Favorite Reads of 2013

It's mid-March which is really late for a Year in Review post but I don't care. It feels like posting here is like shouting into an abyss but I'm enjoying the challenge. I think I'm improving my writing (thank you New Jersey public school system) and I always love recommending a good book.

2013 was a big year for me personally, professionally, and reading….ally. "Readingally" is now a word. I started reviewing in 2012 but I really got into it in 2013. In 2013 I read 88 books which seems like a lot but that's considered a low amount for a reviewer. Some books were terrible, some were phenomenal, but most were just okay. Sometimes it seems like it's the just okay books that go on to bestseller lists. 

The following books are sort of special to me. They're not well known, but they're the some of the best books I read in 2013. I read a lot of dystopia/speculative fiction and there have been too many iterations of The Hunger Games over the past few years. These books stand out from that cliche.  

Clicking the title will take you to my review on Goodreads.

25 Perfect Days by Mark Tullius: 25 loosely interconnecting stories of a future United States that is turning into a religion-based totalitarian state. The great things about these stories is that Tullius doesn't lay everything out for you. You have to put the pieces together for yourself. I'm pretty sure I said "Holy shit" out loud more than once while reading this book. 

Daynight by Megan Thomason: I'm a total fangirl for Megan Thomason. The first part in a series, daynight tells the story of a connected but opposite planet named Thera and the government that controls it. Thomason takes tropes that I usually groan at (multiple POVs, love triangles) and somehow makes them fresh and enjoyable. Megan also gets bonus points because she's self published. 

The Moon Dwellers by David Estes: I have to admit, I didn't love this book at first. But for some reason I kept coming back to David's  Goodreads page and I knew I had to continue the series. Or should I say series plural? The Moon Dwellers is one of the first parts of two interconnected and co-occurring series. You have the Dwellers Series and the Country Saga trilogies and The Earth Dwellers which capstones them all. The Saga and Series is so much more complex and enjoyable than I anticipated. Like Megan, David is self published, and he writes several books a year. He's also super interactive with his readers online. I don't think he sleeps.

Red Rising by Pierce Brown: Red Rising came out in January 2014 but I was able to read it several months ago through LibraryThing. Pierce has a contract to write a trilogy and movies are in the works. Pretty impressive for a debut writer. Red Rising is a mix of dystopia, fantasy, and mythology. It's also way more Game of Thrones than Hunger Games. It's violent, heartbreaking, and overwhelming. And I bloodydamn loved it.

Tandem by Anna Jarzab: This is way more fantasy-based than I usually read. Runaway princesses? Please. But add in someone going through a portal to a parallel universe to kidnap that princess's doppelgänger? I'm getting interested. I don't know how this book holds up to a devoted fantasy fan. But for someone who prefers scifi but also watches Once Upon a Time, this was a great read.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman: The cover compares the Unwind series to The Hunger Games but I think that's not fair to this series. The Hunger Games made terror entertaining but Unwind makes terror actually terrifying. Shusterman excels at world building. Most stories start with something like "bad stuff happened and now we're here". But in Unwind, the world building much more precise and consistent and it makes the books so much better. The world building and Shusterman's writing style takes Unwind way, way above other YA dystopian series.  

What do you think? What books would you add? What books would you remove? 

Review: Burn Out

Burn Out by Kristi Kelvig
Release Date: April 8 2014

I really don't know what to say other than: This book is fantastic. 

Tora believes she is the last person on Earth. Everyone with money left the planet a long time ago and those without have died from the extreme elements. She hopes to get a ride to the new planet with a friend but she knows that isn't very likely. Really, she is waiting to die. 

Tora is also the reluctant guard of a stockpile of very dangerous weapons. 

Enter the mercenaries. Tora finds herself surrounded by a group that wants her weapons and they are all surrounded by someone who wants them all dead. She is forced to depend on and trust with her life near strangers that don't even trust each other.

Usually when an author wants a "strong female lead" they are trying to write someone like Tora. She is resourceful, outspoken, clever, stubborn, and cunning.  She's watched the world end around her -- literally and figuratively, but she's still a teenager.  She thinks one of the mercenaries is cute but she knows that maybe this isn't the right time to daydream about that. 

Usually I would be annoyed that we know so little about Markus and his friends. But this way you're going along for the ride with Tora, trying to figure out who was can trust. 

I would never spoil an ending, but I will say that I nearly threw my Nook across the room when I realized that I had read the last page.

You Should Be Reading: Tom & Lorenzo

Note: "You Should Be Reading" is the first post in a new series of noteworthy authors that I literally just made up.

Is it weird to say that I'm proud of these two? 

Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez have been blogging since 2006 (which feels like yesterday but is actually eight years ago). They started off recapping Project Runway here on blogspot but have since expanded to covering red carpets, Fashion Weeks, and any time someone famous wears something hideous. 

I've been reading TLo since 2008 - of course I preordered this book. The postcard arrived today and inspired this post. Reading TLo and the Bitter Kittens (their community/fandom/commenters) is one of my favorite parts of the day. I know I'm not the only person who constantly refreshes their site for new content while at work.  

While the book is very different from the blog, it's still their voice. Instead of laughing at Christina Hendrick's shoes, they delve into the very strange world of being a celebrity. Chapters include how to dress for a red carpet depending on the movie's genre, how to date and then dump and then date a different celebrity, and which charities/causes to support (hint: nothing gross). The autographed postcard above is the chapter illustration for "The Full Chernobyl": how to have the perfect public meltdown. Apologizing for that meltdown is covered in the next chapter.

If you like to laugh at people wearing ugly clothes that cost more than your car (the laughing helps with the pain) and read thoughtful analyses of the clothes on Mad Men (trust me: you do), go read Tom and Lorenzo's website and go buy this book!

Review: The Divorce Papers

The Divorce Papers by Susan Reiger
Release Date: March 18 2014

Have you ever wanted to like a book so much that it hurt when it wasn't great? That was The Divorce Papers.

Official Summary: Twenty-nine-year-old Sophie Diehl is happy toiling away as a criminal law associate at an old line New England firm where she very much appreciates that most of her clients are behind bars. Everyone at Traynor, Hand knows she abhors face-to-face contact, but one weekend, with all the big partners away, Sophie must handle the intake interview for the daughter of the firm’s most important client. After eighteen years of marriage, Mayflower descendant Mia Meiklejohn Durkheim has just been served divorce papers in a humiliating scene at the popular local restaurant, Golightly’s. She is locked and loaded to fight her eminent and ambitious husband, Dr. Daniel Durkheim, Chief of the Department of Pediatric Oncology, for custody of their ten-year-old daughter Jane—and she also burns to take him down a peg. Sophie warns Mia that she’s never handled a divorce case before, but Mia can’t be put off. As she so disarmingly puts it: It’s her first divorce, too.

Debut novelist Susan Rieger doesn’t leave a word out of place in this hilarious and expertly crafted debut that shines with the power and pleasure of storytelling. Told through personal correspondence, office memos, emails, articles, and legal papers, this playful reinvention of the epistolary form races along with humor and heartache, exploring the complicated family dynamic that results when marriage fails. For Sophie, the whole affair sparks a hard look at her own relationships—not only with her parents, but with colleagues, friends, lovers, and most importantly, herself. Much like Where’d You Go, Bernadette, The Divorce Papers will have you laughing aloud and thanking the literature gods for this incredible, fresh new voice in fiction.

I've read Where’d You Go, Bernadette. This is not Where’d You Go, Bernadette.

While I enjoyed reading this book, I don't know what kind of commercial success it will have. 

The official summary describes Divorce Papers as "playful" but it really isn't. It's over 400 pages of legal documents. There's no funny in dividing up assets. 

To break up the legalese there is correspondence between Sophie and her mentor/boss/crush, Sophie and her best friend Maggie, and Mia's letters. The emails between Sophie and Maggie are long and rambling and they do nothing but slow everything down. 

The only saving grace about The Divorce Papers is Mia. As my grandmother would say, she's got some moxie. My other grandmother would say that she don't take no shit. Both are right. Mia's handwritten notes are the only thing that lifts The Divorce Papers from a case study to a novel.

Bottom line: Don't waste your time.

I'm back!

According to my pageview stats I only get like four views a week, so hello to you four!

Some personal issues led to me putting blog on hold for awhile.

Two reviews will go up today and I promise there will be more consistent updates from here on out.