Top Ten 2016 Releases I Meant To Read But Didn’t Get To (But TOTALLY plan to)

There are a lot of 2016 releases that I haven’t gotten around to reading yet. 60, in fact, if my Goodreads TBR is to be believed. I buy most of my books, so it’s a struggle deciding which ones to splurge on and get right away in hardcover and which ones wait on until the paperback is released. Because I wait for most of them, I usually end up reading a lot of books the year after they are released. These are the ten that are at the top of the list for 2017!

1. Salt To The Sea by Ruta Sepetys

There was a ton of buzz online about Salt to the Sea this year. I like to think that I’m pretty knowledgable about WWII, but I don’t know much about the events shown in this book, so I definitely need to read this.

2. Fellside by M.R. Carey

I loved The Girl With All The Gifts and am looking forward to reading more by M.R. Carey!

3. Some Kind of Happiness by Clair Legrand

I love Middle Grade fiction, especially fantasy. I’ve read some great reviews for this one, and it looks like the perfect balance of fantasy elements and real-life issues (plus this cover is so cute!).

4. Age of Myth by Michael J. Sullivan

Age of Myth is the first book in a new prequel series tied to Michael J. Sullivan’s Riyria Revelations books. It’s probably my favourite epic fantasy series, and I’m excited to get back into the world he’s built!

5. Girl Mans Up by M.E. Girard

I don’t read a ton of YA contemporary, (I’m not about that drama and romance) but this one really caught my eye. The masculine female character looks like someone I’ll be able to relate to.

6. Mark of the Plague by Kevin Sands

I loved The Blackthorn Key and I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for this sequel!

7. A Taste for Monsters by Matthew J. Kirby

I’ve been looking for some creepy books lately, and both the cover and description of A Taste For Monsters seem to fit the bill.

8. Jerusalem by Alan Moore

After finishing up the Sandman comics this year, I need a new epic graphic novel to get into.

9. Kids of Appetite by David Arnold

David Arnold’s Mosquitoland was one of my favourite books of 2016, and Kids of Appetite looks just as good!

10. Lost Gods by Brom

A few year’s ago I read Brom’s novel The Child Thief, and I was simultaneously captivated and horrified by his spin on Peter Pan. Lost Gods is his take on the idea of Purgatory, and it looks super dark (just Google the illustrations!).

*Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke And The Bookish

Which 2016 releases top your 2017 TBR?

After The Deathly Hallows: My Thoughts on The Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts

Like many people, I’m a huge Harry Potter fan. I’ve read the series multiple times, I can basically recited the entirety of the movies, I’ve got some rockin’ HP apparel (I’m pretty sure my mathly hallows shirt is the nerdiest thing I own) and decorations for my room…you get the idea.

I read Harry Potter for the first time when I was 8 years old, and just starting to become the voracious reader that I am now. I carried those tattered library books with me everywhere I went for the few months it took me to finish the series (I was small for my age and had thick glasses with purple plastic frames, so I’m sure I made for an interesting sight wandering around with a 700 page book, LOL). I read a lot before that, but Harry Potter was different. It was my first time really reading fantasy, and I was completely sucked into the world of witches, wizards, Hogwarts, and a small boy with glasses. No one I knew had read it yet, and it made me feel grown up, like I was reading something special and carrying a secret that none of my friends could understand yet.

Bookworm Recap: December 2016

*Bookworm Recap is an update that’ll be posting about what I’ve been reading, what books I’ve purchased, and any other news in my world.

So Fall has been slow reading time for me this year; between lots of schoolwork and having to sew a ton to keep up with holiday business, I just haven’t had the time. Thankfully December was less hectic than the previous few months, and Christmas break in particular has given me a bit of peaceful reading time.

 

Sandman: Endless Nights and Sandman: The Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman

 

Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series tells the epic story of Morpheus, also known as Dream, and his encounters with the world. These two volumes are side stories from the Sandman universe, published after Volume 10, The Wake. Endless Nights features seven short stories, one focussing each of the Endless, and Dream Hunters is an adaptation of a Japanese folktale. I really liked the stories in Endless Nights that featured Dream and Delirium. Both volumes were enjoyable, but mostly unrelated to the other stories in the series and kind of unnecessary.

Review: Speed of Life

Title: Speed of Life

Author: J.M. Kelly

Published: October 11, 2016 by HMH Books for Young Readers

Genre: YA Contemporary

For Fans of: Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King

*Book received from Book Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on Goodreads in exchange for review

Rating: 3.5/5   

2016 End of Year Survey

This is the annual survey hosted over at Perpetual Page-Turner. It was lots of fun to go over everything that I’ve read this year. Overall, it was a bit of a rough year book wise; I didn’t read as many books as last year and I also had less 5 star reads. That said, I still read some pretty great books this year. I’ll try not to be too repetitive with my answers!

2016 Reading Stats

Number Of Books You Read: 85
Number of Re-Reads: 3 (all for school…I don’t usually re-read)
Genre You Read The Most From: I read a mix of literally everything