Top Ten Tuesday (#39) (12/17/13)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

 

Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read In 2013

Confession:  I am totally behind in reading debut authors.  I had planned to read all debut authors all the time in Dec. but I just don't see it happening.  I will try to get to my 12 author minimum though.  So here are the top 5 debut authors I read, and the top 5 authors that were new to me this year.  Not their debut year, but just new to me.

Top Debut Authors:

April Genevieve Tucholke

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.  I enjoyed this book.  I look forward to the next book in the series.

 

Jessica Verdi

My Life After Now.  This book was a bit predictable, however, I thought it was a very important book.

Kasie West

Pivot Point is technically her debut book this year, but I read The Distance Between Us.  I thought it was a promising debut for contemporary.  I need to read Pivot Point though.

Lindsay Ribar

The Art of Wishing.  I thought this was a really clever book.  I look forward to the next one in the series.

Rainbow Rowell

I've made absolutely no secret about the fact that Eleanor & Park was my favorite book in 2013.  I still have some books to read, but it will be hard to top it.  Then I read Fangirl.  Wow.  I can't wait to see what she comes up with next in YA.




Top Authors New to Me:

Alexandra Bracken

I read The Darkest Minds a little late in the game.  I thought it was awesome, and I really need to read the next one in the series.  It's sitting on my shelf just waiting for me.

 

Cassandra Clare

I can't believe I'm admitting to never having read a Cassandra Clare book.  I am so late to the game on this one.  But I read two of them!  I need to catch up on the series as a whole.

 

Gena Showalter

Another very prolific author that I never got around to reading until this year.  I need to go back and read her past series, but I am kind of loving the White Rabbit Chronicles series.

Jessi Kirby

I never got around to reading In Honor or Moonglass, but I really enjoyed  Golden, which I did get around to this year.  I will read In Honor at some point in time.

Lili Peloquin

I read the first two book in her The Innocents series.  It's good soapy fun.  A true guilty pleasure. 

Review: This Side of Jealousy (The Innocents #2) by Lili Peloquin

This Side of Jealousy (The Innocents #2) by Lili Peloquin

Think about what you love about a great soap opera, daytime or nighttime variety. Well, whatever you came up with, this book has in spades: Lies! Revenge! Secrets! Love! Sex! Betrayal! Mystery! MURDER!  You have your good guys and your bad guys. You have your good girls and your oh so bad girls.  This is soapy, campy, fun at its best.  I’ve never seen the television show Revenge, but I’d like to think it’s a lot like this book series.

The second installment picks up right where we left off in the last book.  It covers about a week in the drama-filled lives of a cast of over-privileged teens.  It is also once again told from alternating point of views between the two sisters, Alice and Charlie.  While once again, Alice is the star of the show, Charlie’s role continues to be a bit confusing.  I don’t know how her P.O.V. fits into the overall arc and mystery of the books, but her scenes are always good for some juicy drama.  As in the first book each character is pretty fleshed out, even the secondary characters.  You may not like them, but you kind of know them. 

The pacing of this book is my favorite kind: nice and quick.  There is nothing dragging this book down.  The plot flows and the wording is quick, making it easy to speed right through it.  There is no time for stopping and contemplating the deeper meaning behind the word choices, because there really doesn’t appear to be any deeper meaning.  Nobody is having an existential crisis here.  The reader certainly won’t have one either. 

I enjoyed how the overall plot moved forward in this installment in the series.  The reader gets some questions answered, and new questions are asked.  The characters all seem to grow a little. Well, as much as their natural shallowness allows them to.  The overarching mystery also seems much closer to being solved.  Is the story a bit predictable?  Well, yes.  But that’s o.k.  Ultimately, this is a book and not a TV show that relies on a major cliffhanger and needs to bring up something out of nowhere to keep the viewer interested.  There is a finite end to this series (I hope).  So while I think I know what is going to happen at the end of the series, I’m o.k. with that.  I am just enjoying the ride.

This book is what it is.  It will not change your life.  It will not make you think.  But it will provide enjoyment.  It’s ultimately the perfect summer read: fun, quick, and entertaining. 

3.5/5 footballs