Top 6 | Books I Have Read So Far In 2015

The top ten books you have read so far this year is the topic of next week's Top Ten Tuesday. However, I won't be around next week as I will be busy running about after about a group of 8-12 year olds (I'm a leader at a summer camp, it's not as weird as it sounds!), so I decided to do this list this week instead. I decided to narrow it down to the top 5, as some books I would be including in my top ten were just reasonably good, rather than great. As I expected, though, I couldn't choose between two so ended up picking my top 6.

1. Allegiant by Veronica Roth
I didn't intend for these to be in any kind of order but this is probably my favourite book I have read so far this year. I put off finishing this series as I had heard so many mixed reviews of Allegiant; some people completely loved it, while others hated it so much they refuse to keep it on their shelf. I was, obviously, one of those who loved it. I thought it was a great ending to the series and, despite the controversy surrounding the way the book ended, I think Veronica Roth did a fantastic job of concluding the series. I have a full review of this book here where you can read more of my raving.

2. The Selection series by Kiera Casss
I decided to include the first three books in The Selection series - The Selection, The Elite and The One - as one, because collectively they are definitely next in line after Allegiant when it comes to favourites of the year. I absolutely loved the first three books in the series, despite hearing many mixed review, and though I wouldn't consider the fourth book, The Heir, as a favourite of the year, I did still enjoy it. I have a review of all three books - The Selection, The Elite and The One - if you want to know more of my thoughts.

3. How To Fall In Love by Cecelia Ahern
This is the last of my five star books I have read so far this year. This is only the second book I have read by Cecelia Ahern, with the first being my beloved Where Rainbows End, and I was very impressed. I really wanted to love this book, considering how much I loved my first of her books, and I was so relieved when I loved it. Cecelia Ahern has this incredible talent of taking something as serious and solemn as suicide and making it light-hearted and funny, while still being sensitive and respectful of the subject matter. I don't have a review of this one yet but it will be coming soon.

4. Ignite by Lily Paradis
This may have been a four star read from me but it was still great. This was my first experience of the New Adult genre and it has definitely made me want to read more. I loved this story, particularly the aspect of the main character suddenly becoming responsible for three children, but also the romance aspect. The characters were great and I became so immersed in their story. I have a full review of this one here if you want to know more.

5. I Was Here by Gayle Forman
This is another book relating to suicide, but it is completely different from How To Fall In Love. This was definitely a more serious take on the subject but it was still very enjoyable. The characters are very relatable and I enjoyed reading about them. More importantly, this was a great story of friendship and family and it really touched me. I don't have a full review of this one yet but I will have very soon.

6. The Distance Between Us by Kasie West
This is the only 'light and fluffy' contemporary I have amongst my favourite books of the year so far because, surprisingly for me, I haven't read that many. This was a very quirky take on the usual contemporary love story. The main character was very different from the usual, though great, and even the setting was quite unusual. There wasn't really anything particularly stand out about this book but I did really enjoy it. I will have a full review of this coming soon.

So those are my top 6 books of 2015 so far. Have you read any of them? What have your favourites been so far?

Sophie :)

Review | Playlist For The Dead by Michelle Falkoff

Playlist For The Dead by Michelle Falkoff
Published By: Harper Collins
Published On: January 27, 2015
Genre: Contemporary
Pages: 281
Format: Audiobook
Source: Audible
Narrated By: Davis Brooks
Rating: ★★

Amazon | Goodreads

Here's what Sam knows: There was a party. There was a fight. The next morning, his best friend, Hayden, was dead. And all he left Sam was a playlist of songs, and a suicide note: For Sam—listen and you'll understand. 
As he listens to song after song, Sam tries to face up to what happened the night Hayden killed himself. But it's only by taking out his earbuds and opening his eyes to the people around him that he will finally be able to piece together his best friend’s story. And maybe have a chance to change his own.

After his best friend Hayden unexpectedly commits suicide, leaving behind nothing but a playlist of songs, Sam is lost. With his only friend gone, all Sam can do is play video games and attempt to decipher Hayden’s final message to him, the playlist. With the accompanying note read ‘For Sam – listen and you’ll understand’, Sam sets out to uncover the truth surrounding is best friend’s death. 

This was the first novel I decided to pick up as part of the Debut Author Challenge this year, so I was excited to get to it. Unfortunately, I found it to be quite boring. The idea of the story had great promise, with books of a similar theme proving to be very popular. However, this book was not as good as it could have been.

I found the plot twists to be either predictable or just not that exciting. I think this is the main reason I found this book to be boring. Though plenty was going on within the story, nothing was particularly exciting or shocking. This often meant that climactic moments ended up falling flat for me.

Unfortunately, I also felt nothing towards any of the characters. None were particularly likeable, though I didn’t particularly dislike any either. My indifference towards the characters made it hard for me to engage with their struggles throughout the story.

From the title and synopsis of the book, I understood that the playlist would play a significant part in the story. Having finished the book, I still don’t understand its significance at all. It seemed to have very little to do with Sam understanding Hayden’s situation. In fact, it almost seems as though it was simply used to fill up some space in the story. Maybe I’m missing something.

To be completely honest, if I hadn’t listened to this on audiobook I probably would have given up on it. I doubt I would have made the effort to sit down and struggle my way through this book. The fact that I could listen to it on the journey to and from university or while I was doing housework was probably the only reason I finished it.

Overall, I did not enjoy this book. I found it to be quite boring and just did not enjoy it. I expected something emotional or a great mystery to be uncovered but it completely fell flat for me. I really wanted to enjoy it, especially with it being a debut novel, but, unfortunately, I did not.

Summer Biannual Bibliothon | TBR

I have never officially taken part in a readathon before, as they seem to always take place when I have exams, but since my last exams is tomorrow (Saturday), I'm going to make this my first. The Summer Biannual Bibliothon runs from Sunday 21st June to Saturday 27th June and all the information can be found here. This readathon has set challenges, which I really enjoy, so I am going to share my TBR for completing those challenges.

Paper Towns by John Green -

Challenge: Group Book and Book Involving A Social Issue

Paper Towns is on my TBR for the month of June so I was excited when I saw that it is the group book for this readathon. I want to read this book before the movie comes out, which is also the reason why it has been chosen as the group book. I decided to double up on challenges for this book as I believe it features mental illness, primarily depression, which is a social issue I am passionate about.

The Naughtiest Girl In The School by Enid Blyton -

Challenge: Reread A Book From Your Childhood

I struggled to think of a book for this challenge as I don't remember much of what I read as a child. I do remember having a book including the first three books in the Naughtiest Girl series, and I remember quite enjoying them, so I decided to reread a book from this series. I managed to find the first book in the series on iBooks so I will be rereading that for the challenge.

Free Four by Veronica Roth -

Challenge: Companion/Novella/Prequel

This is the last of the Divergent novellas that I own so it's about time that I read it. I believe this novella features the knife throwing scene from Divergent but from the point of view of Four. This is only around 40 pages so should be an easy one to get through.

Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban by JK Rowling -

Challenge: Book From The Genre You've Read Least This Year

I have only read one fantasy book so far this year and that was the second Harry Potter book. It's really about time I read this series and since the third book is on my Summer TBR, this seems like the perfect choice for this challenge.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner -

Challenge: A DNF Book

I started this book last year but put it down after about 50 pages as I wasn't enjoying it. I think I just wasn't in the mood for it but I am a little nervous to try again. I am going to give it a go during the readathon, if I get to it, but I am still a bit unsure about whether I will like it.

The Geography Of You And Me by Jennifer E Smith -

Challenge: Book Set In A Foreign Country

Living in Scotland, I had a lot of choices for this challenge since very few books I read are set here. I decided to go for this one partly because I really want to read it but also because it is set in various countries around the world, including my own actually. I thought this would be a good choice as I think the various countries are actually important to the story, as it is about a long-distance relationship.

Those are the 5 books and 1 novella that I am hoping to read for the Summer Biannual Bibliothon. I feel that this is a little ambitious but I will give it my best shot. It seems like a great way to start off my summer so I am looking forward to it.

Will you be participating?

Sophie :)

Mini Reviews | A Mixed Bag

I started doing some mini reviews at the start of the year for those books that I don't have loads to say about. There are times when I read a book but when it comes to reviewing it, there isn't enough to say to make up a full review. I don't want these books to go unnoticed, however, so mini reviews are perfect. In these reviews I will mention a few things I liked about the book, and a few things I did not like.

  

And That's When It Fell Off In My Hand (#5), Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers (#6) and Startled By His Furry Shorts (#7) by Louise Rennison
Series: Confessions Of Georgia Nicholson series
Published By: Harper Collins
Published On: 2004 (#5), 2005 (#6) & 2006 (#7)
Genre: Contemporary
Pages: 269 (#5), 310 (#6) & 272 (#7)
Format: Paperback
Source: Bought
Amazon | Goodreads

What I Liked: These are very quick, fun reads, particularly because they are written in the form of diary entries. The interesting, and slightly odd, characters make these books even more enjoyable and add to the hilarity of the stories told. These stories are your typical high school drama and boy problems but with the addition of complete madness.
What I Disliked: As I am 20 and these books are aimed at girls much younger than me, I do find these books to be a little immature. As a 14/15 year old, I would have loved them but now, though I do enjoy them, I do have some problems relating to the characters and their situations. I also had a few problems with book 6 in the series as there were some characters I couldn't quite take to.
Rating: Book 5 - ★★★
Book 6 - ★★½
Book 7 - ★★★

Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets by JK Rowling
Series: Harry Potter #2
Published By: Bloomsbury
Published On: May 28, 1999
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 251
Format: Paperback
Source: Bought
Amazon | Goodreads

What I Liked: I enjoyed this book much more than I did the first book in the series. I had seen the first movie so many times that I knew exactly what was coming throughout the book. For this one, however, I had only seen the movie once and remembered almost nothing about it. This made the book much more enjoyable as it was more of a surprise. As with the first book, I really like the characters and the Hogwarts setting, and found it to be extremely well written.
What I Disliked: There is very little that I disliked about this book, and in fact my issues have nothing to do with the book itself. There is so much pressure to love these books and I find it harder to enjoy them because of that. I also feel slightly less connected with the characters as they are so well loved by everyone. It is as if they are someone else's friends so I can't be there friend, if that makes any sense to anyone other than me.
Rating: ★★★★

  Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
Published By: Hodder
Published On: March 21, 2008
Genre: Adult Fiction
Pages: 512
Format: eBook
Source: Bought
Amazon | Goodreads

What I Liked: As a law student, I found some of the legal aspects of this book to be interesting. Obviously this is fictional but some of the legal points made were quite though-provoking.

What I Disliked: Unfortunately, I don't even know where to start for things I disliked. This was not at all what I was expecting, though I don't know what that was exactly. I found this to be very boring and repetitive. It definitely did not need to be over 500 pages as everything seemed to be repeated multiple times. What should have been a heart-breaking story did nothing for me, I just wanted it to be over.

Rating: ★★

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them?

Sophie :)

Review | Before We Met by Lucie Whitehouse

Before We Met by Lucie Whitehouse
Published On: January 21, 2014
Published By: Bloomsbury
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Source: Bought
Rating: ★★★

Amazon | Goodreads

A whirlwind romance. A perfect marriage. 

Hannah Reilly has seized her chance at happiness. Until the day her husband fails to come home . . . 

And can you ever really know what happened before you met?

When Hannah’s husband does not come home from a business trip one night, she begins to worry, expecting the worst. What she doesn’t expect, however, is the secrets from her husband’s past that begin to unravel as a result. As she discovers more from his past, Hannah begins to question whether she truly knows the man she married.

This was compared to Gone Girl so I had quite high expectations. While I didn’t love Gone Girl, this was mainly due to the ending; I actually enjoyed the majority of the book. I liked the mystery aspect of Gone Girl and was looking forward to something similar with this book. However, this did not meet my expectations.

I liked the idea of the book. The plot is interesting and I think the concept of the person you marry, and think you know very well, turns out to not be who you thought they were. This had a great deal of potential but I don’t think it was done as well as it could have been.

Like most of the book, the characters were very average for me. I didn’t particularly like any of them or have any kind of connection. Then again, I didn’t really hate any of them either. They were nothing special, but enjoyable enough to read about. I feel the characters could have added much more to the story.

I expect a plot filled with unexpected twists in a mystery/thriller novel, however this was quite predictable. None of the plot twists were particularly shocking or exciting and there was nothing to get my heart racing. Also, for the most part, I could see where the story was going and the ending was not much of a surprise to me.

Overall, this book was enjoyable enough but not one I would recommend. You may appreciate it more if you have not read the likes of Gillian Flynn but this did not live up to the standard of her works, and as this book has been compared to Gone Girl, that is what I expected.

Top Ten Tuesday | Top Ten Books On My Summer TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke And The Bookish. Lists galore, I can think of nothing better!

This week's theme is Top Ten Books On My Summer TBR and there were a lot more than 10 books to choose from for this. I have so many books that I want to read during the summer and I know I'm not going to get to all of them, I probably won't even get around to all ten of these, but I can try my best. I am always in the mood to read a lot of Contemporary during the summer months so I have split this list into contemporary books and other genres.

1. Paper Towns by John Green

This is on my TBR for June so I can hopefully get this one read quite soon. I really want to read this one before the movie comes out in August here in the UK. I know very little about it but the trailer for the movie looks really good, so hopefully I will enjoy this one.

2. The Geography Of You And Me by Jennifer E Smith

I read The Statistical Probability Of Love At First Sight by Jennifer E Smith last summer and really enjoyed it so I am in the mood to read some more from her. I have a couple of her books but decided to go with this one as it is, I believe, about the struggles of a long distance relationship, and part of the book takes place in Edinburgh so as a Scot, that interests me.

3. Isla And The Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins

This one is a reread for me. I am desperate for some Stephanie Perkins in my life but since we don't seem to be getting anything new from her until next year at the earliest, I shall just have to reread my favourite of her books. I absolutely loved Isla when I read it last year and instantly wanted to read it again so I will definitely be doing that at some point this summer.

4. Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson

As soon as this was released last year, everyone was raving about it. I am, as usual, pretty late joining this bandwagon but I am definitely planning to see what the fuss is about this summer. This is about a girls whose best friend, whom she tends to hide behind, leaves without warning but gives her a lists of things she must do during the summer. This sounds like it could be a lot of fun and something very relatable to me.

5. The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

I have heard it said that this is the perfect series to read during summer and since I have also heard such great things about Jenny Han's writing, I am looking forward to giving this series a go. I know there's a love triangle in this series, so I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about that but I will give it a go and hopefully I enjoy it.

6. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

I own three Rainbow Rowell books and have yet to read any of them so it is definitely about time I made a start. I wasn't sure which of the three to start with so I decided to read them in publication order which means, according to Goodreads, that Attachments is first. This sounds really interesting to me, about a man whose job is to regulate the company emails and in doing so discovers a conversation between two female colleagues, one of which he starts to develop feelings for. I'm definitely looking forward to this one.

7. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling

It seems to be taking me forever to get through the Harry Potter books considering I read the second book back in February. It's about time I continue with the series so I am planning to get the the third book during the summer. I had actually intended to read all three books last summer but that obviously never happened so we'll see if I can get to this one during this summer.

8. Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

I have had this book on my shelf since back in my Twilight days so it really is about time I finally get around to reading it. I don't know why I haven't got to it yet considering it has been on my monthly TBR quite a few times over the past year. I will get round to reading it at some point this year...hopefully.

9. City Of Bones by Cassandra Clare

I must be one of very few people who have not even started this series yet and plenty of my friends are constantly telling me to get reading it. I am slightly intimidated by it, not only because it's a pretty lengthy book, but also because several people have said the first book is not that great compared to the rest in the series. I will give it a try and hopefully I'll get to it this summer.

10. Obsidian by Jennifer L Armentrout

I have heard such great things about this series so I don't know why I still haven't read it yet. I have never read anything featuring aliens before, which is why this series sounds so interesting to me. It is a little out of my comfort zone but I definitely want to stretch myself a little and try it out. So many people are huge fans of Jennifer L Armentrout and her writing, so there is a bit of pressure to like it, but I am hoping it will be worth the hype.

Have you read any of the books on my Summer TBR list? What are you planning to read this summer?

Sophie :)

Review | The One by Kiera Cass

The One by Kiera Cass
Series: The Selection #3
Published On: May 6, 2014
Published By: Harper Teen
Genre: Dystopian
Pages: 323
Format: Paperback
Source: Gift
Rating: ★★★★★

Amazon | Goodreads

The time has come for one winner to be crowned. 

When she was chosen to compete in the Selection, America never dreamed she would find herself anywhere close to the crown--or to Prince Maxon's heart. But as the end of the competition approaches, and the threats outside the palace walls grow more vicious, America realizes just how much she stands to lose--and how hard she'll have to fight for the future she wants.

The One is the third book in The Selection series by Kiera Cass, and follows America Singer as she continues her journey through The Selection. I have a full review of both The Selection and The Elite if you would like to know my thoughts on the previous books in the series.

Having read all three books in the initial trilogy, I can definitely say this is one of my favourite series of all time. I absolutely loved the first two books in the series and, despite hearing comments that the series goes downhill with each book, I loved The One just as much. This series is consistently good and I have liked all three of the initial trilogy equally.

As I had heard negative reviews, I kept waiting for something to make me not like this instalment. I was so sure that if so many people had disliked this book, there had to be something terrible coming to make me feel the same. However, there was nothing that made me dislike this book in any way.

I still love America. I can’t understand why people have such a strong hatred of her. I think she is a great main character and, though she is not the typical kick-ass heroine, she is definitely a strong female character and a very relatable one at that. I have mentioned my love for America in my reviews of both the previous books and my opinion is, as you can see, unchanging.

I very much appreciated the character development of some more minor characters. There were various characters who were revealed in a different light, most in a good way though some not so much, and it was great to see that Kiera Cass made the effort to further develop the more minor characters, rather than main characters.

This could have been quite a predictable instalment in the series, as I was sure I knew where the series was going, but there were some plot twists that I was not expecting. Some of those plot twists were very enjoyable, others were completely heart-breaking, but they definitely added to the overall enjoyment of the book.

Had Kiera Cass left this series as a trilogy, this would have made a great conclusion. Everything was nicely wrapped up, with all questions answered and no frustrating open ending. However, I can also see how it nicely sets up the next book in the series, The Heir, which I am now very excited to read.

Overall, I absolutely loved this book, and am loving this series as a whole. I have very little to say about The One that I haven’t already mentioned in my reviews for The Selection and The Elite, as I have been declaring my love for these books in all three reviews, so I have more coherent thoughts in those reviews, if you would like to know more.