Top Ten Books I've read in 2012

Hi everyone :) I'm part of the Top Ten of  2012 event co-hosted by Rachel from Fiktshun, Lisa from A Life Bound By Books, Jessica from Confessions of a Bookaholic, Jaime from Two Chicks on Books  and  Mindy from Magical Urban Fantasy Reads.

Each deay from December 24 to December 28, the participating bloggers post and link up their top ten of a certain topic. I'm really glad they allowed for multiple categories and a few honorable mentions, otherwise I'd have a very tough time choosing! I've read sooo many amazing books this year :) I've ordered mine into paranormal / fantasy books and contemporaries. The list is about books we read in 2012, even if they came out earlier.

 Paranormal / Fantasy:

Days of Blood and Starlight, by Laini Taylor
I read both DoBaS and Daugher of Smoke and Bone in 2012, but I think the second book was even better than the first. It doesn't really matter though, because I absolutely adored both! The writing is just phenomenal :)

The Lux Series, by Jennifer L. Armentrout
I'm just putting them both together here. Yes, I'm a little cheater :P If you made me pick though... gah. I don't know. I loved Onyx and seeing Katy come into her was awesome, but I think I liked Obsidian just a tiny bit better ^^ I'm really curious for Opal, I'll have to get it soon.

Enshadowed, by Kelly Creagh
I waited a whole agonizing year for this book to come out and it was worth every single second! Soooo good! I love Varen. He's hands down my favorite book boyfriend. And Isobel grew so much during this novel! The lore. The Poe aspect. The beautiful, beautiful writing. I need more! You can read my review here if you're interested :)

Something Strange & Deadly, by Susan Dennard
My first zombie novel, and I loved it sooo much! I mean I kind of knew it would be great, but it was just so much more than I had expected! The historical aspect was phenomenal, and I loved the dynamics between Daniel and Eleanor ^^

Dearly, Departed, by Lia Habel
Yes, another zombie book. I think I always pick the steampunk zombie books that aren't the usual zombie apocalypse book. I've never read one of those, and I doubt that I'd like them, but I was blown away by this one! The world building is amazing, and Bram totally made me believe in a zombie love interest! And despite the gore, it was a fun read too :)

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern
I don't know why it took me so long to read this book. It was soooo beautiful! I felt completely pulled into the world of the cirque des rêves and my mind still goes there quite often. This book is so well-structure and thought out! It made me laugh and cry and feel pretty much the whole emotional spectrum.

Anna Dressed in Blood, by Kendare Blake
A year late to the party, but I read this in the summer really quickly. I love Cas' voice! Can't wait for Girl of Nightmares to come out in paperback so I can finally buy it and they'll match. I'm really curious about what will happen!

The Soul Screamers series, by Rachel Vincent
Yup, I'm cheating again and just putting the whole series there. I read it all between January and June. Then I read more of Rachel Vincent's books. I'd love to list them, too, but that might be going a bit far with the rule-bending. I love Tod and Kaylee and Sabine. If I had to pick a single favorite from the series it would be If I Die.

Black Heart, by Holly Black
I love Holly Black. All her books. She is such a courageous writer! The Curse Workers Trilogy is a masterpiece, and this was the perfect conclusion! I'm really sad there won't be more Cassel and Lila stories, but I like where it left off. Doesn't mean my heart wasn't broken on the way through the book. Definitely worth the pain, though!

The Shadow Society, by Marie Rutkoski
I requested this on NetGalley on a whim and never expected to love it quite as much as I did! What a unique idea, and what a wonderful heroine! And my favorite poem played quite an important role in it :)

Contemporary:

Notes from the Blender, by Trish Cook and Brendan Halpin
I laughed so much when I read this book, and still it was about serious matters, too! I loved both Declan and Neilly, and getting their separate perspectives of the same events was awesome. Also, the authors actually GET Declan's perspective and know what they're talking about with his music etc.! I read it in a day.

Pushing the Limits, by Katie McGarry
I loved Echo and Noah! A wonderful book, again with dual perspective. They're chemistry is off the charts, and they make a great team. The tough issues both characters are dealing with were well-handled.

The Language of Flowers, by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
This was the first contemporary I read this year. The first one I'd read in many years! I stuck firmly to fantasy for like half a decade (probably more) before that. I picked it up on a whim at the bookstore because I liked the cover. Then I saw that it was about a girl from the foster system, and it played in San Francisco. The first few sentences pulled me in, so I bought it. Then it was on my shelf for almost half a year. Then I read it, and my heart opened, I hurt, I cried, I was happy. It's a tough book, but a truly beautiful one.

Anna and the French Kiss, by Stephanie Perkins
This isn't something I would have bought if I hadn't read so many awesome reviews. I picked it when I won my first giveaway. It was such a fun, engaging read! I'm always scared there will be too much drama in contemporaries. I hate drama. But it wasn't too much in this one, and realistically handled. I really need to get Lola and the Boy Next Door soon!

The Breakaway, by Michelle Davidson Argyle
I finished this one yesterday but I just had to add it to the list! The issue of kidnapping, Stockholm Syndrome, and abusive / dependent relationships was really well-handled, in my opinion. I think I would have acted different from Naomi on quite a few occasions, but I could see where she was coming from and why she did what she did. My review will be up in February as part of the blog tour for the sequel.

Manhattan Transfer, by John Dos Passos
The only non-YA book I've got here. It's a classic, and the writing style takes a while to get used to, but then I found it hard to put down! There are dozens of characters, some of whom never show up again, but there are also reoccurring ones and I loved following the development and intersections of their lives over the years. It covers New York history from the 1890s to the mid1920s.

I didn't manage to come up with ten contemporaries. As I said, I'm new to the genre. There were a few more that I read and enjoyed but I didn't really feel like putting them into my top ten just to fill it up.

Here are a few other amazing books I read this year though. Some of them it was really hard to pit against each other and I wish I could have featured them on my list!

Honorable mentions:

Click the covers to get to Goodreads

What do you think of my list, and which ones made it onto yours? Tell me in the comments!

Tomorrow, I'll choose my top ten favorite covers of 2012. It'll be agony >.<

Review: Rainbird, by Rabia Gale

Release date: October 10, 2012
Publisher: self-published
Format: eBook, 94 pages

Goodreads description:
She’s a halfbreed in hiding.

Rainbird never belonged. To one race, she’s chattel. To the other, she’s an abomination that should never have existed.

She lives on the sunway.

High above the ground, Rainbird is safe, as long as she does her job, keeps her head down, and never ever draws attention to herself.

But one act of sabotage is about to change everything.
For Rainbird. And for her world.


A note on the cover: It's not just beautiful, it also fits the character description perfectly and captures the mood of the story!

 

I was requested to review this novella by a friend of the author’s and given a free copy in exchange for my honest opinion.



Review: 
I had never heard of the author before, and though the synopsis intrigued me I didn’t really know what to expect. However, I was quickly drawn into the story by Rabia Gale’s wonderful, sometimes lyrical writing style. The novella is fairly short at 94 pages and I would have read it all in one sitting if real life hadn’t always interrupted – it was hard to put down so I could catch sleep!

The world the author creates is truly unlike anything I’ve ever read, and I think that these days that says a lot! Rabia Gale created a whole microcosm with its own supernatural species (none of which you’ll know from other novels) and even flora and mythology, and she manages to do so without info-dumping the reader. There is enough information to follow the plot but you need to pay attention and puzzle things together on your own as well. At the very beginning I was a bit confused but I caught on fairly quickly.

Rainbird is a half-breed, part human and part eiree. The eiree are a race of beings who live on the sunway. What is the sunway, you might ask? Basically, it’s the bone-arch of the spine of a huge dragon who (supposedly) died ages ago. It serves as a sort of rail for the cycle of the sun as it travels around the earth. Rainbird lives there with her father, who is employed as one of many inspectors of the sunway, making sure there are no problems with the bone and that everything is in order generally. There is a huge support system in the interior of the dragon’s spine, and different areas serve different purposes. Everyone has their place – apart from Rainbird. No one must know that she is half eiree, that’s why she has to hide her crippled wings under a trenchcoat. She is not allowed on the Wing, where the eiree live, and she is not allowed downside with the humans either.

When Rainbird and her father discover a conspiracy and when a violent event in Rainbird’s past is revealed, they have to fight for both their lives as well as the continued existence of the entire sunway. There are several subgroups with conflicting interests in the sunway, and our heroine gets stuck right in the middle. I’d love to go more into detail but that would be too spoilery, and I wouldn’t want to take away the pleasure there is in getting to know this world on one’s own from future readers. The novella is fairly fast-paced, with both plenty of action as well as slower, beautifully lyrical descriptive passages, and the ending ties up nicely.

I really liked Rainbird. She was quick-witted, resilient, strong. She did what had to be done, and she was extremely protective of her father. Even when her situation seemed hopeless, she never gave up. I really enjoyed watching her grow and try to carve out a space for herself and figure out who she really is. The novel is told in the third person and mostly from her point of view, but sometimes the perspective shifts to her father and I liked these glimpses of his mind; it explained some of the things he did in the past and added another layer to Rainbird’s sometimes limited knowledge.

My only complaint is that the story was almost too short! There was so much world building, it almost felt like a bit too much content stuffed into too small a form. I would have loved to explore this world in a little more detail and get to know the characters yet better. If Rabia Gale ever writes another story or maybe a full-length novel set in this world, I’ll definitely read it! Her writing style painted a really vivid picture of everything for me and I’ll make sure to keep an eye out for her work in the future. In fact, the cover for her new book, Mourning Cloak, has been revealed this week and it’s absolutely gorgeous! Head over to her blog to check it out – there is also a giveaway going on.

ABOUT RABIA GALE
I break fairy tales and fuse fantasy and science fiction. I love to write about flawed heroes who never give up, transformation and redemption, and things from outer space. In my spare time, I read, doodle, eat chocolate, avoid housework, and homeschool my three children.

A native of Pakistan, I grew up in hot, humid Karachi. I then spent almost a decade in Northern New England where I learned to love fall, tolerate snow, and be snobbish about maple syrup and sweet corn. I now live in Northern Virginia.

Website     Goodreads     Twitter     Amazon

Stacking the Shelves: eBook Binge Edition

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews to show off all the awesome books we got in the past week. You can include print or ebooks, bought and borrowed, for review or gifted or whatever :)


Okay this week I was halfway mad because of essay deadlines and exams... and somewhere in the moments I was procrastinating, I went on ebook binges. Many of those were free and the others were cheap. I think the fre ones were the Samantha Young novels, Dreams Smashers, The Scarlett Dagger, Lichgates, and Lonely Souls. Don't hold me to that though...


 For review from Edelweiss:

 Taking Chances, by Molly McAdams

I've wanted this one ever since the cover reveal, so I was really happy when I got approved ^^


Kindle ebooks, free or cheap:




The Jelly Bean Crisis, by Jolene Stockman
Drip Drop Teardrop, by Samantha Young
Scorched Skies, by Samantha Young
Lonely Souls, by Karice Bolton
Clash, by Nicole Williams (sigh, I liked the old cover soooo much better)
Tidal, by Emily Snow
Dream Smashers, by Angla Carlie
The Scarlet Dagger, by Krystle Jones
Lichgates, by S.M. Boyce

I'm pretty excited about all of them but it will probably take me quite a while to get to reading them! I'll have to do a kindle intervention sometime early next year - way too many awesome unread books on there!
What do you think of my haul? And what did you get this week?
Also, check out my blogoversary giveaway! It's international and there will be two winners :)

My Six Month Blogoversary & Giveaway

Wow. I can't believe my half-year milestone of blogging crept up (and past) me like this! I seem to be forever unprepared for these things. I made my first post here on May 24th, though theoretically it might be better to count the days from when I posted my first review, which would set the six months mark at December 16. I wanted to post this a little in advance, but then end-of-semester-madness and near-disaster happened.

No matter which way you put it, time simply flew for me this past year! Half a year ago I never could have imaged the place I feel I'm at with this blog right now. I never thought I'd be reading ARCs (okay, they're digital so far but so what?!) or that my blog would have around 500 followers! That number seemed astronomical. And though I know not every one of you reads each of my posts, I want to thank you all for sticking around! I'm happy about every pageview and every single comment makes me smile before I even look at it! I feel like I've come to 'know' some of the more regular commenters and their blogs a bit. I know this sounds silly - it's just a few lines after all. But I feel that way anyway.

Not being social and part of the community enough is one thing I regret quite a bit at this point. I'm shy about approaching people, and I don't really know where or how. Are there forums or websites where bloggers 'talk shop', so to speak? Or is it all on Twitter? Another problem is that I'm so busy I often don't have the time to catch up on my twitter feed at all. This was especially bad for the last month or so. I overbooked my university schedule this semester, and along with my two jobs and occasionally meeting friends and reading and writing (not as much as I'd like) it's just all getting a bit much. That's also the reason why there have been more promo/meme posts lately and less reviews - something I want to balance out better in the future! I can't wait for the holidays and I hope I'll do better next semester!

There are still things I want to improve. Like a header, or a blog button. If you have any suggestions about what type of post you'd like to see, feel free to tell me in the comments! I've also been thinking about adding a weekly poetry-meme for a while now. What do you think of that?

Enough of my prattling and rambling. This is a celebration post after all, so let there be presents and a giveaway! Unfortunately, since it's so close to the holidays, I have to watch my money a bit so I can't give away two packages of three books each like last time, but I have selection of both old and new releases for you to choose from. Also, to help get the word out there about some indie authors I really enjoy, there's also a rafflecopter for a kindle eBook of your choice from the selection. So there are TWO rafflecopter forms for you to fill out and TWO chances to win. Both giveaways are INTERNATIONAL but please check the rules for details!


Rules:

• One entry per person / household. I check IP addresses.
• You must be at least 13 years old.
• Giveaway is international provided that The Book Depository ships to you. For the eBook giveaway you have to be able to accept kindle gifts.
• I will email the winner and they'll have 48 hours to respond. After that time has passed, I'll pick someone new.
• You may enter one or both rafflecopter forms.
• I will check all entries before picking a winner. Cheaters will be disqualified.
• Once the book has been shipped, I am no longer responsible for it.
• I will choose whichever edition is cheapest on The Book Depository.
• If a book is from a series and you already have it, you may choose a different installment of the same series.
• I reserve the right to change entry options or end the giveaway early.

If you have any questions, either email me or send me a tweet @Butterfly_Ghost. Good luck to everyone, and happy holidays! :)

Paperback choices:






a Rafflecopter giveaway

Indie eBook choices:


 a Rafflecopter giveaway