Favorite Books of 2015

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! 

I'm here today to reminisce about all the books I read in that year that I can't believe is already over. I read a total of 85 books in 2015, surpassing my goodreads challenge by 15 books. Even if I wasn't as successful as last year (I read 88 books in 2014), I am quite pleased with this result. I did better than expected as I thought that university would take a much larger toll on my reading. 

So after thinking long and hard about everything I read this year, I put together a list of ten books and series that I loved the most. I tried to really focus on the ones that I would want to read again right now and that I still rave about now, after having finished them for a while. Needless to say, I read a lot more than ten books that I enjoyed, but these are just going to be the top of the top. I tried to put them in some order, going from my least favorite (of my top favorites), to the top of the top of the top. As you can guess, that was incredibly hard and I'm still not 100% about the order I went with. I just really love all these books, okay!

The links will take you to the goodreads page, where you should add these books to your TBR if you haven't already!

The Winner's Curse / The Winner's Crime by Marie Ruthkoski

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy

The Winner's Curse had been sitting on my TBR shelf for quite some time before I finally picked it up this year. Not only is the cover and the whole design of this book gorgeous, the story that Marie Ruthkoski created is imaginative, unique and simply epic. It features a smart and headstrong female lead, a highly shippable but not too prominent romance, political intrigue, war strategizing and an overall very well developed storyline. With that ending of the first book, I recommend you have the second one ready, because you will want to keep reading!

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Retellings

This is the first book in a duology, inspired by A Thousand and One Nights. Set in a fantasy world where the young Caliph takes a different wife every night and has them killed by morning, the story follows Shazi, a young girl who is determined to end these murders. Beautifully written, The Wrath and the Dawn will have you hooked from the very first page. While the fantasy elements weren't the best, the romance easily makes up for it. This ship is seriously everything. I feel like this book hasn't gotten nearly as much attention as it deserves, so if you enjoy romance in fantasy books, read this!

Calloway Sisters Series by Krista and Becca Ritchie

Kiss the Sky / Hothouse Flower / Fuel the Fire

Genres: New Adult, Contemporary

Before you skip ahead simply because of the New Adult genre, please wait a second. This series is not your usual New Adult romance. No overprotective, emotionally abusive boyfriends and innocent, sweet virgins. Krista and Becca Ritchie create a unique set of characters, all with their own issues and flaws, none of them perfect. Three sisters who care for each other deeply, and even if you probably won't see many parallels to your own life given their social status as celebrities, you will feel for them. Before you know it, you're addicted to their story, trust me. This series is so different, well written and just really good, I want everyone to read it.

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

The Raven Boys / The Dream Thieves / Blue Lily, Lily Blue

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy

I went into this series without a clue what it was about, and somehow, that hasn't really changed yet. This might sound like a bad thing, but it really isn't. The Raven Cycle is a very unusual fantasy series, and I don't even want to explain why. I'm just telling you to read it, if you haven't already, so you can see for yourself. Beautiful writing, lovable and complex characters and a magical and somewhat dark feel are only a few of the reasons these books are special and absolutely worth reading. Especially the second book is definitely one of my top top favorites of the year.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, LGBT
Review

The story of Ari and Dante is without a doubt one of the most heartwarming and most touching books I have ever read. It is exceptionally well written and deals with many difficult and important topics. Not only does it address the hardships of growing up and coming to terms with who you are, it also portrays interesting and complicated family dynamics. But most of all, it is a beautiful story of friendship and falling in love.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Genres: New Adult (Young Adult), Fantasy, Retellings

I haven't tried to make a secret of the fact that I love the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas. But this year, in my opinion, Maas outshone herself with this first book in a new series. While I like Queen of Shadows less and less the more I think about it, I have already read A Court of Thorns and Roses twice. It is everything I have always wanted, and more: well written, addicting and with a brilliant set of characters. I laughed out loud at some parts and couldn't stop swooning at others. Most of all, the ending of the book has me hoping for even better books in the future of this series. I can't wait to see where the story will go and most of all I can't wait to get to know some of the characters better. 

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Cinder / Scarlet / Cress

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Review of Cinder

I'm sure this isn't the first time you're hearing about this series. I'm here to tell you that yes, it deserves all the hype. The Lunar Chronicle has been one of the most pleasant surprises of the year for me. After hearing countless fantastic things about the series, I finally decided it was time to read it myself, but I still wasn't entirely sure I was going to like it. But Cinder already turned out to be so much more than I expected, and the series just got better from there. I'm now in the middle of reading Winter, and I'm overall just in love with everything (though I am having a harder time than expected getting through the 800 page monster of a book). The characters are phenomenal, the story is action-packed and fast paced, the writing is amazing - I honestly have nothing to complain about. That's why this series absolutely deserves one of the top spots on my list.

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, LGBT

This book and I did not get off to the best start. For the first fifty pages or so, I was pretty disappointed with the story and had my issues with the writing. But then, everything changed very very quickly, and before I knew it, I couldn't stop reading. The story, the characters and the writing - I fell in love with everything. I'll Give You the Sun takes you on an incredible journey. It broke my heart only to put it back together. From family to friendship to love to grief, everything is portrayed in an exceptionally real way. The amount of character growth both Noah and Jude go through is wonderful to watch and it's what made the story so special. I honestly can't praise this book enough, and I'm begging you all to read it if you haven't already.

Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy by Laini Taylor

Daughter of Smoke & Bone / Days of Blood & Starlight / Dreams of Gods & Monsters

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy

Review of Daughter of Smoke & Bone / Review of Days of Blood & Starlight

I read this series at the very beginning of the year and I still feel overwhelmed by Laini Taylor's magical writing style. I wrote down some of my favorite quotes when reading the books and I still get goosebumps when I read them now. I seriously can't stress enough how incredibly beautifully written this trilogy is. Add to that the brilliant characters and creatures Laini Taylor brought to life within these pages and you definitely have all-time-favorite material. I remember not being completely on board with the romance in the story but the wonderful friendships portrayed completely made up for that.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary

This book completely blew me away. Honestly, I was not expecting to feel so many feelings when reading this story. But Wonder made me cry happy tears and sad tears and it touched me more than any other book I've ever read. I loved reading from all the different perspectives the story was told from. All the characters were so complex, honest and real - it was impossible not to understand and feel for every single one of them. August was so strong and brave and I felt so proud of him for all the development he went through. By the end of the story, I was in awe of all that he had accomplished. 

Okay - that's it. 2015 is over and so is this list. I hope you've all had the perfect start into the new year. Let's hope that 2016 has great things in store for all of us!

What books made your favorites list this year?

ARC Review: Firsts

I received a free copy of this book through Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion or my review of the book in any way. Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with this eARC!

Firsts 

by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

Publication date: January 5, 2016

Published by: St. Martin's Griffin

Kindle edition, 320 pages

My rating: 3.5/5 ★

Seventeen-year-old Mercedes Ayres has an open-door policy when it comes to her bedroom, but only if the guy fulfills a specific criteria: he has to be a virgin. Mercedes lets the boys get their awkward, fumbling first times over with, and all she asks in return is that they give their girlfriends the perfect first time- the kind Mercedes never had herself.

Keeping what goes on in her bedroom a secret has been easy- so far. Her absentee mother isn’t home nearly enough to know about Mercedes’ extracurricular activities, and her uber-religious best friend, Angela, won’t even say the word “sex” until she gets married. But Mercedes doesn’t bank on Angela’s boyfriend finding out about her services and wanting a turn- or on Zach, who likes her for who she is instead of what she can do in bed.

When Mercedes’ perfect system falls apart, she has to find a way to salvage her reputation and figure out where her heart really belongs in the process. Funny, smart, and true-to-life, FIRSTS is a one-of-a-kind young adult novel about growing up.

I have conflicted feelings about this book. There were many aspects that I enjoyed, and others that I wasn't so sure about. Firsts addresses some difficult and important topics  that separate it from the usual YA contemporary (romance) novels. It also presents a very unusual and somewhat controversial main character that is the main reason for my uncertainty about my thoughts on the story.

On one hand, I did not like Mercedes and it was incredibly hard to connect with her and feel for her. She has so many issues and does the stupidest things, and it was absolutely infuriating to read about it. But then I think, somehow that's also a good thing. Firsts definitely doesn't portray a teenager that is in control of her life. It's a story about a girl who has literally no clue what she's doing and makes all the wrong choices because she has no role model. Her family life is completely messed up, so that she also has huge trust issues. Mercedes was unable to open up to absolutely anyone (seriously, not anyone). She kept all those secrets until it got way too much for her to handle. I kept thinking that her inability to talk about herself and just trust people was overdone and unrealistic. But then I had to remind myself that just because Mercedes isn't like me, that doesn't mean that people can't have those issues.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Firsts was a hard book for me to read and it was even harder to warm up to Mercedes. But I don't want to judge the story too much because of that.

One thing that I thought was interestingly portrayed was Mercedes's relationship with Faye, the new girl that arrived at their school. All throughout the book, Mercedes isn't sure if she has only friendly feelings towards Faye or if it's more than that. It showed her general confusion about herself and her life perfectly and I think it really helped her character development. I myself didn't really like Faye, though, but I was glad she was there for Mercedes. She was a really good friend, if a little too much and over the top at times.

Zach, Mercedes's friend-with-benefits kind of thing, was the only character in the story that I really liked. He was kind and patient and always tried so hard. It was impossible not to root and feel for him.

One thing that bothered me was that I feel like lots of things weren't quite resolved at the end. I would've needed something more, more information about what happened, etc. The ending was too focused on the romance, which hadn't played such an important role in the story up until then. Because of that, the topics that had been more prominent before didn't get enough attention, so the ending lacked closure.

Overall, I gave the book 3.5 stars (4 on goodreads) because I enjoyed the story for the most part. I would recommend Firsts to people who are looking for a different contemporary read. As I said, my own feelings are very conflicted, and I don't think this will be everyone's cup of tea. If I had to compare it to any other book I've read, I would have to go with The DUFF by Kody Keplinger, though I have to say I didn't enjoy it quite as much. 

November 2015 Wrap-Up

Hello there. I'm here today with my very late November Wrap-Up. As always, the weeks are just flying past and I'm trying to keep up. I can't believe it's already December but I'm also super excited because it means that Christmas is right around the corner. I should probably start my Christmas shopping at some point.. But of course I'm here to talk about books, namely the ones I read in the past month.

What I Read

I managed to finish five books in November and I'm happy with this number considering that I'm nearing the end of my uni semester and the workload is just getting bigger and bigger. But anyway, here are the books that I read:

• Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn, 3/5 ★
Overall, this just wasn't really my kind of book. While I enjoyed the story itself, the writing seemed pretentious and simply did not work for me. I feel like I couldn't connect to the characters or the story because of that. I'm going with three stars because it was an okay book but nothing more for me.


• Magiona by Maria Dahvana Headley, 3/5 ★
I really loved the first part of this book, before all the fantasy elements came into the story. The characters were great and I felt so excited about the whole thing. But after the 'big thing' happened, I completely lost interest in the story. Aza, our main character, started to annoy me and I got so confused by the plot. This book is written in a very unique way and while I appreciated that at the beginning, it felt too jumpy in the second part of the book. Aza's actions were often not explained or anticipated in any way, so everything simply happened and I didn't understand why she did the things she did. By the end, I was honestly just waiting for the book to finally come to a close.


• Scarlet by Marissa Meyer, 5/5 ★
I absolutely adored the second installment in the Lunar Chronicles series. Scarlet and Wolf were both very interesting characters and I loved how everyone's stories intertwined and worked together. As with Cinder, I found the plot to be rather predictable, but I wasn't bothered by it at all.


• Cress by Marissa Meyer, 5/5 ★
Another 5/5 – I just can't get enough of this series. Cress was, again, pure awesomeness. It's perfectly paced in my opinion. Something is always going on but it doesn't get too much. Another thing that I love is how Marissa Meyer makes you anticipate certain things but then resolves them at the perfect moment. There are no stupid and annoying mishaps and misunderstanding. She just gets everything right.


• Fairest by Marissa Meyer, 5/5 ★
I just had to give this one 5/5 as well. It was so much better than I had thought it would be. The only reason I even picked it up before reading Winter was that I had still been waiting for that last book to arrive. I wasn't really interested in Levana and I thought Fairest was going to be an unnecessary side story that I might as well leave out. But I have to say I'm really glad that I read it. It made me understand where Levana came from and why she might have turned into who she is, but it doesn't try to justify her actions. She's still evil and her actions are wrong – that's made clear again and again throughout the book. I think knowing what her life has been like gave me some valuable background information, not only about Levana but also the rest of the Lunar people that appear in the books. I can't wait to see how all of this is going to play into the story of Winter.

What I Bought

I bought seven books in November, three of which I already read. Two I bought with a gift card that I received for my birthday, so that's okay as well. And for the last two, well, I visited my sister in Brighton and couldn't resist buying some books in the beautiful bookstore there. So I guess I can somewhat justify adding four more books to my TBR when I actually want it to get smaller. Oh, well. So here's what I bought:

• Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
• Cress by Marissa Meyer
• Fairest by Marissa Meyer
• Uninvited by Sophie Jordan
• Made You Up by Francesca Zappia
• Uprooted by Naomi Novak
• Saga, Volume 5 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

December TBR

As always, I don't have a specific TBR for December. I will definitely read Winter this month, but I'm trying to make myself wait until the end of my uni semester to start it. At the moment, I'm actually reading A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, which I bought on a whim the other day when I didn't have a book with me to read on the train ride home. I went to the book store and just decided to pick the smallest book in the non-fiction section because I never read non-fiction and thought now was as good a time as any to start. Well, it turned out to be Stephen Hawking's book. It's super interesting but all the physics stuff is definitely very hard to follow. I don't know if I'll ever actually finish it but I'll keep reading it for now. Then I also want to read Made You Up and Uninvited for my 2015 Authors A-Z Reading Challenge.

On the Blog

Well, this was one of those months (again) when I just didn't really blog at all. I did talk about  the portrayal of Unhealty Relationships in New Adult, but that's already it.

Life

As I already mentioned, I went to Brighton to visit my sister who stayed there for three months (she actually just arrived back home today, finally!). I was really happy to see my sister and especially to see where she's been hiding all these months. Mostly though, I'm just glad I didn't get blown away by the wind. 

So that's it for my November Wrap-Up. I hope you all had a good month and happy holidays to you! 

What was your favorite read of the month?

Do you have any weird ways of picking out books at the book store?

On the Topic of Unhealthy Relationships in New Adult

Okay, so this is just going to be a quick rant about the portrayal of abusive/unhealthy relationships in New Adult in general and more specifically, Travis and Abby's relationship in Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire.

Beautiful Disaster was the very first New Adult book that I read, and I absolutely loved it. It completely got me hooked and I loved the relationship of Abby and Travis. At the time I just thought it was so overdramatic and unrealistic and over the top, but it didn't bother me or lessened my enjoyment of the story at all. I didn't really think further than that. But now today, I don't even know why, I deliberately started searching for negative reviews of the book and just for people who discuss the abusive relationship between Travis and Abby. It made me actively realize something that I've always known in the back of my mind but never really thought about, namely how very unhealthy the romance in this book is.

I'm not going to go into detail as to why the romance is unhealthy because I honestly don't think I know enough about emotional abuse and such, so I'm going to leave you with a video by Thoughts on Tomes and a blogpost I found by Molly over at Wrapped Up in Books.

I know that New Adult in general often portrays abusive and unhealthy relationships in a romantic way, and I know that there are tons of people who despise the genre because of that. And here I am, someone who reads lots of New Adult and enjoys most of those books. But I want to emphasize that I in no way support abusive relationships or think that they are okay. I just want to try to explain why I still read books like Beautiful Disaster.

So to begin with, I'd like to say that I've had a boyfriend for four years now (almost three years when I first read Beautiful Disaster and got into New Adult) and our relationship is absolutely nothing like the ones portrayed in Beautiful Disaster and such. I don't think a relationship should be like that and most of all I definitely don't want a relationship like that. I wouldn't want to know someone like Travis in real life and I could not stand to have someone so controlling and dictating as a boyfriend.

I definitely see how portraying emotionally abusive relationships in a romantic way in books is problematic. There are lots of girls who have probably never been in a (serious) relationship and don't really know what to expect. I know that I used to be one of those girls. Having them read books like Beautiful Disaster and wanting a boyfriend just like Travis worries me. That's not how it's supposed to be, everyone! It's important to emphasize that again and again. 

But there are also other types of readers. Of course I don't want to promote abusive relationships, and I'm not going to recommend Beautiful Disaster for its portrayal of love. But when someone can see that such relationships are not something to strive for and see the wrongness of it but still like the book, I don't think that's wrong either. Personally, I can distance myself from the characters and the relationship, overlook all the drama and not think too much about the book itself. I see it as strictly fictional and not something I connect to my daily life. It's a guilty pleasure. For me, New Adult is never going to be a genre I would pick up when I want something to think about. I don't think it's good literature and I don't think it's trying to convey important messages. But thought provoking, meaningful books aren't always what I'm looking for, and for when I just want to shut down my brain and read, I usually go for New Adult.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I just want to say that 1) yes, portraying emotionally abusive relationships in a romantic way is wrong and highly problematic, but 2) it's still okay to read and enjoy those books if you are aware of the problems and that it's a fictional and do not try to apply it to your own lives. 

Okay, so I'm just going to stop here because I'm having serious troubles getting my thoughts straight. I won't be able to explain why I enjoyed Beautiful Disaster because when I think about it rationally, it makes no sense to me either.

I would love to hear your opinion. If there are any other interesting posts etc. on this topic that you know of, please let me know. I really want to read/hear more about it and I'll definitely try to look out for signs of emotional abuse in the books I read in the future. I'm glad today has made me more aware of this problem.

October 2015 Wrap-Up

Hello there, and happy Halloween! It's already the end of the month again, so I'm doing my wrap-up today. Also, I'm sorry for the lack of pictures in this post. I'm writing this last minute and am not at home where all my beautiful books are. 

What I Read

October has been a very good reading month for me: I managed to read 10 books! 

• Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater, ★★★★★
Turns out I really really love the Raven Cycle series. This third book wasn't quite as good as the second one in my opinion and I would have hoped for a little more to happen, especially at the end of the book. But overall I enjoyed it very much and I can't wait to see how the story is going to wrap up in the last book. 


• Rikki by Abigail Strom, ★★★★
I had a few issues with this book but overall it was an easy and enjoyable read. Here's my full review. 


• While It Lasts by Abby Glines, ★★★
As always with Abby Glines's books, I really enjoy this book and got through it very quickly, but it definitely wasn't perfect. This third book in the Sea Breeze series was exactly what I needed and expected, quick and fun but with a number of flaws. 


• Wonder by R.J. Palacio, ★★★★★
I loved everything about this book. August was a wonderful character to read from but also all the other perspectives that we get to see throughout the book were super interesting and touching. I cried happy and sad tears with this book and whenever I start thinking of the ending, I think my heart is going to explode. Definitely a must read for anyone. 


• Fuel the Fire by Krista and Becca Ritchie, ★★★★★
It took me a while to warm up to Connor and Rose, but with this book I definitely fell head over heels in love with them and their relationship. It's so different from anything that I've ever read: it promotes equality rather than the idea that women should be protected (and honestly: ruled over) by their boyfriends as it's unfortunately done all too often in New Adult (yes Abbi Glines, I am looking at you). I would definitely recommend the Calloway Sisters series to anyone who has sworn off New Adult because of the unhealthy relationships. 


• Easy by Tammara Webber, ★★★★
Another quick and enjoyable read. If you like New Adult, you'll probably like this book too. 


• I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson, ★★★★★
I had huge problems getting into this book and getting used to the writing. I especially didn't like Jude in the beginning. But then I fell in love. With everything. I loved the complicated relationship between Noah and Jude, and reading about what they were each going through broke my heart. 


• Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway, ★★★★
This was a very cute and enjoyable read about love, friendship and family. I liked reading about the relationships between the characters but I had trouble connecting to any of them, which is why I only ended up giving this four stars. 


• Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, ★★★★★
I can't help but compare all of Rainbow Rowell's books to Fangirl, and this definitely wasn't as good as Fangirl to me. I very much enjoyed reading about Simon and Baz, though, and loved the whole magic school aspect, which Rowell managed to separate from Harry Potter very well, even if it had the HP feeling to it. My favorite aspect of the book were all the references to things that happened in the past, and that would've happened in the past books if this were an actual series. I always thought 'oh yeah, I remember reading that' only to realize that I had not, in fact, read that. 


• Cinder by Marissa Meyer, ★★★★★
I finally got started with the Lunar Chronicles series, and I enjoyed the first book a lot more than I thought I would. Here is my full review.

So, that's all the books that I've read this month. My favorites were definitely Wonder and I'll Give You the Sun.

What I Bought

I only have one new book to show you here and it's one I got for my birthday. I also ordered a few but they haven't arrived yet, so I'm going to include them in next month's haul.

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: Illustrated Edition by J.K. Rowling, illustrated by Jim Kay (gift)

November TBR

I definitely want to continue with the Lunar Chronicles next month, but I'll have to wait until those books arrive. I also ordered Made You Up by Francesca Zappia and Uninvited by Sophie Jordan, which I want to read for the 2015 Authors A-Z Challenge.

On the Blog

I finally reviewed some books again this month, namely Rikki and Cinder. Then I also talked about the wishes I would ask the book genie to grant me in my seventh Top Ten Tuesday post. And last but not least, I asked for help in order to finish the Authors A-Z Challenge. 

Life

So as I've mentioned, my birthday was this month. Yaay! I turned 21 on October 16 and had a huge party. No, I'm kidding. I invited some of my friends over to have Raclette (which is a delicious Swiss dish, in case you were wondering! Google it. ;) ). Other than that I've just been trying to catch up on Uni work and all that fun stuff.

So that's it for my October wrap-up. I wish you all a happy November!

Review: Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1)

Cinder

by Marissa Meyer

Series: The Lunar Chronicles #1

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Retellings

Publication date: January 3, 2012

Published by: Feiwel & Friends

Hardcover, 390 pages

My rating: 5/5 ★

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.  Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Cinder sounded like something completely different from what I usually read. For one thing, I don't really read sci-fi; it's just not a genre that usually appeals to me. I've also never specifically sought out fairytale retellings. Unlike other people, that's never really been a selling point for me. Add to that the fact that there is a huge (and I mean huge) hype surrounding The Lunar Chronicles, and I think it's understandable that I had been hesitant to pick this book up for a long time. Would it live up to the raving reviews I had read everywhere, or was it really just not for me?

I am so so glad that I finally decided it was worth giving this book a try. Cinder did not disappoint. All the things I was sceptical about turned out to work perfectly for me. Cyborgs, androids and evil queen from the moon? Yes please!

My favorite part of the book was undoubtedly Cinder's character. She is a teenage cyborg mechanic. That sounds confusing, and it actually took me a while to figure out what exactly it means to be cyborg. (I thought this was intentionally done, but I just realized that a quick google search would've helped, as the term is cyborg actually fairly specific. But well, not really knowing was part of the fun for me!)

Cinder is very head-strong. Even though cyborgs are shunned in her society, she makes the best of it. She always stood up for herself and, most importantly, didn't blame herself for the bad things that happened to or around her. That was honestly so refreshing. I feel like even the strongest and most kick-ass female characters in YA always blame themselves for everything. But not Cinder. She always defended herself when she was unfairly accused (of literally everything) just because she was cyborg, especially by her stepmother and -sister. She knew she wasn't to blame for things like the death of loved ones, even if she was repeatedly told it was her fault. Overall, she was just the perfect heroine in my opinion.

The reason why I don't usually seek out fairytale retellings is that I expect them to be very predictable. I had always imagined that the retelling would be so close to the original tale that by knowing the original story, the retelling would pretty much be spoiled. Clearly, I didn't know what I was talking about. Knowing the story of Cinderella didn't help at all in predicting the ending of Cinder. I liked how the similarities between the two stories were obvious, while Cinder was nevertheless very distinct from Cinderella. I will say that the story in Cinder was still rather predictable. None of the plot-twists or reveals took me by surprise, and most of the theories I had formed while reading the book turned out to be true in the end. This didn't lessen my enjoyment of the story itself, but unexpected twists and turns are always a plus and would have probably made me love the book even more.

Another rather weak aspect of this book, in my opinion, was the romance. It wasn't really there. The book's focus was clearly somewhere else, and believe me, I appreciated that. The only reason I was disappointed was because I've read many times how swoon-worthy Prince Kai is, so I expected there to be a little more. But maybe that will come in the next books, and if not I can totally live with a YA series without the romance drama for a change.

Overall, Cinder was a very well written and thought out story. I'm very intrigued as to what the next books will bring and I can't wait to see how the story continues. I would recommend this book to pretty much anyone - you definitely don't have to be a fan of sci-fi to enjoy this story. 

2015 Authors A-Z Challenge - I Need Help

Hello there. So at the end of last year, I decided to participate in the 2015 Authors A-Z Reading Challenge (here's my sign-up post). The goal is to read a book for each letter of the alphabet according to the author's last name. So in the end, it's only 26 books in a year, and I thought I could finish that easily. But then I kind of forgot about the challenge.

So now I need help. I have a couple of letters left, and I want to finish as many books for these as possible in the two months left. Here is the list of books that I've read so far. I'm still missing the letters I, J, L, O, U, V, X, Y, Z. If you know any authors for these letters and could recommend some good books, that would be perfect! I'm looking for rather easy and quick reads, as I already have a number of books that I also want to read this year. So if you have any suggestions, please let me know!

Okay, so this was just my very quick cry for help. I hope you're all having a wonderful day!