spotlight on: my favorite fall reads

Welcome to Spotlight On: a monthly feature hosted her at Stardust and Words. You can find the rest of the spotlight posts here! I did a post that is similar to this one last year, where I talked about the books that capture the spirit of Halloween for me, and I talked about this again in my TTT post last week! Now I want to talk about some books that I love to reread in the fall. Some of these are perennial favorites, and some of them are new-to-me favorites, but they all have the coziness and feeling of coming home that I associate with fall, and they are all perfect for curling up with a mug of something hot and watching the leaves swirl outside the window :)

1.The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas – Swashbuckling, revenge, misty islands, and mistaken identity make this a perfect book for a fall afternoon. It's super long, so you can either power through with the help of a lot of coffee or read an abridged version. I just love how atmospheric it is.

2. Ella Enchanted – Gail Carson Levine – The perfect quick read for when you need a pick me up. I love to make a super elaborate hot chocolate and then snuggle up with this book or its (HIGHLY inferior but still a ton of fun) movie. Gail Carson Levine is one of the best writers I've ever read, and she manages to capture so much emotion and heart in all of her books. Ella Enchanted is my personal favorite, but you can't go wrong with any of her novels.

3. Inkheart – Cornelia Funke – One of my favorite books from when I was in middle school, this entire trilogy reminds me of driving through New England in October. Lovable characters, a great father daughter relationship, and traveling into all of your favorite books means that Inkheart is basically every bibliophile's dream.

4. The Princess Bride – William Goldman – Okay, who doesn't adore The Princess Bride? It is one of those classic fairy tale stories that you absolutely can't go wrong with on a fall day. It's hilarious, heartbreaking and completely engaging.

5. Entwined – Heather Dixon – A darker retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Dixon conjures up the darker side of fall with her fairy tale. I think of abandoned castles, sleeping beauty on her one-hundredth year of slumber, and dark fall nights lit only with candles.

6. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien – Do I even need to explain myself here? I don't know about you guys, but curling up in a Hobbit hole with Bilbo is the perfect way to spend October.

7. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak – save this book for the moment that you can almost feel autumn turning into winter. That is the feeling that I associate with The Book Thief. The nights are freezing but the days are still warm enough that you aren't cold, and you can see the frost on the grass early. This book is the most heartbreakingly beautiful thing that I have ever read, and I love every second of it every single time I read it.

8. Jellicoe Road – Melina Marchetta – Looking for a home, looking for your place of belonging, looking for fun, looking for a love. Long, winding paths, mysteries, pranks, making up. Jellicoe Road is haunting, captivating and so perfect for fall days.

9. Love Letters to the Dead – Ava Dellaria – The leaves are dying and falling, but they are so beautiful as they do so. That's kind of like Love Letters to the Dead. Death is something that, sometimes, like the leaves, stares us right in the face. But we have to find the beauty despite of it.

10. We Were Liars – E. Lockhart – Family secrets, first loves, mysteries, blink and you'll miss them clues, an enormous plot twist.

11. Attachments – Rainbow Rowell – Caloo, Calay! There is one scene in this book that talks about October in the best way, and that is why I always associate this book with October and fall in general. It has a homey feel to it too, like a cup of tea and your favorite movie.

12. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J.K. Rowling – I'm not sure why it is just this particular book of the series that I always think of when I think of fall, but I always get the urge to read PoA when the weather starts changing. Maybe it is because I think the movie is beautiful in the way that it deals with the changing of seasons, or maybe it's because this was my favorite one when I was little, but something about it screams autumn to me.

13. A Little Something Different – Sandy Hall – One of those adorable warm and fuzzy contemporaries that I think is perfect for the crispest and clearest fall day. I love the alternating POVs and the fact that it takes place on a college campus just makes me think of walking to class and stomping on the falling leaves.

14. Carry On – Rainbow Rowell– Maybe this also has something to do with the on-campus/Hogwarts/school-time feeling, but I think this book is perfect for reading in the fall. It combined the sparkly brightness of a crisp fall day with the spooky darkness of the chilly fall night. Lovable characters and a little bit of magic rounds off this amazing book :)

15. First & Then – Emma Mills – football/school/first love. The ultimate fall trifecta!

16. Walk the Earth a Stranger – Rae Carson – The aesthetic of the cover combined with the gold rush era historical fiction of the plot makes this one a perfect fall read for me. It is engaging while still being subtle, and isn't in your face with its fun.

17. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe – Benjamin Alire Saenz – Adorable LGBT romance, finding out who you are and what you're really made of, "boys like me were made for the rain," adorable puppies. These are all of the things that you need to know about this book please read it, it is my favorite thing in the entire world.




18. Some Kind of Happiness – Claire Legrand – a haunting, moving description of depression in and for younger kids, I absolutely adore this atmospheric novel. Forests full of dangers and delights, old family secrets, houses full of relatives, friendships formed in the heat of imagination. A long sip of cold water.


19. Uprooted – Naomi Novik – a lush fairy tale retelling of a few different mashed up tales, there is darkness and dark magic as well as lovely sunlight in this one. Dragons or humans? Monsters or girls? Who to trust and who to be wary of? Magical and unconventional girls who have friendship above all. Lovely.

21. Milk and Honey  – poetry for autumn. Poems about breaking, loving, healing, becoming. Poems about the worst times and the best times, extremes that stick with you. Beautiful verse, beautiful illustrations, read it in an hour or linger for several.

What are some of your favorite fall reads?

xx
Caroline

top ten books I don't talk up enough

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted over at the Broke and the Bookish. This week's theme is: "March 22: Ten Books I Really Love But Feel Like I Haven't Talked About Enough/In A While," and I am really grateful for the chance to look back into my bookish past and rediscover some old faves that I may have forgotten about!

1. The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale– Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, spends the first years of her life under her aunt's guidance learning to communicate with animals. As she grows up Ani develops the skills of animal speech, but is never comfortable speaking with people, so when her silver-tongued lady-in-waiting leads a mutiny during Ani's journey to be married in a foreign land, Ani is helpless and cannot persuade anyone to assist her.
Becoming a goose girl for the king, Ani eventually uses her own special, nearly magical powers to find her way to her true destiny. Shannon Hale has woven an incredible, original and magical tale of a girl who must find her own unusual talents before she can become queen of the people she has made her own.

2. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta– I'm dreaming of the boy in the tree. I tell him stories. About the Jellicoe School and the Townies and the Cadets from a school in Sydney. I tell him about the war between us for territory. And I tell him about Hannah, who lives in the unfinished house by the river. Hannah, who is too young to be hiding away from the world. Hannah, who found me on the Jellicoe Road six years ago.

Taylor is leader of the boarders at the Jellicoe School. She has to keep the upper hand in the territory wars and deal with Jonah Griggs—the enigmatic leader of the cadets, and someone she thought she would never see again.

And now Hannah, the person Taylor had come to rely on, has disappeared. Taylor's only clue is a manuscript about five kids who lived in Jellicoe eighteen years ago. She needs to find out more, but this means confronting her own story, making sense of her strange, recurring dream, and finding her mother—who abandoned her on the Jellicoe Road.

 

3. Graceling by Kristin Cashore – Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight - she's a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king's thug.

When she first meets Prince Po, Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change.

She never expects to become Po's friend.

She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace - or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away...

4. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell – Two misfits.
One extraordinary love.

Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.

Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

5. The Covenant Series by Jennifer L Armentrout – The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi pure bloods have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals--well, not so much. Half-bloods only have two options: become trained Sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures.

Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1:Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden. Unfortunately, she's crushing hard on the totally hot pure-blood Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn't her biggest problem--staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is.

If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden. And that would kind of suck.

6. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black – Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave.

One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a wholly original story of rage and revenge, of guilt and horror, and of love and loathing from bestselling and acclaimed author Holly Black.

 

7. This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales – Making friends has never been Elise Dembowski’s strong suit. All throughout her life, she’s been the butt of every joke and the outsider in every conversation. When a final attempt at popularity fails, Elise nearly gives up. Then she stumbles upon a warehouse party where she meets Vicky, a girl in a band who accepts her; Char, a cute, yet mysterious disc jockey; Pippa, a carefree spirit from England; and most importantly, a love for DJing.

Told in a refreshingly genuine and laugh-out-loud funny voice, This Song Will Save Your Life is an exuberant novel about identity, friendship, and the power of music to bring people together.

8. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke – 12 year-old Meggie lives with her father, Mortimer, a bookbinder. Mo never reads stories aloud to Meggie because he has a special gift: when he reads a book aloud, the characters come out of the book and into the real world.

One night, when Meggie was a small child, Mortimer was reading aloud from a book named Inkheart when an evil villain named Capricorn, his aide Basta, and a fire-eater named Dustfinger escape from the book and into their living room. At the same time, Mo's wife Resa gets trapped within the book .

Twelve years later, Capricorn is on a hunt to find and destroy all copies of Inkheart and use Mo's abilities to gain more power for himself in the real world. Meggie discovers her father's secret and, along with the help of Dustfinger and Meggie's eccentric aunt Elinor, fights to free her father and destroy Capricorn.

9. Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge – Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.

With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.

But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle—a shifting maze of magical rooms—enthralls her.

As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

10. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart – A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE. 

what is on your lists this week? 

xx

Caroline 

a week of recommendations: day three

And here we have come to day three of five of A Week of Recommendations. Today's theme is Contemporaries, yay! Throughout my reading life, I have always been drawn to contemporaries. Some of my favorite stories and worlds may be fantasy, but there is never a time where I fall into a slump in the middle of a contemporary. I just love them, especially when they're sweet and fun, but with some emotional depth. 

Ever since I was in middle school, I've been reading lighthearted contemporary novels. I remember falling in love with Jen Calonita's Secrets of my Hollywood Life, Liz Tigelaar's Playing With the Boys, anything by Meg Cabot, etc. etc. They're really what got me into reading religiously, and I've carried that love of contemporaries with me into this portion of my life. I had to really pare down the choices I had for this list, so the ones that made it on here are the best of the best. (I also went over the five book standard, but that's ok because I seriously couldn't decide.

1. I'll Give You The Sun – Jandy Nelson

Of course, the number one spot has to be one of my all time favorite books and the best book of 2014, I'll Give You The Sun. This is the most beautiful story about twins, Noah and Jude, and the ups and downs of their relationship with each other and with life in general. It is told from two points of view, and two points in time, and there is mystery and romance and heartbreak throughout. This is the first book I recommend to anyone who wants to read anything at all. It is lyrical, magical, truly. Something happens when you read this book, and you'll want it to happen to you. 

2. Jellicoe Road – Melina Marchetta

This is another book that, after I read it, I felt truly changed. For the first fifty or so pages, you're so confused and have no idea what's going on, but then you get into the groove of the story and I, quite literally, could not put the book down for the rest of the story. It is amazing, the way that Marchetta weaves the past in with the present and the connections that are made. The characters are another triumph of this one, they're raw and imperfect and that is why you love them. If you've already read this one, another great contemporary by Marchetta is Saving Francesca, which I also highly recommend.

3. Anna and The French Kiss – Stephanie Perkins

If you know me at all, you will probably have heard/read me rave on and on over how much I love this book and also Stephanie Perkins in general. The things I love so much about this book are as follows. 1) the setting. As Anna explores the city, we get to do so also, which is amazing. 2) the romance. This novel has one of those romances where the two people literally cannot stay away from each other, as if there is a magnetic pull between them, and I love that. 3) It's funny and it's fun, and the quirks in it make you feel like it is real, like it is happening to you. It also deals with family problems and sickness and what to do when you fall out of love but are too scared to be alone. I could go on and on about how much I love this one, but it would be much easier if you just read it. 

4. Amy & Roger's Epic Detour – Morgan Matson

I am a huge fan of roadtrips and roadtrip stories, and this is one of the best ones that I've ever read. Actually, everything by Morgan Matson is amazing and totally worth a read, but Amy and Roger happen to be my personal favorites. I love how they both went through so much character development, with the whole of America as the backdrop for their relationship and the way they grew from strangers to something more. This one deals with some hard subjects, and shows how, when bad things happen to you, after grieving, it's ok to move on. I think that's important, and I love the way this book doesn't undermine the grieving process.

5. To All The Boys I've Loved Before – Jenny Han

This is one of the most adorable books that I've ever read. I love the protag, Lara Jean, because she isn't jaded or cynical, she's open and innocent and, really, a breath of fresh air when you're reading from her POV. I really enjoyed seeing her story unfold, from the embarrassment she feels in the beginning, to her becoming stronger and being able to stand on her own in the end. I love the detail that Jenny Han put into characterizing Lara Jean, her sisters, and everyone else in the novel. This is a great spring/summer read.

6. Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe – Benjamin Alire Saenz

A different sort of contemporary than the other ones on this list, this is more about friendship than romance, except at the very end. It is about how one person can change the way you look at everything, can make you come out of your shell and just be more you. And those are the friends that you should hold onto. Aristotle and Dante broke my heart and then put it back together again, for this book is bittersweet and melancholy, told in a subdued tone that brings the emotions into sharper focus. It made me think, and I adored every second of it. 

7. Love Letters to the Dead – Ava Dellaria

This book isn't just about tragedy, it hinges on it. Nothing in this book would've happened without one single, tragic moment, when a beloved sister dies. Who she leaves behind is her younger sister Laurel, who is starting high school without her sister, falling in love without her sister, and sharply feeling everything that's left over without her sister. It's only when Laurel starts writing letters to dead people that she can puzzle out her own feelings and perspectives, both on her sister and herself. Love Letters to the Dead is sad and poignant, but it also emphasizes the importance of newness, all the while underlining the fact that, to move on, we must forgive.

What are some of your favorite contemporaries? 

xx

Sunny

top ten tuesday: the last 3 years

Happy Tuesday everyone! Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted over at The Broke and The Bookish, and this week's theme is "March 3: Top Ten Books You Would Classify As ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOKS from the past 3 years (you can extend it to 5 if you need to)." Needless to say, I love this theme, as talking about my favorite books is a favorite pastime. So, I went through my goodreads "favorites" shelf and tried to narrow it down to ten. Because the last three years were the first years I really joined into the online reading community, I've read so many amazing stories, but here are the top eleven (sorry) that have impacted me the most over the last three years.

top ten tuesday: if i had a book club

Top ten Tuesday is hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish, and is a weekly feature where every week there is a different theme, and you must come up with a list of ten things under that theme. This week, the theme is "January 27: Ten Books I'd Love to Read With My Book Club/If I Had A Book Club (or you could pick a specific kind of book club -- like if you had a YA book club or an adult book club or a science fiction book club etc.)" List is under the cut!

top books of 2014

I know its the middle of January already, but I feel like 2014 isn't over until I do a wrap up of all of my favorite books from the last year. I'll try to rank them in order of preference, but after like the top three I pretty much like them all an almost equal amount.

1. I'll Give You The Sun - Jandy Nelson (goodreads) 
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.  

 

2. Jellicoe Road - Melina Marchetta (goodreads)

I'm dreaming of the boy in the tree. I tell him stories. About the Jellicoe School and the Townies and the Cadets from a school in Sydney. I tell him about the war between us for territory. And I tell him about Hannah, who lives in the unfinished house by the river. Hannah, who is too young to be hiding away from the world. Hannah, who found me on the Jellicoe Road six years ago.
Taylor is leader of the boarders at the Jellicoe School. She has to keep the upper hand in the territory wars and deal with Jonah Griggs - the enigmatic leader of the cadets, and someone she thought she would never see again.
And now Hannah, the person Taylor had come to rely on, has disappeared. Taylor's only clue is a manuscript about five kids who lived in Jellicoe eighteen years ago. She needs to find out more, but this means confronting her own story, making sense of her strange, recurring dream, and finding her mother - who abandoned her on the Jellicoe Road.

3. Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass #2) - Sarah J Maas (goodreads)

Because this is the second book in a series, beware of SPOILERS in the description below.

From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul as black as pitch. Assassin Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become his Champion. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown. She hides her secret vigilantly; she knows that the man she serves is bent on evil.
Keeping up the deadly charade becomes increasingly difficult when Celaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. As she tries to untangle the mysteries buried deep within the glass castle, her closest relationships suffer. It seems no one is above questioning her allegiances—not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the Captain of the Guard; not even her best friend, Nehemia, a foreign princess with a rebel heart.
Then one terrible night, the secrets they have all been keeping lead to an unspeakable tragedy. As Celaena's world shatters, she will be forced to give up the very thing most precious to her and decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie...and whom she is ultimately willing to fight for.

4. Amy & Roger's Epic Detour - Morgan Matson (goodreads)

Amy Curry is not looking forward to her summer. Her mother decided to move across the country and now it's Amy's responsibility to get their car from California to Connecticut. The only problem is, since her father died in a car accident, she isn't ready to get behind the wheel. Enter Roger. An old family friend, he also has to make the cross-country trip - and has plenty of baggage of his own. The road home may be unfamiliar - especially with their friendship venturing into uncharted territory - but together, Amy and Roger will figure out how to map their way. 

5. Cress (Lunar Chronicles #3)- Marissa Meyer (goodreads) 

SPOILERS IN DESCRIPTION! 

In this third book in the Lunar Chronicles, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.
Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl imprisoned on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.
When a daring rescue of Cress goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.

6. To All the Boys I've Loved Before - Jenny Han (goodreads)

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister's ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all.

7. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline (goodreads)
It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.
And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune — and remarkable power — to whoever can unlock them.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved — that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.
And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.
Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt — among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life — and love — in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.
A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?

8. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe- Benjamin Alire Sáenz (goodreads) 
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

9. If I Stay- Gayle Forman (goodreads) 
Just listen, Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel.
I open my eyes wide now.
I sit up as much as I can.
And I listen.
Stay, he says.
Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones: Stay true to her first love—music—even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind?
Then one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, and in an instant, everything changes. Suddenly, all the choices are gone, except one. And it's the only one that matters.
If I Stay is a heartachingly beautiful book about the power of love, the true meaning of family, and the choices we all make.

10. The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus #5) - Rick Riordan (goodreads) 
MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD!!
Though the Greek and Roman crewmembers of the Argo II have made progress in their many quests, they still seem no closer to defeating the earth mother, Gaea. Her giants have risen—all of them—and they're stronger than ever. They must be stopped before the Feast of Spes, when Gaea plans to have two demigods sacrificed in Athens. She needs their blood—the blood of Olympus—in order to wake.
The demigods are having more frequent visions of a terrible battle at Camp Half-Blood. The Roman legion from Camp Jupiter, led by Octavian, is almost within striking distance. Though it is tempting to take the Athena Parthenos to Athens to use as a secret weapon, the friends know that the huge statue belongs back on Long Island, where it "might" be able to stop a war between the two camps.
The Athena Parthenos will go west; the Argo II will go east. The gods, still suffering from multiple personality disorder, are useless. How can a handful of young demigods hope to persevere against Gaea's army of powerful giants? As dangerous as it is to head to Athens, they have no other option. They have sacrificed too much already. And if Gaea wakes, it is game over.

11. Isla and the Happily Ever After - Stephanie Perkins (goodreads) 
Hopeless romantic Isla has had a crush on introspective cartoonist Josh since their first year at the School of America in Paris. And after a chance encounter in Manhattan over the summer, romance might be closer than Isla imagined. But as they begin their senior year back in France, Isla and Josh are forced to confront the challenges every young couple must face, including family drama, uncertainty about their college futures, and the very real possibility of being apart.

12. The Enchantress Returns (The Land of Stories #2) - Chris Colfer (goodreads) 
SPOILERS!
After decades of hiding, the evil Enchantress who cursed Sleeping Beauty is back with a vengeance.
Alex and Conner Bailey have not been back to the magical Land of Stories since their adventures in The Wishing Spell ended. But one night, they learn the famed Enchantress has kidnapped their mother! Against the will of their grandmother, the twins must find their own way into the Land of Stories to rescue their mother and save the fairy tale world from the greatest threat it's ever faced. 

13. Cruel Beauty - Rosamund Hodge (goodreads) 
Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.
Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.
With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.
But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle-a shifting maze of magical rooms-enthralls her.
As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

 

14. Alienated- Melissa Landers (goodreads) 

Two years ago, the aliens made contact. Now Cara Sweeney is going to be sharing a bathroom with one of them.
Handpicked to host the first-ever L’eihr exchange student, Cara thinks her future is set. Not only does she get a free ride to her dream college, she’ll have inside information about the mysterious L’eihrs that every journalist would kill for. Cara’s blog following is about to skyrocket.
Still, Cara isn’t sure what to think when she meets Aelyx. Humans and L’eihrs have nearly identical DNA, but cold, infuriatingly brilliant Aelyx couldn’t seem more alien. She’s certain about one thing, though: no human boy is this good-looking.
But when Cara's classmates get swept up by anti-L'eihr paranoia, Midtown High School suddenly isn't safe anymore. Threatening notes appear in Cara's locker, and a police officer has to escort her and Aelyx to class.
Cara finds support in the last person she expected. She realizes that Aelyx isn’t just her only friend; she's fallen hard for him. But Aelyx has been hiding the truth about the purpose of his exchange, and its potentially deadly consequences. Soon Cara will be in for the fight of her life—not just for herself and the boy she loves, but for the future of her planet. 

I didn't actually mean to make this a "top 14 of 2014" but hey that's how it turned out! these were a few of my favorite books that I read in 2014!! what were some of your favorites? 

xx

sunny