The Parliament Convenes: 2013 in Review

So, we know it's 2014. And we know everyone else has already published their year-in-review posts. But we're still writing 2013 on things by mistake, which means it's not too late to share our favorites from last year. Right?

Before we begun, if you're looking for something really good to read, The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein all made it onto multiple owls' top five lists for 2013.

Zelda

Five Favorite Books Read in 2013

1. The Archived by Victoria Schwab 
2. The Ocean at the End of the Lane  by Neil Gaiman
3. The Theory of Everything  by J. J. Johnson
4. Speaking From Among the Bones by Alan Bradley - This was definitely my favorite Flavia book! I adore this world and I especially adore Flavia! I love listening to the audiobooks for these, Jane Entwistle does a great job! I constantly get little sayings from these stuck in my head. I have yet to find someone that doesn't like Flavia (and we are talking a wide range of ages, genders, and reading interests)! 
5. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - I was nervous to read this one, but I actually don't remember crying when I read the book. I plan on going to the movie and ugly crying with my friends, but I don't think the book made me cry. However, I loved it. John Green is a wonderful author and really knows how to connect the reader and the character so you feel their emotions for fully and are immersed in their world. 

I noticed something odd about my top 5 books. They are ALL blue. Apparently I'm pretty into that color.

I read less in 2013. School, oddly enough, is a time suck. My goal in 2012 was 100 and I just made the cut! 2013 was lowered to 75 and I managed to squeeze out 84. 2014? Yeah....about that....my goal is 50. So far we have a whopping 3 books under our wing. School is trying to ruin my life! Ok, that may be a bit dramatic. But seriously...

Reading Goal for 2014: 50 

Like Sonya, I would also like to read more non-fiction. I noticed a trend in my non-fiction: animals and eating disorders. I don't entirely know what that says about me, but you can't say I don't know what I like. I just get bored very quickly with real people and their lives and I tend to give up. I read 5 non-fiction books in 2013. That is kind of embarrassing....I can't help that I love my murder books and my teen angst!

Sonya

Five Favorite Books Read in 2013

1. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein - I could not put this one down, and was an absolute wreck at the end of it. My husband saw me crying over this book and thought I was being a bit melodramatic. Later, I tried to explain to him what had me so upset and as a result, ended up crying in the middle of the coffee shop where we were playing Scrabble. If that isn't a good book, I don't know what is.
2. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor - This book was so inventive with the world the author created. It had great tension and the story and suspense just kept building. The writing was wonderful and I always wanted to know what would happen to Karou and her mysterious Akiva.
3. Graceling by Kristin Cashore - Another amazing YA book where the author creates a captivating world with compelling characters with quite interesting abilities. I devoured this first book in the trilogy as well as the following two books. All three were top notch but the first was my favorite.
4. Life of Pi by Yann Martel - I read this book in one day. I couldn't put it down because I had to know what was going to happen to Pi and the animals with him. Reading this was like being unable to turn away from a train wreck. So many awful things happen in the duration of this story but I just couldn't stop. Then, the twist at the end where Martel leaves the reader wondering if it was all real just blew my mind.
5. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - This may have taken me 6 months to finish but nonetheless it was well worth the read. The story is beautiful and tragic, and we can't help but sympathize with the toils women had to deal with in that time. I already knew how this one ended but it did not diminish the poignancy with which Tolstoy shows Anna's spiral into madness.

Library School definitely put a damper on my reading for the past year and a half. In 2012 I read 66 books, and in 2013 only 30. Granted, some of the books have been outrageously long books like Anna Karenina and Vanity Fair, but still. It looks like my favorite books from 2013 were dominated by young adult novels. It really is my favorite genre.

Reading Goal for 2014: Nonfiction!! I want to find a nonfiction book that I can like as much as I like a great novel. I've read a handful of nonfiction books but none have really kept my attention or made me want to read them. I basically end up browsing through the book. In addition, I definitely want to read more than I did in 2013. Only 30 books. Pitiful. I think a nice healthy reading goal is 50. (Zelda, we can try to recommend nonfiction to each other! And compete to see who makes it to 50 fastest!)

Nox

Five Favorite Books Read in 2013

1. Between Shades of Gray by Ruth Sepetys - This story of a teenage girl who is shipped to a Siberian work camp with her family and thousands of other Lithuanians moved me to tears multiple times. There was so much about the history behind this story that I wasn't aware of and the story of these survivors was incredibly inspiring.
2. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
3. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
4. Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton - A very big concept SF book complete with alien swarms, sentient worlds, medical-enabled long life, inter-world portals that could easily have become unwieldy, but Hamilton keeps it grounded by focusing on the human condition. Normally I'm not a huge fan of something that is so purely science fiction, but the world building in this book blew me away.
5. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - I'll admit, I was afraid to read this book for the longest time because of the hype - usually when everyone loves a book, I'm disappointed, but I'm happy to say this wasn't the case in this situation. Rarely does a book come along that deals with such a hard topic with the humor that John Green does with this book. Although I had been warned that this was a "crying book," I still wasn't able to adequately prepare myself for how moving the story was.

Wow, so I definitely read fewer books in 2013 than 2012. Who knew that grad school would take up so much of my free reading time. When I did find time, I wanted to numb it with terrible television rather than invest in a book. I also read some pretty terrible books this year that had come highly recommended. My two biggest disappointments were Wicked, which I started after seeing the musical last fall and couldn’t even finish and Forever, the classic book that I found waaaay too focused on sex.

Reading Goal for 2014: I've decided not to focus as heavily on numbers this year, but instead focus on reading widely. While taking a course on Young Adult literature last semester I realized just how few books I had read written by minorities or who had main characters of another race. Living in North Dakota means that my daily life is pretty homogenous, so my goal this year is to expand my horizons.

Madeleine

Five Favorite Books Read in 2013

1. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (the link will take you to a post my human alter-ego wrote for a public library blog, or you can read my review of the follow-up book on Owl You Need is a Good Read)
2. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
3. Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
4. Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dinah Nayeri
5. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Struggling for some originality here, but grad school really cuts into the free reading time! I read 107 books in 2012 and only 70 books in 2013. I've already dissected my 2013 reading with charts and graphs. Honestly, it wasn't my best year for reading in more than just numbers. I liked all the books above, but I liked my top five books of 2012 a lot more. My worst book of the year was Vanity Fair, which I couldn't even finish. On a more positive note, I did reread several of my favorite books of all time: Jane Eyre, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and The Book Thief.

Reading Goal for 2014: 50. And I want to make it to at least 1945 in my Newbery Medal Reading Challenge. With the Newbery Challenge and potentially a Reader's Advisory class this summer, I think I should be able to make it over 50 books.

The Bone Season

To tell you I was disappointed in this would be an understatement. I think it's pretty safe to say that the publishers are pushing this book like crazy. First book in a seven book series? Intriguing! Steampunk? Yes, please! London? Do you even have to ask? So what is so bad about it?

Well...let me start out with saying I didn't hate it. In fact, it got a lot better once the plot actually got going. I think one of my biggest problems lies with the fact that I constantly got the impression that the author was trying SO hard to be cool it hurt. She is very young (born in 1991) and this is her first book, so I get it. Pressure so on and so forth. The slang just about killed me. There is a glossary in the back of the book that gives the slang and the meanings. There is a little paragraph at the top of the glossary stating that she kind of modeled it on slang from the London underground and blah blah blah. Que the trying too hard. It's a nice idea, but it was kind of overkill. I don't need you to shorten clairvoyant to voyant or clairvoyance to voyance. However, if you choose to shorten these words then stick with it! There can be no waffling back and forth between slang and not slang or I will just be annoyed.

This is also a book for adults, yet it reads like every YA book I've ever read. Now, I love YA books so this shouldn't count against it, but it does a little. This is supposed to be a book for adults and it doesn't feel like it. It just felt like an extended YA book because it was 452 pages long! I wanted to be surprised, but it all kind of felt cliche because I knew who the love interest would be and what was going unfold with her Rephaite keeper. I just felt kind of sad the whole time.

POSITIVE STARTING HERE (kind of):
Ok, I feel like this post is a bit doom and gloom and perhaps that isn't fair. Maybe my expectations were too high. So be it. I do have some positive things to say. Once the story really got rolling I couldn't put it down. I had to know WHERE the story would end. I was still really let down overall, but the plot picked up and it stayed pretty exciting. The author did a great job building a world for these characters and giving everyone a distinct personality. I never felt as though they strayed from the character she was setting up and that was nice to see.

Now, will I read the other books in this too long series? That is debatable. I waffled over what to rate this for so long I can't really decide how I feel about it. I will decide once book 2 comes out and perhaps I will give this series another chance.

2.5/5 stars

Never Have I Ever

I have a bit of guilt about this review. I got it as an ARC from NetGalley ages ago (okay, just January). Free book? Check. When I used it as my #FridayReads, Katie Heaney, the author, favorited my tweet. Author encouragement? Check. Then, when I rated the book on GoodReads and wrote "3.5 rounded up to 4 stars for GoodReads. Very funny. Longer review coming," she liked that. I get free books and encouragement; she gets radio silence in return.

The book in question in Never Have I Ever: My Life (So Far) Without a Date. Here's the official blurb:

"I've been single for my entire life. Not one boyfriend. Not one short-term dating situation. Not one person with whom I regularly hung out and kissed on the face." 

So begins Katie Heaney's memoir of her years spent looking for love, but never quite finding it. By age 25, equipped with a college degree, a load of friends, and a happy family life, she still has never had a boyfriend...and she's barely even been on a second date. 

Funny, relatable, and inspiring, this is a memoir for anyone who has ever struggled to find love, but has also had a lot of fun in the process.

So, I definitely didn't request that book because I also have enjoyed being single for roughly the same number of years. Or because the author was also from Minnesota. Or because I'm what Katie has termed a Bermuda Triangle ("It doesn’t mean to do any harm, and it’s actually pretty nice once you get to know it. It’s just that Bermuda doesn’t know how to handle itself when somebody sails into its territory, because that hardly ever happens.").

Nope. Not true. That's not why at all.

Never Have I Ever was hilarious. It routinely turned me into that weird girl laughing at her ereader on the bus or in the break room. Despite the fact that it sounds like a dating memoir, it's really much more about friendship with a healthy side of funny dating mishaps. Katie is funny, relatable (oh no, I'm parroting the blurb), slightly neurotic, and excellent at telling stories. She's someone with whom I would want to be friends. Proof:

• On online dating profiles: "I am no interests snob. I listed the Harry Potter books in order of how much I liked them in my 'favorite books' section, for God's sake."
• "I have lived twenty-five years in this body by myself, and I feel pretty confident that, by now, my personality is staying as it is. I'm going to continue enjoying plans and Post-its and clean, orderly spaces."
• "She was saying she was sorry that she couldn’t always hang out when I wanted to, but that 'when you get a boyfriend,' he becomes the only person you want to spend all your time with....“You’ll know what I mean, when you get one,” she said. So that’s when I gripped my upper jaw and pulled back the skin and muscle of my face to reveal an alien, like the one in the film Alien, and I jumped through the glass in Leigh’s window and ate every boyfriend in the city, and the country, and the world. I swallowed them whole, and many of them cried, and those were the ones I liked best."

Also, she comes right out and tells us "I'm not trying to be self-righteous about that, but I am literally the best friend a person could ask for..."

I'll stop throwing quotations from the book at you now. If you're looking for a light-hearted, funny read, Never Have I Ever is for you! You can find another excerpt on Refinery29.

3.5 Stars.

I received an ARC of Never Have I Ever through NetGalley.

The House of the Scorpion

Considering that this YA novel won so many awards and is read by pretty much every middle schooler ever, I cannot believe that I hadn't really heard of it let alone read it. I was randomly looking up young adult books to read for a young adult book club and this was one I came across with many awards behind the title. It was vetoed as a book club choice, but I put it on my to-read list anyway. I can't say that I loved it, but I am glad that I read it.

The House of the Scorpion brings up some interesting moral and ethical dilemmas like cloning, free will, and use of power. Matt, as El Patron's clone, finds out quickly that he is not viewed like other little boys in the drug land of Opium. Matt's coming of age story has its moments, but to me it seemed like Matt's voice from early childhood to teenager didn't change very much. He still seemed very childlike. This was part of why I got bored with it. I wanted a young adult book that actually spotlighted a young adult, not a child. Plus, the last third of the book just went in a completely different direction, and seemed unnecessary.

Overall, I think if I had been in middle school or even high school I would have enjoyed this book much more. As an adult, it was underwhelming. I enjoyed reading it, but it wasn't nearly as good as I expected it to be with all the awards it won. With that said, I checked out the sequel at the same time as The House of the Scorpion, so I started reading The Lord of Opium. We'll see if this one is better. Stay tuned!

Unbound

I didn't think I could fall in love with this author or this series any more...I was wrong.

Victoria Schwab has created a world I am desperate to live in. I can't get enough of this series! I want to shout from the rooftops to everyone in range to read these books.











If you have read any of my reviews you have quickly come to realize that I break one "important" rule and I judge my books by their covers.

I originally picked up The Archived when checking in a cart of brand new YA books and thought it was GORGEOUS!

I read the explanation and knew that I had to read it. The cover for The Unbound is equally fabulous.

I also have to say if there isn't a book 3, I don't know how I will deal with that. I NEED a book 3. This is beyond a want. I can just immerse myself in this world and not even think of anything else. I have to immerse myself in it. I'm not ready to let go.

The new characters were a lot of fun in this book. I was quite pleased that the introduction of Cash didn't cause a full on brawl between him and Wesley (Guyliner), because I would have been pretty disappointed. There was some hinting toward a love triangle, but it never went beyond slight flirtation really, and I loved that. You could tell both boys had some interest and there was a slight tension during interactions between both boys and Mackenzie. It felt real and even I felt conflicted and a little unsure what would happen...even though we all know that Guyliner is the way to go.

Mackenzie. I adore her. She is so strong and feels real to me. I want to be her best friend...or just be her. She is so beautifully flawed and so great. Even though she was being "independent" it really translated to "Stop being so dumb and talk to Wesley! Ack!" in my head, but you can't help but understand how she feels. I love that she doesn't depend solely on him to solve her problems and wants that independence and doesn't want to have to rely on anyone but herself and what her grandfather taught her. Like I said, I want to be her. I think at the end of the day she is a stronger person than I am.

 I am a grandpa's girl. I didn't really have a father growing up, I had my grandpa. He is someone I look up to and what he says/does/thinks matters. I relate to Mackenzie's strong feelings for that relationship she holds on to.

Enough babbling. Just do yourself a favor and read these books. Grab a cup pot of coffee and stay up all night getting lost in this wonderful world.

American Gods

Sonya has risen from her library school grave (aka graduated) and will actually have time to review books now!! :) With that out of the way, let's hear about American Gods:

I would have given American Gods 2 stars, but the last 100 pages were much better so 2.5 it is. I don’t want to say I can't like this book because I think in a different context I would. I started this book during the break between summer and fall classes thinking it would make for a nice relaxing read. However, American Gods is a fairly hefty novel in terms of content, so I think if I had been in a mood for something deep, I would have liked it more. What I really wanted was something fluffy, and I thought American Gods would be a fast-paced mystery-sci fi novel. It wasn’t. Since its also character-focused it moves less quickly; Gaiman takes his time developing the characters. What I really wanted, though, was a fast-paced fantasy novel! I mean the cover has a highway with lightning on it! 

American Gods was recommended to me by Nox and Zelda as being one of Gaiman’s best. I loved The Graveyard Book and Coraline, so I thought I might delve into some adult fiction, and American Gods came highly recommended. Plus, Gaiman’s concept for the book seems intriguing and original. The concept of gods as real manifestations was interesting let alone the concept of "American" gods such as media, the internet, and television. The beginning caught my attention but after Shadow and Wednesday set off to rope more gods into Wednesday’s plan, I just lost interest. The vignettes about how the gods came to America that are scattered throughout I found distracting. The last 100 pages or so were actually quite good, but I often found myself counting how many pages to the end of the chapter and to the end of the book. I just wanted to be done with it so I could go back to reading Gone with the Wind (which is wonderful!). Perhaps I might try a different adult novel by Gaiman and see if it goes better. Any recommendations?!