Top Ten Tuesday: Bought but Haven't Read (3/19)

Image from The Broke and the Bookish

Today's Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and the Bookish has put me to shame! Like most avid readers, I cannot resist the siren song of a new book, and it doesn't even have to be brand new - just new to me. In fact, I love nothing more than perusing a used bookstore for hidden gems. (I scored #2 on my list for $5 weeks after it was published - in hardback no less.) also, like many of my fellow bloggers, I have made resolutions to read everything I own and/or only buy my auto-buy authors' new releases. I'm proud to say I've mostly stuck to these resolutions, but while my shelves may not have grown substantially over the past year, they are still chock full of books I had to have but have yet to crack open. My actual bought and never read list is in the double digits, so I have imposed two limits on my list to keep it 10 entires: 1 - these are a mixture of classic and contemporary adult literature (although I do have a few YA titles on my shelf I haven't read yet, I do tend to read those more quickly); 2 - these are physical books on my physical bookshelf (I.e. this doesn't include what's on my Kindle!!).

*All links below are to Goodreads.

1. The Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard - This collection of letters chronicles the forbidden romance of a twelfth century couple. I was going to write a paper about them in graduate school, but I changed my topic. I was still interested in reading the letters, but it's hard to get motivated without a research project staring you down!
2. The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt - I haven't read a lot of A. S. Byatt, but her Little Black Book of Stories intrigues me, and I saw her speak when The Children's Book came out. Also, it's a book about a book, and I love meta-textual fiction. It's hefty though, and Byatt is dense.
3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - This one's been making the rounds on other lists as well. I enjoyed Love in the Time of Cholera and have wanted to read One Hundred Years of Solitude ever since. One day?
4. Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman - I wanted to read this book so badly that I pestered bookstores for a copy before its release date. I ran across a copy in a used bookstore and immediately snapped it up, but I guess the thrill was in the chase because I haven't read it yet.
5. The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson - Even though it is written by a different author, The Tenth Gift reminds me of Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale, which I loved.  Even their covers look similar!  For no reason other than this, I had to buy The Tenth Gift, but I have yet to discover if the two novel's similarities run any deeper.
6. Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee - Coetzee and I have an up and down relationship.  I disliked In the Heart of the Country and tolerated Disgrace, but one of my favorite English teachers at Peace recommended Diary of a Bad Year to me.  The premise sounds much more digestible, and I always trust her recommendations, so I bought it, but I haven't tested the waters yet - any incentives out there?
7. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt - What must be the most quintessential Southern novel is still sitting on my shelf.  I have the best of intentions I swear!
8. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing - That same illustrious English teacher that recommended Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year also recommended I read Doris Lessing.  She didn't mention a particular book, so one day while at my favorite used bookstore (Edward McKay's for those of you in the Raleigh area), I looked for some of her works.  The Golden Notebook caught my eye because of its meta-textual and memory based premise, but it's a big book, and I haven't worked up the nerve to invest myself in it yet.
9. Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin by Norah Vincent - I ran across this book on Amazon one day while looking for something else.  A woman voluntarily commits herself to a year in a mental institution and then writes about her experience.  A must read...except I haven't yet.
10. The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf - This book is about child abduction, and it sounds good if totally creepy.  It's the creep factor that is keeping me from starting it.

With all these books sitting on my shelves waiting to be read, want to guess what I've been doing instead?  Re-reading some of my favorite YA books and checking books out from my library.  Oh well, at least I'm reading, and I know I'll get to these one day!

Happy reading to you and your own overflowing shelves!

February Reading Recap

Image from Musings of a Book Lover

Yes, I know it's already mid-March, but I read (and re-read) several great books in February that I couldn't stop talking about.  I just didn't have time to write about them!  Here are four of my top February reads.

Annie's Ghost: A Journey into a Family Secret by Steve Luxenberg

For Steve Luxenberg's entire life, he believed his mother was an only child.  This belief was not born of assumption.  His mother proclaimed often to friends and family alike that she grew up the sole daughter of immigrant parents in Detroit during the mid-twentieth century.  It came as quite a shock, then, to Luxenberg and his brothers and sisters when upon their mother's death, they discover she had a sister.  Early investigation indicated that perhaps their aunt died at a very young age before his mother really interacted with or grew attached to her as a person.  Although it seemed odd not to mention her, at least this explained why she may have denied the existence of a sibling.  Luxenberg was not satisfied, however, and spent many long hours tracking down medical records, distant relatives, and family friends to uncover the true story of Annie, the sister his mother swore she never had.  Annie's Ghost chronicles this journey into the past, and what Luxenberg discovers about his physically disabled aunt who was institutionalized in her late teens/early twenties for a mental disorder and died there in her mid-fifties will shock you.  It is a riveting account of what happens when you begin rattling the skeletons in the family closet.

One of my really good friends, whose book recommendations I value, lent me her copy of Annie's Ghost to read last summer - that's right several months ago.  I was intrigued by the story line, but I was not feeling the heavy duty history lesson that would come with it.  I finally picked it up at the beginning of this year, and it blew me away.  The first night that I started reading it I was flying through the pages, and I was on about page 60 when my husband interrupted me and asked, "Is that a really good book?"  My husband does not normally question me about my reading habits, so I was puzzled, but I responded, "Yes, it's fascinating."  To which he replied, "I figured because you had this really intense look on your face while you were reading."  Apparently this is a book whose affect can be physically witnessed.  Luxenberg's writing style is very accessible, and the book itself is thoroughly researched.  He is very careful to keep it from only being a portrait of family secrets and broadens the scope of his story to touch on issues such as the changing field of mental health, immigration, and racial and religious tensions pre-, during, and post- WWII.  All in all this is an interesting and engrossing read.  Best matched with fans of historical memoirs.

Read for the Reading Outside the Box Challenge hosted by Kate at Musings of a Book Lover
#2 Another Voice

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman (illustrator)

Min is an off-beat teenage girl, labeled "artistic" by her peers.  She loves old movies and has a tight-knit circle of similarly off-beat friends when she meets Ed, All-American basketball star, and they begin to date.  Ed has established himself as the quintessential jock, right down to all the notches in his belt.  He is so far from Min's type that it is laughable - which is currently what most of the student body does when they see them together.  However, Min is deliriously happy.  Underneath the jock exterior, Ed is actually a really sweet guy who goes along with Min's wild schemes to cook up a dinner party for a famous actress she thinks lives in a nearby neighborhood.  He professes that Min is unlike any girl he's ever known, and she believes him until the pressure of dating an outsider begins to wear on both of them.  As the title of the novel indicates, Min and Ed have broken up, and Min is on a mission to prove to Ed just why that is.  The novel is really an epistle from Min to Ed and is interspersed with drawings of the sentimental objects she collected during their courtship that she is now returning to him as evidence of why they broke up.

I liked Min.  I found her a fun, quirky character.  I sympathized with her heartbreak, but most importantly, I enjoyed watching her grow over the course of the novel to realize that, as cliche as it sounds, you can be anyone that you want to be, and anyone who tries to box you in, even if that box looks special and unique, is not worth it.  Best matched with readers looking for an off-beat high school perspective.

Read for the Reading Outside the Box Challenge hosted by Kate at Musings of a Book Lover
#10 Look at the pretty pictures!

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

February marked the inauguration of the Sarah Dessen Re-Read Challenge hosted by I Eat Words.  The first book on deck was Just Listen, one of Dessen's later novels.  I didn't remember much about this novel outside the love interest, Owen Armstrong, was a music junkie and a bit of a tough guy.  I was thoroughly surprised then that the central issue of Just Listen is familial rather than romantic.  This book is deep and had me gasping and even crying as Dessen chronicled the faltering relationship between three sisters, Kirsten, Whitney, and Annabel.  Suffice it to say, I could really relate to these girls.

All three girls have been models at some point, and part of the book deals with the struggle to follow your dreams when you don't want to disappoint your parents.  Kirsten and Annabel no longer desire to be a part of the modeling scene, and Kirsten, ever the vocal one, has no problem saying so and striking out on her own in search of a film career at a school in New York.  Annabel continues to pursue modeling gigs, mostly for her mother's sake, but also for the sake of her sister Whitney, the only one who really wants to be a model but no longer can because of a crippling eating disorder.  Living with the memory of finding her sister's emaciated body collapsed on the bathroom floor, Annabel can't turn from the one activity that seems to bind her family together even though she can't stand the thought of being viewed for only her body like she was over the summer by a boy she thought was a friend.

Whew!  Written in Dessen's deceptively simple style, there is a lot of high school angst in this book, but throughout it all, Owen remains a constant source of strength for Annabel.  Best matched with fans of contemporary YA.

Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys

Lina is a teenage girl in Lithuania on the cusp of World War II.  For reasons that never become clear, her family is taken in the middle of the night and forced into years of work camps, first in Siberia and then inside the Arctic Circle.  In Ruta Sepetys' blunt, hard-hitting style, Lina struggles to come of age in a country at war and reconcile the often inconceivable instances of callous violence and abuse she witnesses with the incomparable germ of hope that characterizes humanity.

"They took me in my nightgown."

From the first line of the first page of Sepetys' novel, Between Shades of Gray, readers are tossed into the fear and turmoil of life in the 1940s - especially life in a country ruled by Josef Stalin.  And from this first moment, unfathomable images of terror and violence continue in a deluge.  Just as there is no reprieve for Lina and her family, there is no reprieve for the reader.  I was constantly shocked by the NKVD officers' treatment of the Lithuanian people.  However, Sepetys' prose never overwhelmed me.  The book is comprised of mostly simple sentences, yet they convey unimaginable depth.

Best matched with: in my opinion, Sepetys' novel is an important book that everyone needs to read.  It chronicles a period of history that everyone knows about but from a perspective that to this day has been boxed in and buried. 

Top Ten Tuesday: Series to Start (3/5)

Image from The Broke and the Bookish

This week's Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and The Bookish confronts two current bookish fears of mine - starting and finishing series. I'm usually a staunch series finisher; however, recently, I've been loath to finish the, albeit few, series I'm in the middle of. Unlike some bloggers, my fear to finish is not because of the series ending but because I'm ready to read something new, and I'm tired of being tied up with the same characters and plot for so long, which brings me to my next bookish fear: starting a new series. Again, I'm not looking forward to investing so much time into three, four, or more books when there are so many excellent standalones on my TBR list. Regardless of these issues, I managed to compile a list of series that I am currently interested in immersing myself in.

1. Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness (finish) - I loved The Knife of Never Letting Go, but the intensity of this series has me afraid to continue on. It's so dark!
2. The Quartet by Lois Lowry (finish) - I was late coming to Lois Lowry's classic, The Giver. I didn't read it until graduate school, but I immediately fell for it. It is quintessential dystopia - accessible to all - and I love the exploration of memory preservation via Jonas. However, I never read Gathering Blue or Messenger; mostly because I knew they weren't a straightforward continuation of Jonas' story, and I'd read mixed reviews; however, reading Ally Condie's Matched and the recent release of Son has me interested in returning to Lowry's strange society.
3. Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin - I've heard fantastic things about this series. I think it's time to jump on the bandwagon - luckily, my library carries them all!
4. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin - I shamelessly admit that I judged this book by its cover - in a good way. It is so beautiful that I immediately wanted to read it having absolutely no idea what it was about. It seems, however, that the novel's content will live up to its captivating cover. (Shout out to Myra McEntire's Hourglass series for similar cover envy!)
5. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M. T. Anderson - These novels are a historically accurate account of growing up during the American Revolution written by a fantastic and very versatile author.
6. Chains by Laurie Anderson - Another historical account of revolutionary America by a powerful and favorite author. I'm actually surprised I haven't read this yet as I own the first book, and Anderson's Speak is one of my favorite novels.
7. Thursday Next by Jasper Fforde - A detective that has the ability to jump into books and solve literary mysteries? Yes please!
8. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin - I own all of these, yet I can't seem to get pass the first chapter - third time's the charm?
9. Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman - I hear this is a very moving and powerful graphic novel account of the Holocaust.
10. Touch by Laurie Stolarz - I loved the Blue is for Nightmare series, and I've added each book of the Touch series to my TBR as they have been published - I guess it's finally time to crack one open. You know, though, the benefit of waiting to start a series until all/most of the books are out is that there is no lag between each book!

What series are on your TBR?  Do you share my series fears?  Any tips for overcoming them?

Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading!

Review: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Allyson Healey is your quintessential "good girl." As the only child of a doctor and a stay-at-home mom, she has always been subjected to the pressure to excel at everything she does academically and socially. When she graduates high school, her parents send her on a Teen Tours! of Europe, guareenteing she will have The Time Of Her Life and return a Cultured Young Lady. By the end of the tour, Allyson is feeling more stifled than challenged and has only made one sort-of friend, Ms. Foley, the tour guide, who wears "snow-white sneakers" and speaks in a hybrid British/American accent the other travelers enjoy mocking. "I must be bad at traveling," Allyson decides as she looks forward to her favorite part of the day, returning to the hotel to watch an American movie and fall asleep while everyone else is out at the pub. Enter Williem, a 6'3 Dutchman with a love of Shakespeare and a penchant for acting. When Allyson stumbles upon Willem's traveling troupe as they perform an unorthodox version of Shakespeare's The Twelfth Night, she is made aware that life is full of choices, or "accidents" as Willem calls them, and you can choose to ignore them or embrace them. For the first time in her life, Allyson chooses the latter and is swept up in a bohemian one day tour of Paris in which time becomes fluid and anythng's possible. She emerges on the other side impossibly stained, but when she wakes to find Willem gone, she can't help but wonder in the year that follows if that one day was a fluke or if the real Allyson is still wandering the backstreets of Paris. One thing she does know is that she'll have to go back to find out.

Swoon! Forman's tale of love and longing set against the backdrop of Paris - real Paris not the tourist version - is my krypyonite. It is a sweeping travelogue, both internal and external, and peopled with fantastically unique and fully fleshed out characters. I was immediately captivated by Allyson and Willem's relationship, which propelled me through the first 100+ pages of the novel at warp speed. With just one day to spend together, Allyson and Willem can't be still. If they are, they'll hit bottom, which is exactly what happens when Allyson wakes the next day to find Willem gone. Together we panicked and cried and called Ms. Foley who rides in on her white sneakers to the rescue. Just one more example of how pitiful Allyson's situation is.

This book is more than a romance novel though. The romance is merely a catalyst for self-discovery and growth. When I reached the end of Part One and Willem had exited stage left, I thought what could the rest of this book possibly be about? And I'll admit, Allyson is a bit mopey and withdrawn at first, but then with the prodding of an amazing guidance counselor, who only makes a cameo but very important appearance in the novel, she starts doing things and meeting people, like Dee, who is the master of multiple identities, stating, "This is myself, baby. All of my selves. I own each and every one of them. I know who I'm pretending to be and who I am" (217). The novel's theme that things are not always what they seem abounds in the identity instability of Allyson on that day, her best friend Melanie through their first year of college, and the numerous references to Shakespeare's problem plays, but nowhere are they more perfectly executed then in the totally lovable, totally memorable character of Dee, who helps Allyson begin the transformation from shell to self because, as he so astutely observes, "the people we pretend to be, they're already in us. That's why we pretend to be them in the first place" (237).

Despite my swooniness and my cheerleading for Allyson as she begins to make decisions for herself and finally stands up to her mother, the logical side of me could never completely suspend disbelief and submurse myself in a world where it would not be totally dangerous to go off with limited funds and no cell phone to a foreign city where you don't speak the language with a guy who doesn't know your real name and you met less than 24 hours ago. That's what keeps this novel from being five stars for me; however, I am anxiously awaiting Willem's side of the story in Just One Year. When I finished the book, in just a couple of hours mind you, I immediately googled the release date for Just One Year, which is this fall - yay!! When you read something like this, how can you not be in their corner?

"We kiss again. This next kiss is the kind that breaks open the sky. It steals my breath and gives it back. It shows me that every other kiss I've had in my life has been wrong" (127).

Sigh...

Best matched with those who like a little coming of age romance with their wanderlust.

Bonus story: When my husband got home from work yesterday, I greeted him as follows, "I promise I will cook you dinner soon, but I HAVE TO finish this book! I only have like 30 pages left." He just shook his head and went to take a shower. When he re-emerged, I was still swoony over the book about Paris and lost love when my husband looked at me and very seriously said, "I wouldn't have lost you in the first place." I made the Rory Gilmore Harlequin romance face and almost cried. My husband and I have been together for almost ten years, and the electricity of young love has mostly worn off, so when I read something like Just One Day, sometimes I'm jealous of the newness of falling in love, but what my husband reminded me last night is that the excitement at the beginning of a new relationship is replaced with something deeper and more stable and infinitely worthwhile, if you're lucky. And let me tell you, I've never been luckier in my life.

Poetry Project: Pablo Neruda

I joined The Poetry Project hosted by Lu at Regular Rumination and Kelly at The Written World last year because of this post by Lu, which highlights a favorite poem of mine by Pablo Neruda - "Sonnet XVII" - whose first stanza decries, "I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz / or arrow of carnations that propagate fire: / I love you as certain dark things are loved, / secretly, between the shadow and the soul."

Neruda has been a favorite poet of mine since I discovered his slim volume Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair years ago.  Partly what I love about him is the earthy, concrete quality of his poetry.  There is nothing ethereal or effervescent about his love poetry.  It is occasionally dark, often fleshy, and always rooted in the reality of everyday life and objects - like his book Ode to Common Things.

For February, I decided to re-read Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair as well as a compilation of Neruda poems by Mary Heebner and Alastair Reid (translator) entitled, simply, Intimacies, as a way to celebrate this month of love.  I've read and re-read Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair many times, but it is one of those collections that I know I will return to again and again.  The language and imagery is just as fresh and evocative as when Neruda penned his poems in 1924.  Every time I return to it, a new poem catches my eye or a line makes my breath catch in my throat.

My copies of Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair and Intimacies are not just intellectually stimulating; they are also visually captivating.  Each poem in Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair is matched with a sensual, pencil drawing by Pablo Picasso.  Intimacies pairs various love poems by Neruda with coppery "elusive as water, yet sculptural" nudes by artist Mary Heebner.

Below are two of my favorite poems - one from each collection:

from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

"So That You Will Hear Me"

So that you will hear me
my words
sometimes grow thin
as the tracks of gulls on the beaches.

Necklace, drunken bell
for your hands smooth as grapes.

And I watch my words from a long way off.
They are more yours than mine.
They climb on my old suffering like ivy.

It climbs the same way on damp walls.
You are to blame for this cruel sport.
They are fleeing from my dark lair.
You fill everything, you fill everything.

Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy,
and they are more used to my sadness then you are.

Now I want them to say what I want to say to you
to make you hear as I want you to hear me.

The wind of anguish still hauls on them as usual.
Sometimes hurricanes of dreams still knock them over.
You listen to other voices in my painful voice.

Lament of old mouths, blood of old supplications.
Love me, companion.  Don't forsake me.  Follow me.
Follow me, companion, on this way of anguish.

But my words become stained with your love.
You occupy everything, you occupy everything.

I am making them into an endless necklace
for your white hands, smooth as grapes.

I love the effect of the repetition of "You fill everything" and "You occupy everything."  It is as if the speaker of the poem is in quiet awe of his lover.  I relate to this poem because, although I am wordy, I have difficulty expressing deep rooted emotion to those I love, and I understand Neruda completely when he writes, "Now I want them to say what I want to say to you / to make you hear as I want you to hear me."  I understand that desire for your words to carry more than just their explicit meaning and for that subtext to be understood by the receiver.

from Intimacies: Poems of Love

"Love"

So many days, oh so many days
seeing you so tangible and so close,
how do I pay, with what do I pay?

The bloodthirsty spring
has awakened in the woods.
The foxes start from their earths,
the serpents drink the dew,
and I go with you in the leaves
between the pines and the silence,
asking myself how and when
I will have to pay for my luck.

Of everything I have seen,
it's you I want to go on seeing;
of everything I've touched,
it's your flesh I want to go on touching.
I love your orange laughter.
I am moved by the sight of you sleeping.

What am I to do, love, loved one?
I don't know how others love
or how people loved in the past.
I live, watching you, loving you.
Being in love is my nature.

You please me more each afternoon.

Where is she?  I keep on asking
if your eyes disappear.
How long she's taking!  I think, and I'm hurt.
I feel poor, foolish and sad,
and you arrive and you are lightning
glancing off the peach trees.

That's why I love you and yet not why.
There are so many reasons, and yet so few,
for love has to be so,
involving and general,
particular and terrifying,
joyful and grieving,
flowering like the stars,
and measureless as a kiss.

That's why I love you and yet not why.
There are so many reasons, and yet so few,
for love has to be so,
involving and general,
particular and terrifying,
joyful and grieving,
flowering like the stars,
and measureless as a kiss.

As I noted previously, I love Neruda's use of repetition - this time an entire stanza.  It is always so intentional, and in this poem, it serves to highlight the lines "That's why I love you and yet not why. / There are so many reasons, and yet so few."  The repetition of the catalog that follows underscores these are the reasons and yet they are not.  I cannot name them all and even the ones I can name are constantly changing.  Also, the stanza which begins "Of everything I have seen, / it's you I want to go on seeing; / of everything I've touched, / it's your flesh I want to go on touching." strikes me as one of the simplest yet most romantic expressions of love I've ever read.

Neruda was a tremendous poetic and political influence in his native Chile, and I encourage you if you have not to read some of his other work and even check into his history.  He is a fascinating man with an uncanny ability to express universal observations and emotions in a unique way.

Another Top Ten Tuesday (Posted on a Thursday - ok Friday): Automatic Buys

Image from The Broke and the Bookish

Sometimes Tuesday rolls around, and despite my best intentions, work and life get in the way, or I suddenly fall victim to a sinus infection (true story), and my Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted over at The Broke and The Bookish, doesn't get posted. However, this week's topic - the top ten authors on your auto-buy list - was too good to pass up. Who doesn't enjoy tooting her favorite authors' horns? I do it quite often as do other bloggers, and while I didn't participate on Tuesday, I enjoyed the variety of authors and genres on other bloggers' lists. I imagine that regular readers of this blog could create my list for this week's topic for me. The following authors have appeared on my blog numerous times in other top ten lists, in surveys, and in fan-girl esque posts squealing about a new release. I made a promise over a year ago to only buy books by my favorite authors; my shelves and my wallet were groaning and in need of a reprieve. I'm proud to say I've (mostly) stuck to this vow. With very few, if any, exceptions, the only books I've purchased have been by the following authors:

1. David Levithan - Although some of Levithan's recent work has been hit-or-miss with me, he has written some of my favorite books, including Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Dash and Lily's Book of Dares, and The Lover's Dictionary.  I finally procured a copy of Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and I can't wait to start it!
2. Ellen Hopkins - Hopkins is the poster-author for a movement very near and dear to my heart - banned books.  Her unique writing style and ability to tackle tough issues with passion and grace reserves her a permanent spot in my book buying cart.
3. Nicole Krauss - Although Krauss has only written three novels, her second one, The History of Love, remains my all-time favorite book.  Ever.  That's serious love right there. 
4. Rick Riordan - Yes, he's technically a middle-grade author, but like Megan over at YA? Why Not?, who doesn't love an action-packed re-telling of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology?  Plus, I love recommending these books to reluctant readers (a.k.a. my husband, who, by the way, committed one of the most unfathomable acts in book reading history to me - he read all four books in Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series but, to this day, has yet to read the fifth. How can you even?)
5. Maggie Steifvater - I'd read Steifvater's The Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy and mostly enjoyed it, but she sealed the deal with The Scorpio Races.  This was my favorite book from 2012, and I am anxiously awaiting the release of The Dream Thieves - book two in The Raven Boys Cycle!
6. Laurie Halse Anderson - Speak is a staple of my banned books curriculum.  Like Hopkins, Anderson doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable issues that pepper most teens' lives.  I also highly recommend Wintergirls, which hasn't gotten has much play as Speak but is just as powerful and well-written.
7. J. K. Rowling - This is a no-brainer.  No series will ever, ever, match my love for the Harry Potter series.  Guys, I have written papers about these books.  Even though her newest adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, wasn't my cup of tea, the writing was tremendous.  It will take more than unsettling political fiction to displace J. K. Rowling from my auto-buy list.
8. Sarah Dessen - Dessen writes realistic teen characters so convincingly, and unlike Anderson and Hopkins whose teens face BIG ISSUES, Dessen deals more with the drama of everyday life.  However, while I've been participating in the Sarah Dessen Re-Read Challenge hosted by I Eat Words, I've discovered a depth to Dessen that I had forgotten about.  I think it can be easy to mis-characterize Dessen's books as fluffy summer romances, but in reality, her characters are very thoughtful and complex.
9. Megan McCafferty - McCafferty forever won my heart with Jessica Darling in the Sloppy Firsts series, and I've raved all over this blog about the significance of her dystopian satires Bumped and Thumped, which tackle with unerring wit and humor a very real epidemic in today's society - teen pregnancy.
10. Gayle Forman - Forman broke my heart and then lovingly stitched it back together in If I Stay and again in Where She Went.  I can't wait to begin Just One Day, which I've read excellent reviews of and which I finally got a hold of through my library.  (True auto-buy story: Dessen's new book The Moon and More comes out this June - just in time for my birthday! - and like I always do with Dessen and many of my other auto-by authors, I pre-ordered it.  I had a gift card to Barnes and Noble that covered both my pre-order of Dessen's book and my purchase of Forman's new book, Just One Day, that came out in January.  My order qualified for free shipping; however, Barnes and Noble's free shipping policy means the items are grouped into as few packages as possible.  Translation, my copy of Just One Day was not getting here until June.  JUNE people!!  I reluctantly accepted my bookish fate until this Wednesday when perusing the YA section of my school library, I stumbled across Forman in all her glory - Yay for libraries and new releases!!)

Hope all is well across the blogosphere.  Despite my lack of reviews, I promise I've been reading - a lot actually.  In order to catch up with my backlog, I think I'm going to do a mini reviews recap instead of several larger reviews.  Also the lovely and articulate Stormy at Book.Blog.Bake nominated me for the Liebster Blog Award for which I was totally surprised, grateful, and about a million other adjectives.  Be on the lookout for my "acceptance speech" soon!

Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading!