Bel's Top 10 of 2011

Coming up with my favorite 10 reads was no easy task, especially since I've been reading like a fiend for most of the year. But here’s my stab at it and in no particular order …

The Mortal Instruments Series

Like Nat, I have to cheat here because I just couldn't narrow it down. It's like picking out one puppy from the litter - it breaks your heart to separate it from its siblings. Not only do I enjoy the storyline and all the characters immensely, I just simply love Cassie Clare’s writing.  She is so good at writing snark and so good a writing non-smutty smut that we BiblioJunkies would just die if Ms. Clare decided to write an adult series. Can you begin to imagine how far she'd go? In all seriousness, I’ve said this before, this series opened the floodgates for me and because of it I’ve experienced a whole new genre.

Hush Hush & Crescendo

On the subject of snark – I do believe that people are familiar with my, um, deep, deep appreciation (read: lust) for Patch Cipriano. In fact, I'm a wee bit disappointed (gutted if I wanted to be melodramatic about it) that I didn't find him in my Christmas stocking. And I know I'm "cheating" again here by naming two books but seriously, it's Patch! Both are filled with plenty of great one-liners and images that make you want to scream in a good way. And that wicked ending in Crescendo had me all strung up. I simply can't get enough!

The Maze Runner

To me, The Maze Runner is the best of the series. James Dashner upped the ante by removing every one's memory and giving them a blank slate. How do you move forward from that with no reference points and no idea who to trust? Everything from the hellish environment to the relentless action left me banging my head for answers and utterly exhausted.

The Iron Knight

The Iron Fey series is one of the most spectacular and intricate out there but The Iron Knight is the one had the most effect on me. Ash is the ULTIMATE knight in shining armor. The trials he goes through make you ache. His resolve to be with his beloved Megan make you pine for him even more. It's no wonder he has such a rabid legion of fans. And with Puck and Grimalkin as travel companions, how can this not be a thrilling adventure?

Thirteen Reasons Why

My niece recommended this book saying it was one of her favorites.  I have to agree with her. I clung to every page of this story and felt a myriad of emotions because it had of its sensitivity and straightforward bluntness.  While the ending doesn’t exactly make you jump up and cheer, you still feel its quiet but hopeful impact. And sometimes subtle works best. 

Saving June

After having read Thirteen Reasons Why I thought, one - I’d be doing a comparison between these two books and two - I’d be spending a very depressing couple of weeks. I was sooo wrong because this turned out to be one of the best books I’ve read in years! Harrington’s effortless blending of humor and sarcasm balanced perfectly the serious side of the story. And adding to its awesomeness, this book came with its very own soundtrack.

  

The Likeness (non YA)

I love a good psychological mystery and Tana French delivers in this Irish thriller. The mixture of murder and suspense had me on edge throughout.  But what I enjoyed most was how each little plot twist had me gasping. Plus, it's set in Ireland where good things like U2, Snow Patrol, Two Door Cinema Club and Michael Fassbender come from ... not that they had anything to do with the book.

Firelight

Thank you, thank you Sophie Jordan for putting something different out there! I was already on a slight vampire/werewolf overload when I stumbled upon this Romeo and Juliet style dragon tale (ha! see what I did there?). I was so caught up in Will and Jacinda's connection and worried for them non-stop. And the cliffhangers for Firelight and its follow up, Vanish, left me hungry for more.

Clockwork Prince

Oh my! Cassandra Clare you really love to make us suffer. Aside from the excellent story, there are the gorgeous Will and Jem and that poor girl Tessa who has to look at both of them. Through all the publicity we were all made well aware of the DSBS. But boy was I a bit giddy with that other DSBS that came before it! I'm not ashamed to say that those pages have been bookmarked and I've re-read them a few times times. Oh Jem …

Cold Kiss

Morbid, creepy, morbidly fascinating - it didn’t hit me until recently how much I liked this book. It happened when I was listening to my iPod and a gorgeously haunting song came on that encompassed the book's entire theme - sorrow, loss and letting go. I instantly thought of Wren and Danny. It was one of those moments that made me shiver. While the storyline is set in a paranormal arena, Wren's deeply personal loss is one that anyone can understand.  

So there we have it.  Hope your New Year is filled with plenty of good books, surprises and much, much more!

Cheers!

~Bel

Happy New Year Giveaway Hop!

We are happy to be participating in the Happy New Year Giveaway Hop hosted by I Am A Reader and Not A Writer and Babs Book Bistro from now until January 3, 2012.  2011 has been a good year, in addition to many personal achievements for the BiblioJunkies, 2011 marked the year we finally stopped talking about a book blog and actually started a book blog!  The five months we have been the BiblioJunkies has been so much fun and we have gotten to meet and get to know so many fantastic people. 

We are looking forward to an even better 2012 and hope you all continue to share our love of books, boys and pie in the new year!  So to get 2012 started out right, we are giving away an ARC of Tempest by Julie Cross and a signed copy of Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick (because let's face it, we could all use a little Patch to keep us warm on a winter's night).  Unfortunately, this is a U.S. giveaway only.



So, you know the drill.  Use the Rafflecopter below to enter.  On January 4 or 5 we will announce the winner.  We hope you all have a safe and fun New Year's celebration.  There are 202 blogs participating in the Hop, so good luck!

~Shel

Shel's Top 10 of 2011

I know we have been a little lax this holiday season with keeping you entertained, but we will definitely be back to devouring books and driving our readers nutes wiht silliness after the holidays.  Until then, please enjoy my top 10 list:

Here at BiblioJunkies we have been discussing what to do with our 2011 "top" lists.  How many books, etc.  Unfortunately, when it came right down to it, I could not narrow my list down to just 5.  In fact, to get to 10 I had to be pretty specific in my lists - favorite by someone other than Meg Cabot or Janet Evanovich (because let's face it, these ladies will always top my favorite book lists) and lets not forget Rick Riordan, whom I adore.  And then I couldn't narrow down to eliminate books in a series (ie The Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices, all of which are fantastic).  It really took a lot of thought and planning to get my list down to just 10, because I have read SOOO many truly fantastic books this year.  Each of the books below have touched (Yes, I am talking to you Suzanne Young) or entertained me and stood out among the plethora of books that I read this year.  So, here's my list, in no particular order:

The Infernal Devices and The Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare

The Mythos Academy Series by Jennifer Estep

Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

A Need So Beautiful by Suzanne Young

Alex Van Helsing Series by Jason Henderson

Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton

Hush, Hush by Becca FitzPatrick

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

Juliet Immortal by Stacey Jay

The Chicagoland Vampire Series by Chloe Neill

I recommend all of these books and/or series.  Check them out and let us know what your favorites of 2011 have been!  Happy New Year and happy reading in 2012!

~Shel

Tempest by Julie Cross

* * * 1/2

The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.

That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.

But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler. Recruit… or kill him.

Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.


When we received Tempest, I fully admit to trying to pawn it off on Shel and Bel.  The fact is time travel drives me batty.  The impossibilities and incomprehensible ramifications of it keeps me from fully enjoying and appreciating a time travel story.  I can't even watch Back to the Future without getting all worked up and starting an argument with The Executive Officer about how impossible time travel is.  So imagine my chagrin when I found out that Shel is not a big time travel either and Bel was already committed to a few other reads.  So I took one for the team and read the dreaded time travel story....

...and all I have to say is that Julie Cross is a genius.  Tempest manages to be the first time travel story that didn't make me want to pull my hair out.  The non-stop action never allowed me to overly dwell on the time travel issues that I have.  The book read like an action movie and consistently kept me on the edge of my seat so much that I couldn't wait to turn the page to see what happened next. 

I personally found the main character in this book pretty engaging.  Jackson starts out as a jackass commitment-phobe but grows considerably as he learns exactly what his abilities entail.  His friend Adam was the cliche genius that helps him find the answers to his abilites.  In the end though, he was a loveable character so I couldn't hold the cliche status against him. The most fascinating characters in this book were the more mysterious secondary chracters - Courtney, the little red head girl, Thomas and Jackson's father.  I look forward to learning more about these characters in the next two books.

The one thing that I didn't enjoy about this book was the romance.  Jackson and Holly's relationship lacked emotion and intensity.  Holly's character was nice enough not well developed which made the interest between the two of them seem rather one sided.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the next two installments in the trilogy.

Nat

Waiting on Wednesday (5)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that highlights future releases that we are excitedly anticipating.

By Lisa Kleypas
Publication Date: February 28, 2012

Lucy Marinn is a glass artist living in mystical, beautiful, Friday Harbor, Washington. She is stunned and blindsided by the most bitter kind of betrayal: her fiancé Kevin has left her. His new lover is Lucy’s own sister. Lucy's bitterness over being dumped is multiplied by the fact that she has constantly made the wrong choices in her romantic life. Facing the severe disapproval of Lucy's parents, Kevin asks his friend Sam Nolan, a local vineyard owner on San Juan Island, to "romance" Lucy and hopefully loosen her up and get her over her anger. Complications ensue when Sam and Lucy begin to fall in love, Kevin has second thoughts, and Lucy discovers that the new relationship in her life began under false pretenses. Questions about love, loyalty, old patterns, mistakes, and new beginnings are explored as Lucy learns that some things in life—even after being broken—can be made into something new and beautiful

By Julie Cross
Publication Date:  January 17, 2012


The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.
That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.
Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.

But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler. Recruit… or kill him.

Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.

Everneath by Brodi Ashton

* * * *

Available January 24, 2012

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans.  Now she’s returned – to her old life, her family, her best friend, her boyfriend – before she’s banished back to the underworld … this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her; six months for goodbyes she can’t find the words for; six months to find redemption, if it even exists.

Nikki longs to spend these precious few months forgetting the Everneath completely and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance – and the one person she loves more than anything.  But there’s just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki to the mortal world.  Cle wants to take over the Everneath’s throne and is convinces Nikki is the key to making it happen.  And he’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.

As Nikki’s time on the surface draws to a close and all of her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is forced to make the hardest decision of her life: finding a way to cheat fate and remain on the surface with Jack, or returning to the Everneath and becoming Cole’s queen.

So there I was desperately looking for a book to read. Wait. Let me restate that. I had plenty of books to choose from but when I finally came across Everneath, I was suckered in. 

This intriguing debut infuses Greek and Egyptian mythology into a modern day romance. The Everneath is a place between the mortal world and hell, where Everlings (immortals) Feed on the emotions of humans, or Forfeits as they’re called. Once fed upon, the Everling and the Forfeit are tied together. By the time Nikki wakes up, she’s been asleep for one hundred years in the Everneath with the Everling, Cole. But in the mortal world she’s only been gone six months. Cole wants her to stay but Nikki feels a strong pull to return to her former life. Because of her choice, she has been physically  marked by the Shades that reside in the Tunnels. Choosing not to go with Cole means she has only six months before they come to claim her and Feed upon her for the rest of eternity. Yikes!

But returning to her old life isn’t so easy when so many things have changed. She used to be vibrant and outgoing but now with all her energy drained, she barely resembles who she was. So she hides from crowds and avoids contact with people, including Jack, her boyfriend, who was the only thing tying her to the mortal world while she was in the Everneath. It was his image she kept seeing during her hundred years sleep. Though she returned for him, she finds it hard to reconnect with him and her friends knowing that questions will come and explanations are in order. All the while, she counts down to when she must return to the Everneath.

This may come as a surprise to some of you, especially BiblioJunkies Nat – this time I did not find myself swooning over the “bad boy”, Cole. He’s a hard one to figure out. The push-and-pull connection Nikki feels with him only complicates her last six months. He comes off as very self-serving and untrustworthy. He has moments of kindness, plenty of snarkiness and his few hostile moments are a bit unsettling.  

Jack on the other hand is someone to root for.  He is so in love with Nikki and was so devastated by her disappearance. He’s so heartbreakingly patient with her as she tries to recover from her ordeal. No matter what she does, he waits for her cue and then follows suit. He’s just so sweet and handles her so delicately. His reassuring nature provides Nikki exactly what she needs – a safe haven. 

With Everneath, the first in a trilogy, Brodi Ashton delivers a very emotionally stirring and tantalizing tale. Each chapter is a countdown clock that only emphasizes the urgency Nikki experiences. It's so gutting to see her endure all the pain she's going through as D-Day draws closer. If she becomes an Everling herself, she’d have to Feed upon humans the way Cole did with her. Is that something her conscience can handle? Or is she brave enough to face the Tunnels for eternity? Either way people get hurt and she has to decide between the lesser of two evils.

~ Bel

Winter Wonderland! YA Authors Sing!

We love YA.  We love YA authors.  And YA authors that sing?  Well that's just so awesome our heads may explode!  Check out what is flooding the YA world on Twitter today....I dare you to not smile...