Best Books
Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody
Long May She Reign by Rhiannon Thomas
Frostblood + Fireblood by Elly Blake
How To Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake
The Bourbon Kings by JR Ward
A Million Junes by Emily Henry
The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco
The Disappearances by Emily Bain Murphy
Spindlefire by Lexa Hillyer
The Valiant by Lesley Livingston
Flashfall by Jenny Moyer
Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare
Darkness Breaks The Dawn by Sara B Larson
The Glass Spare by Lauren DeStefano
The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel
Worst Books
Bad Girl Gone by Temple Mathews
Wintersong by SJ Jones
Moon Chosen by PC Cast
The Killer in Me by Margot Harrison
The Creeper Man by Dawn Kurtagich
Places No One Knows by Brenna Yovanoff
Guilded Cage By Vic James
After The Woods by Kim Savage
All The Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings
There’s Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins
The Ravenous by Amy Lukavics
The Mirror Sisters by VC Andrews
This Darkness Mine by Mindy McGuiness
Revenge by Nigel May
Honorable Mentions
The Diabolic by SJ Kincaid
Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed
Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire
This Adventure Ends + First and Then by Emma Mills
Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurt
Dorothy Must Die, Yellowbrick War, The Wicked Will Rise, The End of Oz
Nevernight by Danielle Paige
Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
Glitter by Aprilynne Pike
Royal Bastards by Andrew Shvarts
Empress of a Thousand Skies by Rhoda Belleza
The Library of Fates by Aditi Khorana
Burning Glass by Katherine Purdie
Godblind by Anna Stephens
Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh
Most Anticipated Book: Of Fire and Stars. It’s YA fantasy with lesbian princesses! I’ve been dying for. So naturally I was exceptionally excited for this book. Only it was kind of a let down. The romance was cute but it took so long for anything to actually happen, the plot was no different than a thousand other fantasies I’ve read, and the names in this book were just ridiculous. I gave it a three star rating and I’ve already pre ordered the prequel. The writing definitely showed promise so I’m still looking forward to the prequel and I believe there’s a second book coming out which I’m sure I’ll wind up reading at some point.
Series: I read a whole series this year!! I started Dorothy Must Die when it first came out some years ago but dropped it half way through. Then at some point earlier this year I went through a stage of retrying some books I had previously tried and hated and this series was one of them. I’m glad I gave it another chance cause second time round I got really hooked and read the series one book after the other and finished. (The only complete series I read this year so I’m quite proud of myself there. I have a terrible habit of starting series, loving them, buying all the available books and never getting around to finishing them). The heroine is snarky, spunky and delightfully crass and has a tone of voice that’s very easy to connect with. The romance is a little eye rolling, and there’s definite problems with the series (books 2 and 3 were both really short and book 2 nothing really happened right until the end and book 3 picked up right after. These two could have been put together to make a trilogy). But it was a fun magical series with a unique take on OZ and a psycho bitch queen Dorothy who was awful and completely full of herself.
Favourite Book of the Year: Long May She Reign which was YA high fantasy for CSI fans. This dealt with the sciencey side of things when a poison massacre happened in a castle leaving only a handful of people alive including a distant heir to the throne now suddenly finding herself queen. Brilliantly original and a flawed heroine. Twisty plot and a surprising end. And a standalone as well.
Most Surprising Book: Tower of Dawn by Sarah J Mass. I’m still reading this one and surprised at how much I actually like it considering on reflection I hated Empire of Storms and I haven’t liked Chaol since Crown of Midnight (still think he’s a moron). Best book by far in the series for me is Queen of Shadows, but I really love the new characters and the new countries in this one and it’s definitely reminding me why I fell in love with this series.
Second Chance Books: Rebel of the Sands trilogy, Tearling trilogy, The Sin Eater’s Daughter Trilogy, A Court of Thorns and Roses trilogy. For some unknown reason I decided to by new copies of all of these (after giving away my originals) and will be reading them again at some point throughout the following year.
Controversial Books: I read The Black Witch. My twitter feed blew up over this one and it was trashed on Goodreads. I normally avoid books with that sort of reputation like the plague but I decided to try this one for myself. Frankly I can see why it caused such an uproar. On the other hand, having read it while there were times I wanted to punch the heroine and throw the book out the window, I did actually quite like it. I will be doing a full review of this one.
Netgalley: I am shamefully behind on reviews. I’ve got 8 or so to write (the plan was to get them done before the end of the year but I’ve been terribly lazy and still not gotten round to it. I will, eventually. I seem to have lost some of my reviewing enthusiasm this year. I still like reading the reviews I see posted between Goodreads and Booklikes from all the bloggers and reviewers I follow). I’m running out of things to say that haven’t been said in different ways already. May pick up again next year. We’ll see.
A huge thank you to everyone who’s still following or a new follower (even though I’m slow at updating and the worst at responding to comments – blame my terrible social anxiety). And Happy New Year!!
Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1628238/best-worst-honorable-mentions-2017-wrap-up
