Monday, January 30, 2017

january wrap up

Hi and welcome to another monthly wrap-up here at Stardust and Words. I feel like January lasted 87,000 years and I am so glad that it's over, even if it means we're one month closer to the hot weather (which I hate). I do often love the month of February, so I am looking forward to seeing what this month brings. I ended up reading 14 books in January, which isn't too shabby if you ask me. I posted five reviews as well! I hope you guys had a good January :)

1. Rejected Princesses: Tales of History's Boldest Heroines, Hellions and Heretics – Jason Porath ☆☆☆☆

Blending the iconoclastic feminism of The Notorious RBG and the confident irreverence of Go the F**ck to Sleep, a brazen and empowering illustrated collection that celebrates inspirational badass women throughout history, based on the popular Tumblr blog.

Well-behaved women seldom make history. Good thing these women are far from well behaved . . .

Illustrated in a contemporary animation style, Rejected Princesses turns the ubiquitous "pretty pink princess" stereotype portrayed in movies, and on endless toys, books, and tutus on its head, paying homage instead to an awesome collection of strong, fierce, and yes, sometimes weird, women: warrior queens, soldiers, villains, spies, revolutionaries, and more who refused to behave and meekly accept their place.

An entertaining mix of biography, imagery, and humor written in a fresh, young, and riotous voice, this thoroughly researched exploration salutes these awesome women drawn from both historical and fantastical realms, including real life, literature, mythology, and folklore. Each profile features an eye-catching image of both heroic and villainous women in command from across history and around the world, from a princess-cum-pirate in fifth century Denmark, to a rebel preacher in 1630s Boston, to a bloodthirsty Hungarian countess, and a former prostitute who commanded a fleet of more than 70,000 men on China’s seas


2. Captive Prince (Captive Prince #1) – C.S. Pacat ☆☆☆☆* 

Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos. But when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave.

Beautiful, manipulative, and deadly, his new master, Prince Laurent, epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country.

For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone else…


3. Prince's Gambit (Captive Prince #2) – C.S. Pacat ☆☆☆☆☆*  

With their countries on the brink of war, Damen and his new master, Prince Laurent, must exchange the intrigues of the palace for the sweeping might of the battlefield as they travel to the border to avert a lethal plot.

Forced to hide his identity, Damen finds himself increasingly drawn to the dangerous, charismatic Laurent. But as the fledgling trust between the two men deepens, the truth of secrets from both their pasts is poised to deal them the crowning death blow…







4. King's Rising (Captive Prince #3) – C.S. Pacat ☆☆☆☆☆* 

Damianos of Akielos has returned.

His identity now revealed, Damen must face his master Prince Laurent as Damianos of Akielos, the man Laurent has sworn to kill.

On the brink of a momentous battle, the future of both their countries hangs in the balance. In the south, Kastor’s forces are massing. In the north, the Regent’s armies are mobilising for war. Damen’s only hope of reclaiming his throne is to fight together with Laurent against their usurpers.

Forced into an uneasy alliance the two princes journey deep into Akielos, where they face their most dangerous opposition yet. But even if the fragile trust they have built survives the revelation of Damen’s identity—can it stand against the Regents final, deadly play for the throne?


5. Passenger (Passenger #1) – Alexandra Bracken ☆☆☆☆☆*  

Passage, n.
i. A brief section of music composed of a series of notes and flourishes.
ii. A journey by water; a voyage.
iii. The transition from one place to another, across space and time.

In one devastating night, violin prodigy Etta Spencer loses everything she knows and loves. Thrust into an unfamiliar world by a stranger with a dangerous agenda, Etta is certain of only one thing: she has traveled not just miles but years from home. And she’s inherited a legacy she knows nothing about from a family whose existence she’s never heard of. Until now.

Nicholas Carter is content with his life at sea, free from the Ironwoods—a powerful family in the colonies—and the servitude he’s known at their hands. But with the arrival of an unusual passenger on his ship comes the insistent pull of the past that he can’t escape and the family that won’t let him go so easily. Now the Ironwoods are searching for a stolen object of untold value, one they believe only Etta, Nicholas’ passenger, can find. In order to protect her, he must ensure she brings it back to them—whether she wants to or not.

Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the traveler who will do anything to keep the object out of the Ironwoods’ grasp. But as they get closer to the truth of their search, and the deadly game the Ironwoods are playing, treacherous forces threaten to separate Etta not only from Nicholas but from her path home... forever.


6. Wayfarer (Passenger #2) – Alexandra Bracken ☆☆☆☆  

All Etta Spencer wanted was to make her violin debut when she was thrust into a treacherous world where the struggle for power could alter history. After losing the one thing that would have allowed her to protect the Timeline, and the one person worth fighting for, Etta awakens alone in an unknown place and time, exposed to the threat of the two groups who would rather see her dead than succeed. When help arrives, it comes from the last person Etta ever expected—Julian Ironwood, the Grand Master’s heir who has long been presumed dead, and whose dangerous alliance with a man from Etta’s past could put them both at risk.

Meanwhile, Nicholas and Sophia are racing through time in order to locate Etta and the missing astrolabe with Ironwood travelers hot on their trail. They cross paths with a mercenary-for-hire, a cheeky girl named Li Min who quickly develops a flirtation with Sophia. But as the three of them attempt to evade their pursuers, Nicholas soon realizes that one of his companions may have ulterior motives.

As Etta and Nicholas fight to make their way back to one another, from Imperial Russia to the Vatican catacombs, time is rapidly shifting and changing into something unrecognizable… and might just run out on both of them.


7. Green But For A Season (Captive Prince Short Stories #1) – C.S. Pacat ☆☆☆

Green but for a Season is the first of a series of four Captive Prince short stories. It follows the relationship between Jord and Aimeric and is set during the events of Prince’s Gambit.











 
8. The Summer Palace (Captive Prince Short Stories #2) – C.S. Pacat ☆☆☆☆

"When all this is over, we could take horses and stay a week in the palace..."

Set after the events of the Captive Prince trilogy, The Summer Palace is a story about Damen and Laurent. It's an epilogue of sorts to the Captive Prince series.










9. It Ends With Us – Colleen Hoover ☆☆☆

Lily hasn't always had it easy, but that's never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She's come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up - she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily's life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, and maybe even a little arrogant. He's also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily, but Ryle's complete aversion to relationships is disturbing.

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan - her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.

With this bold and deeply personal novel, Colleen Hoover delivers a heart-wrenching story that breaks exciting new ground for her as a writer. It Ends With Us is an unforgettable tale of love that comes at the ultimate price.

This book contains graphic scenes and very sensitive subject matter.

  
10. The Two Gentlemen of Verona – William Shakespeare ☆☆

The Two Gentlemen of Verona is commonly agreed to be Shakespeare's first comedy, and probably his first play. A comedy built around the confusions of doubling, cross-dressing, and identity, it is also a play about the ideal of male friendship and what happens to those friendships when men fall in love.










  
11. I'll Give You the Sun – Jandy Nelson ☆☆☆☆☆*

A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell

Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.
 

12. The Bear and the Nightingale – Katherine Arden ☆☆☆1/2


At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.

After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa’s stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.


13. History is All You Left Me – Adam Silvera ☆☆☆☆ 

When Griffin’s first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes. Even though Theo had moved to California for college and started seeing Jackson, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he’s been imagining for himself has gone far off course.

To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his heartache is Jackson. But no matter how much they open up to each other, Griffin’s downward spiral continues. He’s losing himself in his obsessive compulsions and destructive choices, and the secrets he’s been keeping are tearing him apart.

If Griffin is ever to rebuild his future, he must first confront his history, every last heartbreaking piece in the puzzle of his life.

  
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce ☆☆☆1/2

The first, shortest, and most approachable of James Joyce’s novels, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays the Dublin upbringing of Stephen Dedalus, from his youthful days at Clongowes Wood College to his radical questioning of all convention. In doing so, it provides an oblique self-portrait of the young Joyce himself. At its center lie questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive in style, the novel subtly and beautifully orchestrates the patterns of quotation and repetition instrumental in its hero’s quest to create his own character, his own language, life, and art: "to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."



xx
Caroline 

spotlight on: hey the world is falling apart

Hi and welcome to another installation of Spotlight On, which is a monthly series here at Stardust and Words. The rest of the Spotlight posts can be seen here. Today, I thought I would use the Spotlight post to talk about something that I'm sure you guys are all aware of: the utter trash fire that is America right now! Whatever your politics, it's super clear that everything is extremely messy right now, and if you're like me, there is a fair amount of anger and fear just mixed in with your every day existence now. So I figured I'd take to the blog and give some recommendations of books that will not only allow you to escape for a minute from the craziness of the outside world, but also books that are A+ with representation of people and things that this new political landscape threatens. In supporting these books, we are supporting these authors, some of whom stand to lose a lot in this new landscape, but who are still fighting and creating things that are beautiful.

1. The Sun is Also A Star – Nicola Yoon
2. History is All You Left Me – Adam Silvera
3. I'll Give You the Sun – Jandy Nelson
4. The Female of the Species – Mindy McGinnis
5. When the Moon Was Ours – Anna Marie McLemore
6. When We Collided – Emery Lord
7. Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda – Becky Albertalli
8. Wolf by Wolf – Ryan Graudin
9. Red Queen – Victoria Aveyard
10. To All the Boys I've Loved Before – Jenny Han
11. The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas (support it when it comes out – February 28)
12. All American Boys – Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
13. An Ember in the Ashes – Sabaa Tahir
14. Shatter Me – Tahereh Mafi
15. I Am Malala – Malala Yousafzai

xx
Caroline

history is all you left me: stardust reviews

History is All You Left Me

Adam Silvera

☆☆☆☆

goodreads/b&n/amazon

When Griffin’s first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes. Even though Theo had moved to California for college and started seeing Jackson, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he’s been imagining for himself has gone far off course.

To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his heartache is Jackson. But no matter how much they open up to each other, Griffin’s downward spiral continues. He’s losing himself in his obsessive compulsions and destructive choices, and the secrets he’s been keeping are tearing him apart.

If Griffin is ever to rebuild his future, he must first confront his history, every last heartbreaking piece in the puzzle of his life.


full review under the cut! 

Monday, January 23, 2017

the bear and the nightingale: stardust arc reviews

The Bear and the Nightingale

Katherine Arden

☆☆☆1/2

goodreads/amazon/b&n

At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.

After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa’s stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.


full review under the cut! 

Saturday, January 21, 2017

i'll give you the sun: stardust reread reviews

I'll Give You The Sun

Jandy Nelson

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (yeah I gave this book 10 out of 5 stars. COME FOR ME)

goodreads/b&n/amazon

A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell

Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.


full review of this book... since I've somehow never review it before... under the cut! 

wayfarer: stardust reviews

Wayfarer (Passenger #2)

Alexandra Bracken

☆☆☆☆

goodreads/b&n/amazon

All Etta Spencer wanted was to make her violin debut when she was thrust into a treacherous world where the struggle for power could alter history. After losing the one thing that would have allowed her to protect the Timeline, and the one person worth fighting for, Etta awakens alone in an unknown place and time, exposed to the threat of the two groups who would rather see her dead than succeed. When help arrives, it comes from the last person Etta ever expected—Julian Ironwood, the Grand Master’s heir who has long been presumed dead, and whose dangerous alliance with a man from Etta’s past could put them both at risk.

Meanwhile, Nicholas and Sophia are racing through time in order to locate Etta and the missing astrolabe with Ironwood travelers hot on their trail. They cross paths with a mercenary-for-hire, a cheeky girl named Li Min who quickly develops a flirtation with Sophia. But as the three of them attempt to evade their pursuers, Nicholas soon realizes that one of his companions may have ulterior motives.

As Etta and Nicholas fight to make their way back to one another, from Imperial Russia to the Vatican catacombs, time is rapidly shifting and changing into something unrecognizable… and might just run out on both of them.


full review under the cut! 

intermission: stardust reviews

Intermission

Serena Chase

☆☆☆1/2

goodreads/b&n/amazon

We are starlight on snow. The reflection of something already beautiful—absorbed, reflected, and remade into something . . . more.

And this kiss . . .

This kiss is everything I’ve needed to say . . . and longed to hear.


Sixteen-year-old Faith Prescott eagerly awaits the day she will exchange her small Iowa hometown for the bright lights of Broadway, but her success-driven parents want her to pursue a more practical career, labeling “artsy” people—including their daughter—as foolish dreamers worthy of little more than disdain.

When Faith meets nineteen-year-old Noah Spencer she discovers someone who understands her musical theatre dreams . . . because he shares them.

Faith’s mother despises everything about Noah—his age, his upbringing . . . even his religious beliefs—and she grasps at every opportunity to belittle his plans to study theatre and pursue a stage career. When those criticisms shift further toward hostility, resulting in unjust suspicions and baseless accusations, an increasingly fearful stage is set for Faith at home, where severe restrictions and harsh penalties are put in place to remove Noah Spencer from her life.

But Faith has never connected with anyone like she has with Noah, and no matter how tight a stranglehold her mother enforces to keep them apart, Faith will not give him up. Behind the curtain, Faith’s love for Noah continues to grow . . . as does her determination to hold on to her dreams—and him—no matter how high the cost.


full review under the cut! 

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

read and reviewed in 2016

Here is a list of all of the books that I read in 2016! 

Rating is out of five, in parenthesis. Re-reads will be marked with a * and those that are reviewed will be bolded and linked! 


January

  1. Ten Thousand Skies Above You (Firebird #2) – Claudia Gray (5) 
  2. Steel Scars (Red Queen 0.2) – Victoria Aveyard (3.5) 
  3. Truthwitch (The Witchlands #1) – Susan Dennard (5) 
  4. Passenger (Passenger #1) – Alexandra Bracken (5) 
  5. The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller (5)*
  6. A Good Man is Hard to Find – Flannery O'Connor (3)
  7. Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman (5) 
  8. I'll Meet You There – Heather Demetrios (4.5)
  9. Washington Square – Henry James (3)     
February 
  1. November 9 – Colleen Hoover (4.5) 
  2. The Coquette – Hannah Webster Foster (3)  
  3. Me Before You – JoJo Moyes (5) 
  4. City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments #1) – Cassandra Clare (5)*
  5. Reign of Shadows – Sophie Jordan (4) (link to GR review)
  6. City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments #2) – Cassandra Clare (5)* 
  7. Captive Prince (Captive Prince #1) – C.S. Pacat (4.5) 
  8. Prince's Gambit (Captive Prince #2) – C.S. Pacat (5)
  9. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl – Harriet Jacobs (4) 
  10. Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston (4) 
  11. Kings Rising (Captive Prince #3) – C.S. Pacat (5+)  
  12. Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner – (2.5) 
  13. City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments #3) – Cassandra Clare (5)*  
  14. Learning to Swim – Annie Cosby (3) 
March
  1. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë (4) 
  2. Some Kind of Happiness – Claire Legrand (4.5)  
  3. The Crown and the Arrow (The Wrath and the Dawn #0.5) – Renée Ahdieh (3) 
  4. Anna and the French Kiss – Stephanie Perkins (5+)* 
  5. A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes #1) – Brittany Cavallaro (4.5)
  6. The Word For Yes – Claire Needell (2)  
  7. Ivy – Sarah Oleksyk (2) 
  8. Rebel of the Sands – Alwyn Hamilton (5)  
  9. Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1) – Cassandra Clare (5)*
  10. Devil and the Bluebird – Jennifer Mason-Black (4)
  11. A Fierce and Subtle Poison – Samantha Mabry (3) 
  12. Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda – Becky Albertalli (5)*
  13. Wink Poppy Midnight – April Genevieve Tucholke (3) (link to GR review)
  14. The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon (2) 
  15. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys (3) 
April 
  1.  City of Fallen Angels – Cassandra Clare (4)*
  2. Citizen – Claudia Rankine
  3. When We Collided – Emery Lord (5) 
  4. Housekeeping – Marilynne Robinson (3) 
  5. Enter Title Here – Rahul Kanakia  (3)
  6. Double Down (Lois Lane #2) – Gwenda Bond (4) 
  7. The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood (3)  
  8. Uprooted – Naomi Novik (4)
  9. The Loose Ends List – Carrie Firestone (5)
  10. The Great American Whatever – Tim Federle (3.5)
May 

  1. The Start of Me and You – Emery Lord (5)*
  2. The Wrath and the Dawn – Renée Ahdieh (5)*
  3. The Rose and the Dagger – Renée Ahdieh (5)
  4. And I Darken – Kiersten White (5)
  5. The Unexpected Everything – Morgan Matson (5)
  6. Since You've Been Gone – Morgan Matson (5)*
  7. The Heir (The Selection #4) – Kiera Cass (4)*
  8. The Crown (The Selection #5) – Kiera Cass (5) 
  9. The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1) – Rick Riordan (4)
  10. Summer Days and Summer Nights – edited by Stephanie Perkins (4) 
  11. The Museum of Heartbreak – Meg Leder (4) 
June
  1. One Paris Summer – Denise Grover Swank (3.5)
  2. Brightwood – Tania Unsworth (3.5)
  3. The BFG – Roald Dahl (4) 
  4. Wanderlost – Jen Malone (4) (link to GR review)
  5. Love and Gelato – Jenna Evans Welch (5) 
  6. Little Black Dresses, Little White Lies – Laura Stampler (4)
  7. Sing – Vivi Greene (3)
  8. Finnikin of the Rock (Lumatere Chronicles #1) – Melina Marchetta (5)
  9. Tiny Pretty Things – Dhonielle Clayton and Sona Charaipotra (4)*
  10. Eleanor and Park – Rainbow Rowell (5)*
  11. More Happy Than Not – Adam Silvera (4) 
July 
  1. My Lady Jane – Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows (4) 
  2. The Goose Girl (The Books of Bayern #1) – Shannon Hale (5)*
  3. This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1) – Victoria Schwab (5)
  4. Court of Fives (Court of Fives #1) – Kate Elliot (3.5)
  5. Listening for Lions – Gloria Whelan (4) 
  6. The Girl Who Drank the Moon – Kelly Barnhill (3.5) 
  7. Howl's Moving Castle – Diana Wynne Jones (4)
  8. The Graces (The Graces #1) – Laure Eve (3) 
  9. The Lovely Reckless – Kami Garcia (3.5)
  10. Shiny Broken Pieces (Tiny Pretty Things #2) – Dhonielle Clayton and Sona Charaipotra (4)
  11. An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes #1) – Sabaa Tahir (5)*
  12. A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes #2) – Sabaa Tahir (5)
August 
  1. Daughter of the Forest (Sevenwaters #1) – Juliet Marillier (4)
  2. Lunch Poems – Frank O'Hara (5)
  3. Mansfield Park – Jane Austen (5)* 
  4. Saving Francesca – Melina Marchetta (4)
  5. Princess Academy (Princess Academy #1) – Shannon Hale (5)* 
  6. I'll Love You When You're More Like Me – M.E. Kerr (3) 
  7. As You Like It – William Shakespeare (3) 
  8. Nevernight – Jay Kristoff (4) 
  9. Along For the Ride – Sarah Dessen (4)*
  10. And This is Laura – Ellen Conford (2)
  11.  Lock and Key – Sarah Dessen (3) 
September
  1. Walt Disney: An American Original – Bob Thomas (4)
  2. Nobody's Family is Going to Change – Louise Fitzhugh (2) 
  3. The Movie Version – Emma Wunsch (3) 
  4. Ludell – Brenda Wilkinson (2.5) 
  5. A Room of One's Own – Virginia Woolf (3) 
  6. Furthermore – Tahereh Mafi (4)
  7. The Assassin's Blade (Throne of Glass .1-.5) – Sarah J Maas (5)* 
  8. Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) – Sarah J Maas (5)*
  9. Heyday –  Ben Wilson (3)  
  10. Secret Lives – Berthe Amoss (2) 
  11. Three Years in Wonderland – Todd James Pierce
  12. Kids of Appetite – David Arnold (4) 
October
  1. More All-Of-A-Kind Family – Sydney Taylor (3)
  2. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott (5)*
  3. Happy Endings Are All Alike – Sandra Scoppettone (3)
  4. When the Moon Was Ours – Anna-Marie McLemore (4)
  5. Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1) – Leigh Bardugo (5)*
  6. Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows #2) – Leigh Bardugo (5) 
  7. Iron Cast – Destiny Soria (3.5)
  8. Me and Fat Glenda – Lila Perl (2)  
  9. Milk and Honey – Rupi Kaur (5)
  10. Taking Terri Mueller– Norma Fox Mazer (3) 
November 
  1. Here's To You, Zeb Pike – Johanna Parkhurst (3) 
  2. Been Here All Along – Sandy Hall (3) 
  3. The Female of the Species – Mindy McGinnis (5) 
  4. Three Dark Crowns – Kendare Blake (DNF) 
  5. Him (Him #1) – Sabrina Bowen and Elle Kennedy (4)
  6. Us (Him #2) – Sabrina Bowen and Elle Kennedy (4)
  7. Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1) – Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (4)*
  8. Constance: A Story of Early Plymouth – Patricia Clapp (3)
  9. Disneywar – James B Stewart (3)
  10. Gemina (The Illuminae Files #2) – Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (4)
  11. The Sun is Also A Star – Nicola Yoon (4) 
  12. This Adventure Ends – Emma Mills (4)
  13. Lisa and Lottie – Erich Kästner (2)
  14. The Jolly Regina: The Unintentional Adventures of the Bland Sisters – Kara LaReau (3.5)  
  15. Alterations – Stephanie Scott (4)  
December
  1.  Maresi – Marie Turtschaninoff (4)
  2. Heartless – Marissa Meyer (4)
  3.  Scythe – Neil Shusterman (3.5) 
  4. Footnotes from the World's Greatest Bookstores – Bob Eckstein (4) 
  5. Of Fire and Stars – Audrey Coulthurst (4) 
  6. Intermission – Serena Chase (3.5)

Monday, January 2, 2017

2017's highly anticipated books!

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Um, hi 2017? Can't believe we all made it out of 2016.... here's hoping this year shapes up to be at least a little bit better haha! For the past two years, I've done an enormous post of all of the books that I was looking forward to in the year ahead, and though it is a lot more books, I decided to do the same thing this year. (I think I have over 80 this year lol)  the full list is under the cut, I hope that this will give you some inspiration and excitement over the books that are coming out in the coming year! I think 2017 is going to be awesome for YA, so I seriously can't wait.
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