middle school, I saw this cover when browsing the book store, and it stopped me, and this became one of my favorite books ever. 

So I could go on with a million other examples of covers I love, but I will stop there. What are your favorite covers? Share a link to your post on YA Highway!

RTW: Best book of July

This is easy, and not just because I haven't read a ton of books this month. DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE by Laini Taylor was not only the best book I've read this month, but one of the best books I've read ever.

Everything about it was awesome, and it's so completely unique. The setting, the characters, the writing, the plot, all of it. Also I loved that when weird mythological stuff happens in the normal everyday world, people notice. It adds a layer of reality to the book.

I could go on about it, but I won't. It's amazing. That's all.

What was your favorite read this month? Visit YA Highway to share!

RTW: Villains

This week's RTW question asks: Who is your favorite literary villain?

Reading this question, two characters came immediately to mind. And they are both the same type of character: a sort of maybe villain.

First: Severus Snape. He's not too nice to Harry right from the start, and he's kind of a sketchball. I mean, sure, Harry can be kind of an entitled little pest, so I kind of liked that he had a few people who weren't fawning over him. But seriously you just never. knew. what was going on with Snape. He would do nice things, then he would do bad things. Dumbledore trusted him, but no one else seemed to--or seemed to even understand why. By the seventh book, I had grown kind of fond of Snape, because he'd been such a huge part of the books and he seemed like a person with a lot of really shitty decisions to make. Plus, it was fun to have that confusing emotional back and forth that comes from just having NO idea what to make of someone.

Second: Mrs. Coulter in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Mrs. Coulter is another one of those confusing characters. She does some really effed up things. And at first she seems pretty much like a straight up super villain, but as the trilogy goes on, you start to almost...understand her. I mean, she still makes effed up choices. (Stop kidnapping people, Mrs. Coulter!) But she's kind of badass. I can't say I ever truly liked her. And if we hung out, I would not eat or drink anything she gave me, and I would probably also not be alone with her because I'd fear she was going to kill me, but by the end, you realized that she did actually have a heart in there, and that her villainous behavior wasn't just for the sake of it.

So I guess I like ambiguous villains. The kind who aren't corrupt to the core, but maybe are a little more morally flexible than the average person might be comfortable with.

Who's your favorite villain? Visit YA Highway and share your link!

RTW: Inspiring images

I like finding pictures of scenery when I'm writing. Sometimes I find them to help me describe something, when I have a picture in my head but want it to be clearer, and sometimes just because I like looking at pretty pictures of scenery. (I am also one of Those People who takes a thousand pictures of scenery while on vacation and hardly any pictures that actually have me in them.) In fact, I have a folder on my computer for each WIP, specifically for pictures, plus a folder for pictures that make me feel inspired but don't fit with any WIP--yet.

So here are some!

For my futuristic ice age WIP: 

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High Fantasy WIP:

I stole this image from someone the last time we did an images RTW. It is perfect.

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Source: The super old computer game Myst

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I have about a million more for each, but I suspect that is plenty of images for you all to look at! What about you? Do you have images that inspire you while you're writing? Visit YA Highway to add your link and see what others said!