Happy new year! 2016 is finally over and I decided to wrap up the year by doing the End of Year Survey that was created and hosted by Jamie @ Perpetual Page Turner. I did 2015 edition of the End of Year Survey last year and it was a lot of fun so here I am again, a year later! Check out Jamie’s post for links to other bloggers’ responses!
As of right now, I’ve read 198 books this year (trying to power through 2 more to reach my goal of 200!), so it was extremely difficult to narrow it down to just ten favourites. But there were quite a few clear standouts on my list and here they are. If you would like to see other lists of my favourites from this year, I posted my top ten contemporary reads of 2016 on Happy Indulgence and was also a part of Joey @ Thoughts and Afterthoughts’ 2016 Thinking Awards.
This novel took me completely by surprise. It was a highly anticipated book of mine but I had no idea that I would love it as much as I did. This book is set in Alaska in the 1970s and follows four different perspectives. I thought the writing was absolutely beautiful and there was a wonderful balance in themes. I also especially loved how the four perspectives came together and how seamlessly the book tied it all together.
Corruption is the sequel to Disruption by Jessica Shirvington. While I really loved the first book in this Aussie YA duology, it was this sequel that completely took my breath away. It was packed full of action and omg the romance in this duology is just off the charts good. Maggie and Quentin are my OTP of the year! If you haven’t read this yet, you have to pick it up.
I love the Shadowhunter books and Lady Midnight was no exception. In my opinion, it’s actually one of the better books from Cassie Clare. The Infernal Devices is still my favourite but Lady Midnight definitely surprised me. I wasn’t a huge fan of the characters when I first read about them as pre-teens in City of Heavenly Fire but I absolutely loved the whole cast of characters (yes, even Perfect Diego)!
The Winner’s Trilogy was one of my favourite series that I read this year and The Winner’s Crime was definitely my favourite of the three books. While I really liked The Winner’s Curse and The Winner’s Kiss, I just thought that this second book had really great tension and political intrigue.
This book. THIS BOOK. It’s perfect for all fans of magical realism. It had a whimsical and enchanting world and I love Anna-Marie McLemore’s storytelling abilities. The characters were perfection and the themes and messages in the book came across to me so clearly. I thought it was brilliantly executed.
This was my first Ruta Sepetys book and I have no idea why it took me so long to read one of her novels, since I’m a massive fan of WWII historical fiction. What I loved about this book was the research that Ruta Sepetys put into writing her novel. It was obvious from the very first page and I really enjoyed reading about a little-known event in history. This book also transcends time and marketing categories. Even though it’s a YA novel, I can see so many different people appreciating it and loving it.
This was one of my most anticipated sequels of this year after I read Wolf by Wolf earlier in the year and it didn’t disappoint at all. There was so much action and the plot twists were almost heart-stopping. There were a few plot points that I didn’t like (not because they were bad but because they hurt my heart) but this book definitely gets all the stars from me.
This is probably one of the books that I raved about the most this year. I highly, highly enjoyed this Romeo and Juliet-inspired story and I couldn’t stop thinking about it for months and months. In fact, I’m still thinking about it. I enjoyed it so much when I read it that I couldn’t bring myself to write a review for it. It’s absolutely beautiful and has a romance that had my heart out of control.
This is my favourite contemporary read of this year. It had been recommended to me multiple times by different bloggers, so I finally picked it up earlier this year. And it was so good! There was nothing that I didn’t like about this novel. The characters were perfection, the romance was perfection and the plot was perfection.
Crooked Kingdom is without a doubt my favourite book of this year. It was my most highly anticipated book of the year and it definitely lived up to all of my high expectations. It had everything that I wanted from this sequel and it wrapped up the duology in the most incredible way. I didn’t think that I could love it more than Six of Crows but it was absolutely amazing. If you haven’t read this duology yet, I honestly don’t know what you’re waiting for.
What was your favourite book of 2016? Stay tuned for my next post: 2016 End of Year Survey!
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Check out their website for previous and upcoming topics. This week’s topic is recommendations and I’m going to be featuring ten books that I bought because of my co-bloggers over at Happy Indulgence, Jeann and Aila. Some of these are books that they pushed me to buy and others are just books that I’ve seen them review on the blog.
When fantasy-lover Aila reads a contemporary YA novel and loves it, I know I have to buy it. She also illustrated some promotional postcards that I absolutely loved! This book is cute and fluffy but also explores some more serious themes like mental illness. I really, really enjoyed it.
This was on both Jeann and Aila’s favourite books of 2015 lists so I finally got myself a copy a few months ago. I still haven’t found time to pick it up yet but I know it’s going to be amazing.
If you haven’t seen Aila’s rap review of this book, you need to go watch it now. It was absolutely amazing and how could I not run out and get this book after watching her rap about why we need to read this novel?!
Everytime I wanted to pick up a V.E. Schwab book, Jeann would encourage me to read Vicious. So I finally did and it was soooo good!
I picked up this awesome Aussie YA feminist read mainly because it was one of the books featured on OzYAY, a monthly ABC radio segment where Jeann talks about Aussie YA releases with two other fab ladies. The show is on the first Sunday of each month at 7pm AEST and you can tune in online.
This was another one of Jeann’s recommendations. She absolutely loves Claire Zorn’s books and recommended this one to me after I was disappointed by Claire’s newest release, One Would Think the Deep.
Both Jeann and Aila love this book and I finally read it a few months ago after lots of encouragement from not only them but also my other close blogging friends. I have yet to pick up the sequel, Golden Son, but I’m hoping to do so before the year is over.
I picked up this book a few months after seeing Aila’s review on Happy Indulgence. It gave me some Lunar Chronicles vibes so I decided to give it a go. It wasn’t as good as I thought it would be but I still really enjoyed it.
I read First & Then by Emma Mills a few months ago and loved it. Aila received an early copy of This Adventure Ends back in June or July and said that she really enjoyed it, so I preordered a copy. I’ll be reading this one really, really soon.
I had never heard of this book until I saw it at a bookstore while browsing one day. Upon checking out some of the ratings and reviews on Goodreads, I saw that Aila gave it a 5 star rating! I had to buy it straight away after seeing that!
Have you read any of these books?
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by the team at The Broke and the Bookish. This week I’m featuring my TBR for spring (because I’m in the Southern Hemisphere). These are all books that I either already own or have preordered/bought.
Of course, Crooked Kingdom is at the top of my list. Six of Crows is one of my favourite books ever and I’m so excited to read the sequel! My preorder is already on its way and hopefully it’ll be here today. I’ll be jumping right into it as soon as it gets here.
Blood for Blood is the sequel to another book that I absolutely loved last year, Wolf by Wolf. This duology is pretty action-packed and quick to read and I’m super excited to see how the sequel plays out.
The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore is an all-time favourite of mine and I’m so happy that she has a new book out so soon. I preordered this book months and months ago because I was so excited. And it’s since been nominated for the National Book Award, which makes me even more excited to have it in my hands.
This book is currently on its way to me and I couldn’t be happier. It sounds right up my alley and I’ve seen some really good reviews for it so far. It sounds like the kind of contemporary story that I love and I can’t wait to read it.
This book has been on my shelf since May and I’m ashamed that I still haven’t read it. It’s a book that I need to read for a reading challenge so I’m hoping to finally get to it in the coming months.
I absolutely loved Snow Like Ashes and it’s one of my favourite books of all time. However, I didn’t really like Ice Like Fire and the direction that it started to go. Still, I couldn’t not finish the trilogy so I ordered Frost Like Night to see how it all ends. I do love Sara Raasch’s writing though, so I know I’m going to enjoy it.
My favourite graphic novel ever is The Encyclopedia of Early Earth by Isabel Greenberg and when I found out that she had a new book out, I had to pick it up. This one is also currently on its way to me and I’m hoping that I get it really really soon because the little bits that I’ve seen of it were amazing.
This is another book that I preordered because the synopsis sounded right up my alley. I’m interested to see how I feel about it once I’ve read it. The cover is also really pretty and I’m keen to have it in my hands soon.
I’m super excited for Nicola Yoon’s new book. I really enjoyed Everything Everything last year and The Sun is Also a Star sounds even more amazing! Plus David Levithan wouldn’t stop raving about it and I need this book in my hands soon!
This is mostly just a cover buy, but I really liked First and Then by Emma Mills. It was a really cute contemporary and I’m hoping this will be of the same standard!
It’s been a really, really, REALLY long time since I’ve done a tag and I had no post prepared for today so I thought I’d go ahead and do the NY Times Book Tag today. I was tagged by Casey @ Adoptabookaus, and some other people who I can’t remember! Ever since I stopped doing tags regularly, I’ve stopped keeping track. GAHHH.
I’m a book monogamist so I only ever have on book on my nightstand (and this same book follows me around during the day too). Also I use the word ‘nightstand’ very loosely because my books sleep next to me on my bed.
The book that I’m currently reading is The Hating Game by Sally Thorne. It’s really cute and uplifting and I’m loving it so far. I read Sally’s fanfiction back in 2009/2010 and I’ve been following her on Twitter ever since so I’m so happy to have her debut novel in my hands right now!
I’ve read lots of great books in the last few weeks, including Between the Lives by Jessica Shirvington, The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You by Lily Anderson, The Thousandth Floor by Katharine McGee, and of course, Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas.
But the book that I’ve most recently added to my favourites shelf on Goodreads is Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. It was absolutely amazing and was a truly great read.
I would love to meet Anthony Doerr, the author of my favourite book of all time, All the Light We Cannot See. I’d love to know his research process because his books are so extremely well-researched and I know that All the Light We Cannot See took over ten years to research and write.
I don’t really think that I have any books on my shelf that would surprise anyone. I read pretty widely and I have a good mix of both adult and young adult books, as well as non-fiction psychology books. I have a set of 20+ Horrible Histories books? Is that surprising?
I currently have rainbow bookshelves! I have a shelf just for series and trilogies because I can’t bare to split the books apart, but the rest of my books are sorted by colour. My TBR books are not part of the rainbow, but are hidden in separate shelves with doors so that nobody can see how big my collection of unread books are XD
I’ve started The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera probably three times and I’ve never had the time to read it to the end. I’m hoping to finally complete this book this year because I love Kundera and this was the first of his books that I ever bought.
In addition to this, I also have a few Haruki Murakami books that I need to finally read. I still have get to read The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, even though I’ve had it for so long that the edition I own is no longer in print.
I have an endless list for this question but three recent disappointments were Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland, It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover and Stitching Snow by R.C. Lewis. I expected to like these books a lot more than I actually did and I rated them all 3 or 3.5 stars.
My favourite genre is contemporary so I’ll always be drawn to them. In particular, I love mental illness books, realistic fiction and cutesy contemporary romances. The genres that I stay clear of are crime and thrillers.
This needs no explanation if you’ve followed me or my blog for a while.
I will never ever stop recommending and pushing All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. I’ve made pretty much all my friends read it and they’ve all loved it so more people need to listen to me when I say that this book is amazing and my favourite book in existence.
Now it would be great if the president/prime minister/whatever could read it and push it too 😀
Once I’m done with reading The Hating Game, I’m planning to read either Heartless by Marissa Meyer, which I’ve had for weeks and weeks now and have been dying to read, or Swarm by Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti. I want to read Heartless next just because I’ve been really excited to read it but kept having to put it off to prioritise review books. But having said that… I need to read Swarm for review soon HAHA.
I tag everyone! If you want to do this then go right ahead! (I really have become a lazy blogger. I’m sorry).
Welcome to another Top Ten Tuesday post. This is a weekly feature that’s hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s theme is actually ‘All-time favourite books from X genre’ and I was really excited to share my favourites but then I realised that I talk about my favourites all the time and you’re probably sick of hearing about the same books over and over again. I was fully intending to skip this week’s TTT but then inspiration struck when I couldn’t stop raving about how beautifully packaged The Thousandth Floor is. So my topic for today’s list is “all-time favourite book covers”. I also happen to really love all of these books on my list so take this as my list of recommendations!
Since this whole list is inspired by this book, it had to be at the top of my list. I love everything about this cover and how this book is packaged. It has a beautiful smooth texture and a beautiful embossed title. The spine is also amazing and is probably my favourite part of this whole book. The endpapers are also stunning and finally, when you undress the book, the naked hardcover has the title on it in beautiful gold lettering.
This is my favourite book of all time and there really isn’t any part of it that I don’t absolutely love. The cover is stunning. I love the colours and that the cover is slightly shimmery. It’s so beautiful!!
This novel is one of my favourite reads of 2016 so far. I love the colours on the cover, as well as the feathers and the branches. I just think that it’s very beautifully simplistic.
This cover is just stunning. The illustration of the bird is so detailed and I could spend hours and hours just staring at it and trying to figure it out. I have the Australian paperback edition but I’ve seen the UK hardcover addition and omg it’s BEAUTIFUL.
The picture I’ve included doesn’t do this cover justice. It’s absolutely beautiful in real life and the debossed lines on the cover, as well as on the naked hardback is not only beautiful to the eyes but wonderful to touch. This is my favourite YA novel of all time and I’m so happy that it has an insanely pretty cover too.
I love not only the illustrations on the cover, which are so stunning and detailed, but also the texture of the cover. I have the hardcover edition and it’s got a wonderful matte cover and I love touching it so much!
I love the covers of all three books in this trilogy but I had to mention this one because it’s the first. I think the covers of Hollow City and Library of Souls are really mysterious and unique but this first book just has a really iconic cover. I love that it’s greyscale and that it’s just so peculiar!
I mean, just look at this cover. Just look at it! The colours are so pretty and there’s nothing that I can say about it that you can’t already see.
What I love most about this book is the texture of it. The black hole on the cover is stitched and I love feeling the raised bits of thread. I don’t like that it’s not centred but other than that, it’s perfection. I also really love the debossed black hole on the naked hardcover.
I love the font and the embossed lettering of the title. When I first got this book, I couldn’t stop feeling it. I also really like the bottle and the ship. I just think that it’s a beautifully designed cover!
It’s been weeks and weeks since I’ve done a Top Ten Tuesday. This is mainly because I haven’t really had the time to respond to comments and I always feel bad about leaving my Top Ten Tuesday comments unanswered for weeks. But I love the topic of this week, so I’m gonna go ahead and do it. Today, I’m featuring some of my favourite books that have school settings. I love pretty much all books that are set in school and I’m excited to share some of my favourites. Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the team at The Broke and the Bookish.
Duh! How could I not include the Harry Potter series on this list?
Carry On is one of my favourite books of all time because it’s a wonderfully hilarious Chosen One story that’s set at a magic school. If you love Harry Potter, you will love this (as long as you don’t compare the two).
Nevernight is a wonderful story about an assassin who goes to the Red Church, a school of assassins. The things that happen there are super brutal and intense but it was such a fantastic school setting. I loved it!
Not only is Fangirl one of my favourite books with school settings, it’s one of my favourite contemporary novels of all time. This book has a really great college setting and I loved the role that school played in Cath’s story.
And while I’m at it, let’s include a third Rainbow Rowell book on this list. I read Eleanor & Park recently and it was what really made me want to do this Top Ten Tuesday post. Eleanor and Park meet and interact mostly on the school bus and my heart was just so full of happiness at this. However, it’s not all just fun and games on the bus. Eleanor is bullied quite badly at school and I enjoyed how this was incorporated.
Isla and the Happily Ever After is my favourite of Stephanie Perkins’ companion trilogy. I loved that it was set not only at a boarding school in Paris, but also partly in New York and Barcelona. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the dorm room aspect of the book a lot.
School probably isn’t the first thing that I think of when I think about this novel but I did really like the school setting in this book. It’s a central part of the book and I thought it was wonderful.
In this alternate history novel, where the Great Library of Alexandria was not destroyed, the characters in the book attend an academy of sorts to learn to become librarians. It’s a really interesting world and the training that these apprentices go through were really intense but intriguing.
This book is about a student-teacher relationship and is written from the perspective of seven different high school students. It’s about the relationships between the characters and the things that they learn from each other. This is one of the most realistic high school settings that I’ve read about and I highly enjoyed it.
Similar to Seven Ways We Lie, this Aussie YA novel is written from the perspective of five high schoolers who are all working on the yearbook together. They’re vastly different people but the things that they learn from each other and the relationships between them are what make the book so special.
What are some of your favourite books with school settings? I’d love to add them to my list because I love school 😀
This week the Aussie (and NZ) YA Bloggers group is doing a blog hop to highlight some awesome #LoveOzYA books and why we love Aussie YA! The moderators of the group are hosting this fun blog hop and I’m so excited to be joining in. The blog hop runs from August 8 – 14 and there will also be a Twitter chat on Sunday 14th at 6pm AEST.
My favourite thing about Aussie YA is the relatability aspect. There’s nothing more exciting than seeing a story set in my home city of Sydney, and being able to recognise the places that are talked about. There’s a feeling of familiarity and It makes it easier to connect with the story and the characters. I also feel like Aussie YA novels are much more honest. They’re often grittier and darker and explore issues that matter, including diverse issues.
I’ve always loved The Book Thief and Markus Zusak has always been one of my favourite authors. But there have been some wonderful authors that I’ve discovered in the past 12 months. I love Jaclyn Moriarty and her storytelling ability and her characters. I think her books are absolutely wonderful. I also really love Jessica Shirvington (despite having only read her Disruption duology).
The two Aussie YA books that I distinctly remember reading when I was a younger reader were Melina Marchetta’s Saving Francesca and of course, Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief.
Wow. It’s so hard for me to narrow down my Aussie YA favourites! I have so many that I’ve loved from this year! I’ll try to narrow it down to 3 books. I absolutely loved The Stars at Oktober Bend by Glenda Millard, A Tangle of Gold by Jaclyn Moriarty and Nevernight by Jay Kristoff.
I’m really, really excited about Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland. Not only does it have a beautiful cover, it also has a synopsis that sounds right up my alley. It’s been touted as a John Green meets Rainbow Rowell story so I’m definitely going to be picking it up when it’s released.
I don’t typically read a lot of series because contemporary is my favourite genre, so I mostly read standalones. But there are two Aussie YA series that I’m absolutely in love with. The Colours of Madeleine trilogy by Jaclyn Moriarty is one of my all-time favourites because of its creativity and magical plot. The third and final book, A Tangle of Gold, is one of my favourite books of 2016 so far. I also really love the Disruption duology by Jessica Shirvington, which I’ve already mentioned above!
I’m not really sure if I’d call this one a surprise because it’s a contemporary and had a plot which didn’t include any tropes that I hate. I knew going into Frankie by Shivaun Plozza that I would like it but I was completely unprepared for how much I would love it! It was absolutely amazing and I enjoyed all of the characters and their relationships.
One novel that I’ve been recommending to others since I read it back in early 2015 is The Flywheel by Erin Gough. It’s a beautiful LGBTQIA+ book that features very relatable characters and a realistic lesbian romance. It’s set in the inner west of Sydney and I loved the setting so much.
I have so many Aussie YA novels on my shelf right now but one that I think I’ll be reading relatively soon is One Would Think the Deep by Claire Zorn. Claire is going to be a guest at the #YABookmeet, hosted by Dymocks Sydney in early September so I’ll be picking it up soon. I also hope to read Ellie Marney’s Every trilogy in upcoming weeks because I now finally own all three books and can binge this trilogy of Sherlock retellings.
How do I even choose?!! There are so many Aussie bloggers that I’ve gotten to know and I don’t want to leave anybody out T_T. Let’s get the obvious ones out of the way. I love Jeann @ Happy Indulgence, because she’s amazing (and I also co-blog there HAHA). I love Aentee @ Read at Midnight, who is my blog twin and food partner in crime. I also love my NZ blogger friend CW @ Read Think Ponder, who is back from her hiatus! I also love Cait @ Paper Fury, Chiara @ Delicate Eternity, Emily @ Loony Literate.
I haven’t done a tag in months and months because for a while I’ve felt that my answers were the same for every tag. And I kind of just lost interest in answering the questions. But I’m currently obsessed with Pokemon Go and Aentee @ Read at Midnight created and tagged me in this awesome Pokemon Go Book Tag, so here I am doing it!
All the graphics in this post were also made by the talented Aentee. They’re all so adorable!
The first books that I remember reading are the Disney Classics storybooks. I remember seeing them everywhere when I was a preschooler and begging my parents to buy them for me. I still have most of the Disney Storybook Collection at home right now. As I got older, I read a lot of Enid Blyton and my favourites of hers were The Adventures of the Wishing Chair and The Faraway Tree series. And of course, I read a lot of Harry Potter too.
My favourite classic of all time is Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. But I’m not sure that it’s really an iconic classic. So for this one, I think I have to choose Romeo and Juliet. I just never get sick of reading it and I also love all books that have Romeo and Juliet elements.
Made You Up by Francesca Zappia was a book that I actually preordered because I love mental illness books. But there was so much hype and everyone was talking about it that I completely lost interest. It’s still sitting there on my shelf taking up space and I’m not sure that I still want to read it. Especially since I’ve heard that it has a pretty inaccurate representation of schizophrenia.
I read a lot of contemporary and a lot of them tend to use the same tropes and be reminiscent of other books so I couldn’t really pinpoint one book that I thought was a lot like other books. So I went with Carry On by Rainbow Rowell for this question. Obviously Carry On reminds me of Harry Potter and has a lot of tropes that are seen in other novels, but I still love it to bits! It was one of my favourite books of 2016.
For me, this is the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. I’ve had the trilogy boxset for over half a year now and I still haven’t reached for it even though I know it’s amazing. I like to binge series and I just can’t bring myself to read 600+ page books back to back. But I do hope to read them soon!
There have been many books that have kept me up at night but the one that sticks out in my mind the most is Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I started reading this book at about 12am, intending only to read a couple of chapters. I ended up finishing the entire book at about 4-5am. It was kinda insane.
I have so many bookish OTPs that I don’t even know where to start! And I definitely cannot pick only one so I’m just going to start listing them now:
SnowBaz from Carry On, Kaz + Inej and Nina + Matthias from Six of Crows, Blansey from The Raven Cycle, Wessa from The Infernal Devices (though I do absolutely love Jem. I just love the three of them together), Maggie + Quentin from the Disruption duology… and many more.
Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin was fast-paced, action-packed, exciting and incredibly intense! I loved it so much and I cannot wait for the sequel, Blood for Blood, because I know it’s going to be amazing!
As controversial as this is, I could never get sick of Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter Chronicles. Even though all of her series are set in the same world and contain similar tropes, I feel like each series is unique and really different to each other in terms of plot. And she never fails to give me lots and lots of feels.
I recently read The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B and was definitely surprised by how much I loved it! Well… I knew I was going to enjoy it but I was completely unprepared for how emotional it made me and how much it blew my mind. If you’re looking for a great mental illness book, I highly recommend this one.
I was also pleasantly surprised by Red Rising by Pierce Brown. I know lots of people love this trilogy but going into it, I wasn’t sure if it was my kind of book. But it was epic and intense and blew me away.
I don’t know if I’m excited to read it per se, but I do still intend to read the Vampire Academy series which is definitely overhyped. The main reason for this is because I own the first two books already and I want to meet these characters that people are always talking about.
Even though I own the regular illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, I would love to have the deluxe edition! It looks so beautiful but I definitely cannot justify the cost. And just like Aentee, I wouldn’t mind having the Harry Potter series with the Hogwarts House themed jackets either!
I have two upcoming YA debut novels that I’m extremely excited to get my hands on! They’re both contemporary and both sound super intriguing and right up my alley. The first is Phantom Limbs by Paula Garner. It deals with grief and sounds absolutely wonderful. Its release date is set for September 13. The second debut novel that I’m really excited for is Everyone We’ve Been by Sarah Everett. It definitely reminds me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as well as Adam Silvera’s More Happy Than Not. I don’t read a lot of speculative fiction but this one definitely caught my eye. This one will be out on October 4.
Oh boy, I have so many auto-buy authors. Get ready for my super long list:
Huntley Fitzpatrick, Heather Demetrios, Morgan Matson, Rainbow Rowell, Cassandra Clare, Anna-Marie McLemore, Gayle Forman, Leigh Bardugo, Sarah Dessen, Sarra Manning, Marissa Meyer, Maggie Stiefvater. Should I keep going?
I’ve been waiting for Crooked Kingdom since I finished reading Six of Crows last year! So I need to have Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Illustrated Edition right now! Good thing I’ve preordered them both already 😀 While we’re at it, can I have Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Illustrated Edition too please because that’s my favourite book of the series.
I’m going to be tagging 5 of my most recent blog followers. Thank you for following me 🙂
And of course anybody else who wants to do it!
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by the team over at The Broke and the Bookish. The theme for this week is books that are set outside of the US. The advantage of living outside of the US is that I have a lot of Aussie YA books (set in Australia) that I can use for this list. But I chose to go with a variety of different locations and settings for my TTT today. Be warned: I have a lot of WWII historical fiction novels on this list…
Hehehe I’m so predictable. Of course, my favourite book of all time makes it on to this list. This WWII historical fiction masterpiece is set in France and Germany, as well as parts of Russia. READ IT!
Just One Year is the companion sequel to Just One Day. The reason why I’ve chosen to go with Just One Year is because it’s set completely outside of the US, whereas Just One Day was set partially in the US. In Just One Year, our protagonist, Willem, travels around Europe, India and Mexico and overall, it’s just a great time.
This novel is set in Cornwall and was one of my favourite releases of 2015. It’s a historical fiction novel that’s set in the 1930s and has a great atmosphere and setting! The writing is absolutely beautiful too.
Another WWII historical fiction novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North is set in Australia as well as Japanese POW camps in South East Asia. It was the Man Booker Prize winner of 2014.
Wolf by Wolf is an alternate history WWII novel that’s set across multiple continents. The story begins in Germany (I believe?) and features a cross-continental motocross race. We follow the characters across the Middle East, through South East Asia and into Japan. It’s fast-paced and exciting and I can’t wait for the sequel!
This novel isn’t my favourite of Stephanie Perkins companion series (I love Isla and the Happily Ever After the most) but I’m pretty sure that this one is set entirely outside of the US? I think it’s set entirely in France and I really enjoyed it when I read it.
And yet another WWII historical fiction novel, Max follows the story of a baby who was born as part of the Lebensborn program. We follow his journey from before birth, up until the end of the war. It’s a super interesting and eye-opening story and I highly recommend it. This one is set in Germany.
The Sidekicks is an Aussie YA novel that’s set in Australia. It’s a really short read but gives you a good kick in the feels. It’s about friendship and grief and is so, so good!
This is my last WWII novel, I promise! In this novel, we follow Anna and a mysterious man known as the Swallow Man as they wander around Poland for years during the war. It’s a bit of a confusing book but it’s definitely worth the read.
And finally, I had to include an urban fantasy novel and I’ve chosen The Infernal Devices. This trilogy is set in the London Institute during the 19th century and I love this series so much!
Reading with Jenna || book blog 