Top Ten: 2016

This is my annual list of favorite books that I read and reviewed this year.

Break Me Like a Promise and This Raging Light were the two books that were most impactful to me and the two I most desperately needed to read this year. I haven’t stopped thinking about The Star-Touched Queen and In Some Other World, Maybe since I finished them. Passenger has become a defining book of key moments of this year and last (which is why I have three copies of it). Bookishly Ever After, Iron Cast, Tell Me Three Things, Three Dark Crowns, My Lady Jane, and The Museum of Heartbreak were all delightful surprises this year. Hands down, The Anatomy of Curiosity is one of the most inspiring books I have read. Ever.

You can click the cover photos to read my reviews. Since it’s 2016, I’m giving myself ten slots plus up to six honorable mentions. Alphabetical by author because picking favorites any more specifically is too hard.

Top Ten:

• Bookishly Ever After by Isabel Bandeira
• Passenger by Alexandra Bracken
• Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum
• The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi
• In Some Other World, Maybe by Shari Goldhagen

• This Raging Light by Estelle Laure
• The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood
• Break Me Like a Promise by Tiffany Schmidt
• Iron Cast by Destiny Soria
• The Anatomy of Curiosity by Maggie Stiefvater, Tessa Gratton, Brenna Yovanoff

Honorable Mentions:

• Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
• Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake
• My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows

• The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig
• The Museum of Heartbreak by Meg Leder
• This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

 

This list is also a Pinterest board.

End of Year Giveaway: Pick Me Up by Adam J. Kurtz

I heard about Pick Me Up by Adam J. Kurtz in one of the most inventive pitch emails I’ve received as a blogger. My interested immediately piqued, I requested a review copy which I’m currently working with and planning to review in January (for the new year). And I also have a copy to giveaway to one reader.

To explain exactly what Pick Me Up is (and why it ties so well with my resolution to be more mindful this year) let me quote the summary from Kurtz’s website:

PICK ME UP: A Pep Talk For Now & Later is a new interactive book-journal-guide-thing from the artist/author of 1 Page at a Time that will help you write and draw your own way through the dark parts.

This weird, optimistic book pushes you along with unexpected prompts, “existential activities,” some dark humor, and pages that keep you #connected, even when you feel alone. More than anything, you’ll build your own guide now for figuring shit out later – because someone telling you to “cheer up” is infuriating, but a pep talk from yourself might just work.

Pick it up and leave your mark. When you come back, leave a little more. Watch yourself change as you record and reflect on where you are and where you’re going.

Thanks to the publisher, I am excited to have a copy to giveaway to a US reader.

The giveaway will run from today through January 3.

TO ENTER: Leave a comment on this post with one good thing that happened in 2016 (there has to be something, right?) OR one way you’re hoping to pick yourself up in 2017.

(No need to follow me or promote this giveaway but it would be appreciated.)