Top Ten Tuesday: Best Books I Read in 2018
/44 Comments/by Suzanne
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!
This week’s TTT topic is Best Books I Read in 2018. This was a tough list to put together, as you’ll see by the fact that I’ve given you my Top 13 because I couldn’t narrow to just 10 favorites. The way I picked my favorites was to start on Goodreads and see how many books I had given 5 star (or 4.5 rounded up to 5) reviews to. I had quite a few more than 10, so then I narrowed from there by selecting the books that resonated the most with me. Those were the ones I’m still thinking about even if it has been months since I read them and they’re also the ones that I tend to recommend most to fellow readers. Also, not all of these were published in 2018. At least two of these were backlist reads that I loved.
Anyway, here’s my list. Happy New Year, everyone! Here’s to a great reading year for us all in 2019!
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Best Books I Read in 2018
(in no particular order)
THE WINTER OF THE WITCH by Katherine Arden
MUSE OF NIGHTMARES by Laini Taylor
THE GREAT ALONE by Kristin Hannah
THE CRUEL PRINCE by Holly Black
LETTERS TO THE LOST by Brigid Kemmerer
THE DREAM DAUGHTER by Diane Chamberlain
CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE by Tomi Adeyemi
INTO THE BLACK NOWHERE by Meg Gardiner
ONCE UPON A RIVER by Diane Setterfield
GIRL MADE OF STARS by Ashley Herring Blake
THE LAST TIME I LIED by Riley Sager
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What were some of your favorite reads of 2018? Do we share any favorites?
Backlist Briefs: Reviews for MUSE OF NIGHTMARES & VENGEANCE
/20 Comments/by SuzanneAlso by this author: Strange the Dreamer
Series: Strange the Dreamer #2
on October 2, 2018
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 514
Also in this series: Strange the Dreamer
Source: Purchased
Amazon
Goodreads
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
Sarai has lived and breathed nightmares since she was six years old.
She believed she knew every horror and was beyond surprise.
She was wrong.
In the wake of tragedy, neither Lazlo nor Sarai are who they were before. One a god, the other a ghost, they struggle to grasp the new boundaries of their selves as dark-minded Minya holds them hostage, intent on vengeance against Weep.
Lazlo faces an unthinkable choice—save the woman he loves, or everyone else?—while Sarai feels more helpless than ever. But is she? Sometimes, only the direst need can teach us our own depths, and Sarai, the Muse of Nightmares, has not yet discovered what she's capable of.
As humans and godspawn reel in the aftermath of the citadel's near fall, a new foe shatters their fragile hopes, and the mysteries of the Mesarthim are resurrected: Where did the gods come from, and why? What was done with thousands of children born in the citadel nursery? And most important of all, as forgotten doors are opened and new worlds revealed: Must heroes always slay monsters, or is it possible to save them instead?
Love and hate, revenge and redemption, destruction and salvation all clash in this astonishing and heart-stopping sequel to the New York Times bestseller, Strange the Dreamer.
Review:
I’m just going to start off by saying that Laini Taylor’s writing in this series is about as close to perfection for me as it gets. There’s just something so special about the world she has created with Weep and with her Godspawn characters that enchanted me from the first pages of Strange the Dreamer and that continued to captivate me all the way through her latest installment, Muse of Nightmares. This has truly been one of my favorite fantasy reads and I’m probably just going to babble incoherently in this review and not do justice to the story at all.
Muse of Nightmares has an epic, sweeping storyline that is hard to talk about without giving away spoilers, so I’m just going to say that it not only revisits all of our favorite characters from Strange the Dreamer and takes each of their stories to the next level, but it also answers any and all questions that we were left hanging with at the end of that first book. Then, Taylor ramps up the worldbuilding even more by taking us inside of the world that ultimately creates the Godspawn and gives us that origin story. This aspect of the novel and the new characters that are introduced end up becoming crucial to the original storyline and I just found it so impressive how smoothly Taylor ties together all of the intricate threads that she creates between the two books.
The characters were of course still my favorite part of the series. My love for Lazlo and Sarai and their relationship only grew as they continued to defy all odds to be together in Muse of Nightmares. Ruby, Feral, and Sparrow are still as delightful as ever, and I even developed a soft spot for characters that I really didn’t care for in the first book, like Eril-Fane, Thyron Nero, and especially Minya. My newfound love for Minya was what surprised me the most about this second book. As much as I despised her in the first book, I actually cried for her in Muse of Nightmares. Totally did not see that coming, lol.
I’m sure I haven’t begun to do justice to what a beautiful fantasy story this series really is, but trust me, it’s one of the most beautifully crafted stores I’ve read in a long time. It’s not a fast-paced story by any means, but I thought the pacing was just perfect as Laini Taylor wove her exquisite tale and captured both my heart and imagination. 5 STARS
Vengeful by V.E. Schwab
Also by this author: A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1), A Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic, #2)
Series: Villains #2
Published by Tor Books on September 25, 2018
Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction
Pages: 478
Source: Purchased
Amazon
Goodreads
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
Eli Ever and Victor Vale were only medical students when their mutual discovery that near-death experiences can, under the right conditions, manifest extraordinary abilities.
They were best friends, and rivals, and then enemies. They were dead, then alive, and then---Eli killed Victor, once and for all.
Or so he thought---but Sydney Clarke felt otherwise, and used her own superpower to tip the scales. Now, a trio hides in the shadows, while another takes advantages of post-death life to take over the city of Merit.
If there can be life after death—will there be calm after vengeance, or will chaos rule?
Review:
Vengeful is the much anticipated sequel to V.E. Schwab’s immensely popular Vicious, and man, what a sequel it is! It’s everything I hoped it would be and more. Schwab revisits the world of the EOs (Extra Ordinaries) and all of my favorite morally gray characters and even adds a couple of new ones with cool EO powers to the mix. If you’re into villains at all, you’re going to love Marcella because The Villains series really lives up to its name with the addition of her character. I don’t want to give away too much about Marcella and what she’s after so I’ll just say that I spent much of the book waiting with bated breath to see what was going to happen once she finally crossed paths with either Eli or Victor. I just knew from the moment we were introduced to her that it was going to be an explosive encounter!
The story picks up five years after the events of Vicious and we learn that when Sydney used her power to resurrect Victor the last time, something went wrong with his powers and now he keeps dying, each time staying dead longer and longer. He’s in a fight for his life at this point. As if Victor’s desperate need to find a way to save himself doesn’t make for an intense enough story, there’s Eli at the other end of the spectrum. Eli has actually been captured and imprisoned by an anti-EO group and used as little more than a science experiment for years. The predicaments they find themselves in are clearly not what they had in mind when they first started trying to secure EO powers for themselves years ago.
Eli is perhaps the most surprising element of Vengeful for me. He is, of course, still driven by his belief that he is good and every other EO, especially Victor, is evil and needs to be destroyed, but at the same time, we are given insight into Eli’s past (growing up with an abusive father, etc.) that brings such a level of humanity to him that I honestly felt tremendous sympathy for Eli. Aside from my unexpected sympathy for Eli, what I loved most about Vengeful, as with Vicious, are the scenes with Victor and his found family. Those domestic scenes between Victor, Mitch, Sydney, and Sydney’s dog, Dol, just gave me such warm fuzzies and perfectly offset all of the danger and violence that infuses every other scene in the series.
I did struggle a bit with Schwab’s use of multiple timelines in Vengeful, mainly because there were so many of them to keep track of. Thankfully though, I got used to them fairly quickly and settled in for the ride.
My love for V.E. Schwab’s writing continues to grow with each book that I read and Vengeful is no exception to that. I love the intricate worlds that she builds, the flawed morally ambiguous characters that she makes me fall for, and the deliciously dark and dangerous storylines that she crafts. 4 STARS
About Laini Taylor
Laini Taylor is the author of the National Book Award Finalist Lips Touch: Three Times, as well as the novels Blackbringer and Silksinger. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, illustrator Jim Di Bartolo, and their daughter.
About V.E. Schwab
Victoria “V.E.” Schwab is the #1 NYT, USA, and Indie bestselling author of more than a dozen books, including Vicious, the Shades of Magic series, and This Savage Song. Her work has received critical acclaim, been featured by EW and The New York Times, been translated into more than a dozen languages, and been optioned for TV and Film. The Independent calls her the “natural successor to Diana Wynne Jones” and touts her “enviable, almost Gaimanesque ability to switch between styles, genres, and tones.”
She is represented by Holly Root at Root Literary and Jon Cassir at CAA.
All appearance and publicity inquiries should be directed to her PR rep, Kristin Dwyer, at: kdwyer@leoprny.com
Weekly Recap #84: Week of 12/23 – 12/29
/30 Comments/by Suzanne
It’s time for another weekly recap post of all things happening on and off the blog. This week I’ll be linking to the Sunday Post, which is hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.
I hope that everyone who celebrates Christmas had a wonderful holiday this week. Mine was very nice, low-key like I wanted it to be, but I think everyone still enjoyed it. Instead of trying to go see everyone on Christmas Day, we spread it out over a few days so that we can spend more time with each family member we’re visiting. So we saw my Dad and step-mom on the 23rd, my in-laws on the 24th, had the 25th for ourselves, and then went to my mother’s on the 26th. I slept 10 hours the following day, but woke up feeling refreshed and have been pretty productive since then, especially on the blog.
I only posted one review this past week since I figured it would be a light traffic week, but also because I hadn’t written anymore. I finally got my butt in gear though and wrote all of my backlogged reviews so look for those next week. I’ll have reviews for Muse of Nightmares, Vengeful, Throne of Glass, An Anonymous Girl, and possibly The Girl King going up this week. I also finally met my goal for the 2018 Discussion Challenge this week too so that was exciting, especially since it was the only challenge goal I hadn’t met yet.
As you can see from my list below, Christmas was very good to me in terms of books. Between actual gifts I received, an unexpected approval from Netgalley, and the great ebook deals on Amazon, I seriously stacked my shelves. Now I just need to stop watching Hallmark Holiday movies and get busy reading!
Oh well, I think that’s it for me. Happy New Year, everyone!
WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK
- [23 Dec] Weekly Recap #83: Week of 12/16 – 12/22
- [25 Dec] Top Ten Tuesday – Books I Hope to Find Under My Tree on Christmas Morning
- [26 Dec] Can’t Wait Wednesday – KILLING NOVEMBER by Adriana Mather
- [28 Dec] Watching You by Lisa Jewell ★★★★
- [29 Dec] Getting Rid of Books – How to Decide When It’s Time to Part Ways
WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK
UPCOMING REVIEWS
STACKING THE SHELVES
TOTALLY RANDOM