Top Books of 2015!

Here is my list of top books of 2015. I only read 43 booksthis year with most of them being comics/manga so my actual book count was very low. Surprisingly, my favourites is very low too! I thought I’d had a decent reading year but right now, trying to get a top ten is really hard! (This may end up being a top 5 instead!) So let’s have a look! (In no order)

My Top Books of 2015:

1.  The Well of Ascension – 4.5 Stars (review coming soon!)
2.  The Name of the Wind – 5 Stars
3.  The Girl at Midnight – 4 Stars
4.  An Ember in the Ashes – 4.5 Stars

I didn’t even manage a top 5!! O dear xD I must read more amazing books this year!

The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, #2)An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1)The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)The Girl at Midnight

Honourable Mentions:

1. Sourcery – 4 Stars
2. Angelfall – 3 Stars
3. City of Stairs – 3.5 Stars

I enjoyed these books a lot but they just weren’t favourites nor have I thought about them since I finished them unlike the ones above.

Sourcery (Discworld, #5)Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1)City of Stairs

Disappointments of the Year:

A Court of Thorns and Roses eSampler by Sarah J. Maas

I DNF’d two of these two. But I don’t really need to explain these right?

There we have it! Have a wonderful January 1st!

Top Ten Tuesday #44 – Books I Want Santa to Bring

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This Week’s Theme: Books I Want Santa to Bring

I’m a day late but shhhh! I really wanted to post these 10 books and tell you all!! ^_^

Yes, My Accent Is Real: and Some Other Things I Haven't Told You
Definitely my favourite in the entire Big Bang cast ❤

You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)
Followed her for years and watch all her stuff! I think she’s great!

The Master Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #3)
I NEED to finish this series/trilogy!

Orange 4 (オレンジ, #4)
Obsessed with this manga and need to finish and own asap!

Jackaby (Jackaby, #1)
Still dying to get my hands on this and have been dying to get it since before it was released!

Prisoner of Night and Fog (Prisoner of Night and Fog, #1)
Another I’ve been dying to read since before it came out!


I need to know what happens in the second book like yesterday! Give it to me!!

The Martian
I know I’m missing out majorly!!

The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2)
Course I need to know what happened next!!!

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)
Need I explain this one?

What’s under your tree? Have you gotten any for Christmas that you know of?

Series Update!

Last year I posted about Series in four different categories (see the tag here) and now I will add to the list below…

Have Completed:

  • The Chronicles of Narnia
  • The Rain Duology
  • The Selection Trilogy

The Silver Chair (Chronicles of Narnia, #6)The Storm (The Rain, #2)The One (The Selection #3)

Total Completed: 9 Book Series and 3 Manga Series

Want to Complete:

That are Already Completed:

  • The Paper Magician Trilogy
  • Penryn & The End of Days Trilogy
  • Heroine Shikkaku
  • Orange
  • Magyk Series (maybe)

The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)Magyk (Septimus Heap, #1)Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1)Heroine Shikkaku vol.1Orange 1

On-Going:

  • An Ember in the Ashes
  • The Divine Cities
  • The Girl at Midnight

City of StairsThe Girl at MidnightAn Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1)

Want to Read:

I ain’t even gunna add to this list! Cos I haven’t started ANY of the series that are already on the list from last year!!

Won’t Continue:

  • A Court of Thorns and Roses

A Court of Thorns and Roses eSampler

And there you go! My very messed up and unorganised updated list of Series!! xD

Summertime Madness Book Tag

Originally created here

1. Show a book with a Summery cover! i.e Sun, Beach etc.

I shall show a few =]

The Summer I Turned Pretty (Summer, #1)Holes (Holes, #1)The Tempest

2. Pick one fictional place that would be the perfect destination for your Summer Vacation! 

The Shire? … Camp Half-Blood? …

3. You’re about to go on a flight to your Summer Vacation. But you want to read a book that lasts for the whole flight so what novella do you choose?

My flights are 6 – 12 hours at a time so I can’t choose a novella cos it’ll be read before we even leave the tarmac! So any of the following will definitely take me hours to read…

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, #2)The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)The Way of Kings, Part 1 (The Stormlight Archive #1.1)Seveneves

4. You have a case of Summertime Sadness what happy book do you pick up to shine a smile on your face? 

Anything Brandon Sanderson… Tolkien… Harry Potter… Percy Jackson…

5. You’re sitting at the beach all alone…which fictional character would be your beach babe?

As in beach buddy or like beach hottie? Hmm… Tyrion? We can just have witty comments, bitch about everyone we see and drink wine all day long! Also, we can discuss books!! But a hottie? … Kelsier from Mistborn? Maybe…

6. To match your ice cream you want an icy cool sidekick! Which fictional sidekick do you pick?

Can I choose Tyrion again? For the same reason as mentioned above?

7. Share the Summertime Happiness! Who do you TAG?

YOU!

Top Ten Tuesday #41

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This Week’s Theme:Top Ten Most Anticipated Releases For the Rest of 2015. This will be exciting to post as I start work next month which means I’ll start having money to be able to buy stuff and that’ll include books- and new books!!! ^_^ Let’s get started!! There may be more than 10? xD So all these books are released from July to December.

Time Salvager

7th July – Convicted criminal James Griffin-Mars is no one’s hero. In his time, Earth is a toxic, abandoned world and humans have fled into the outer solar system to survive, eking out a fragile, doomed existence among the other planets and their moons. Those responsible for delaying humanity’s demise believe time travel holds the key, and they have identified James, troubled though he is, as one of a select and expendable few ideally suited for the most dangerous job in history.

Armada

14th July – Zack Lightman has spent his life dreaming. Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science-fiction books, movies, and videogames he’s spent his life consuming. Dreaming that one day, some fantastic, world-altering event will shatter the monotony of his humdrum existence and whisk him off on some grand space-faring adventure. But hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little escapism, right? After all, Zack tells himself, he knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows that here in the real world, aimless teenage gamers with anger issues don’t get chosen to save the universe. And then he sees the flying saucer.

The Dinosaur Lords (The Dinosaur Lords, #1)

28th JulyPlunged into Victor Milán’s splendidly weird world of The Dinosaur Lords, a place that for all purposes mirrors 14th century Europe with its dynastic rivalries, religious wars, and byzantine politics…and the weapons of choice are dinosaurs.

Fans of the Impossible Life

8th September – This is the story of a girl, her gay best friend, and the boy in love with both of them.

The Sword of Summer (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #1)

6th October – Magnus Chase has always been a troubled kid. Since his mother’s mysterious death, he’s lived alone on the streets of Boston, surviving by his wits, keeping one step ahead of the police and the truant officers. One day, he’s tracked down by a man he’s never met—a man his mother claimed was dangerous. The man tells him an impossible secret: Magnus is the son of a Norse god.

Dreamstrider

6th October – Livia is a dreamstrider. She can inhabit a subject’s body while they are sleeping and, for a short time, move around in their skin. She uses her talent to work as a spy for the Barstadt Empire.

A Thousand Nights

6th October – Lo-Melkhiin killed three hundred girls before he came to her village, looking for a wife. When she sees the dust cloud on the horizon, she knows he has arrived. She knows he will want the loveliest girl: her sister. She vows she will not let her be next. And so she is taken in her sister’s place, and she believes death will soon follow. She sees everything as if for the last time. But the first sun rises and sets, and she is not dead.

Black Wolves (The Black Wolves Trilogy, #1)

3rd November – As broken alliances are guardedly rekindled and old friendships put to the test, the Hundred’s past is called into question ­and its very future is at stake.

One’s without Covers:

Angel of Storms (Millenium Rules #2) 24th September
Shadows of Self (Mistborn #5) 19th November

What’s on your list?Let me know below!! ^_^

Same Time. Next Week?

5th June 2015 #FridayReads

Somehow I managed to read over 500 pages yesterday!! o_O Which shocks me because I didn’t finish one book during my travels yesterday but I read that many pages! Anyways, onto my plans for this weekend to throughout the next week. I’m just going to constantly switch between them depending on my mood.

My parents are away which means I get the house to myself and for some reason, why I live on my own, I tend to have A LOT more time, or at least it feels like I get a lot more time. So I plan to concentrate on the next four things.

The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2)

I am half way through this book. I’ve hit a not so interesting part of the book and I do feel like this book could be 200 pages shorter and would still be just as descriptive and more exciting. But I am still enjoying it but seriously, need to finish this one now. It shouldn’t be taking me almost 3 weeks to read a 600 page book -_-

Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1)

Started this VERY early yesterday morning and it’s interesting. Already there have been a few YA-cliche/typical moments that have made my sigh in disappointment but I am definitely wanting to read on!

Gantz /19

I need to finish this series asap! Seriously! It only takes like 5 minutes to read a chapter, sometimes less if it’s just an action chapter so there isn’t any words, and I have about 150 chapters to go and I love the series and want to finish it!

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)

I wanna start this also this weekend. It won’t be a slow read as I know what happens and I love the world. Maybe I’ll have a HP day where the films will just play on my TV ALL day and I’ll just read for the entire duration that the films are playing =] Sound good? I think it does!!

What are your plans for this weekend and next week reading wise?

Have a safe and fun weekend!

PSST. Expect my Game of Thrones review later tonight or tomorrow morning!

May Wrap Up and June TBR!

We’re in June already?! Noooo! I only have about 7 more weeks left til the end of summer… but at the same time, ugh I’ve still got 7 more weeks left of summer >.< I participated in two read-a-thons this past month so check my progress out here and here.

Wrap Up

Shingeki no Kyojin Chapter 69
The One by Kiera Cass (2/5)
Avenger’s Arena Issue 3 (3/5)
Avenger’s Arena Issue 4 by Dennis Hopeless (3/5)
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin (3/5) – just realised I haven’t done a review for this yet!! o_O
Vampire Knight Art Book by Hino Matsuri (5/5) – because it was perfect for a VK fan!
Kuroshitsuji Chapter 105

The One (The Selection #3)Avengers Arena #3 by Dennis HopelessAvengers Arena #4 by Dennis HopelessA Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)

I also lemmed The Jungle Book and Car Fever this month too! Reasons being The Jungle Book caused me to have ‘Friend like you’ from the Disney movie in my head every single time I read and drove me insane. Car Fever was just too… car-like? xD

Car FeverThe Jungle Book

And I read about half way through the next The Grimm Diaries Prequels story (#4) and 244 pages of The Vampire Lestat.

Total Pages: 746 Pages! An amazing improvement for me =]
Day Read in Month: 21 out of 31 days
Average Pages Per Day:
  35 pages
Average Pages Per Week: 186 pages

A pretty good dent and start to my summer reading! Almost already a 1/3 of the way to my desired 3000 pages read goal!

TBR

As already said I’m currently reading two books so they are naturally on this TBR…

The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2)Ladle Rat Rotten Hut (The Grimm Diaries Prequels, #4)

After these, I seriously will start these three books. These three books I definitely must read with all my heart this month and I know I’ll love them and I just gotta jump in!

The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, #2)The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3)Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)

And obviously the #YearofCosmere is going on so the books I’m supposed to read for this month are:

The Rithmatist (Rithmatist, #1)Steelheart (Reckoners, #1)

But we’ll see if I get time after those three epics >.<

What did you read in May? What will you read this June? Let me know in the comments below!

Top Debut Novels!

This was on a Top 5 Wednesday about two weeks ago and I thought I’d share with you my favourite debut novels. Let’s get the obvious ones out of the way shall we?

The HobbitHarry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)

Both are fantastical and amazing adventures with awesome characters!

And now to some others!

Attack on Titan, Vol. 1 (Attack on Titan, #1)

Holy shit this manga had an amazing start! And it’s still amazing now! If you like manga this is a MUST for you! I would also say Death Note fans would enjoy it but I dunno, even though I am a DN fan myself >.<

Noughts & Crosses (Noughts & Crosses, #1)

While I ended up hating this book in the end (personally one part really got to me), I remember this book being SO interesting and fast paced and suspenseful and I loved the idea of a switched history where it was the white people who were the slaves and such!

The Rain (The Rain, #1)

This one really knocked me over when I read it. Maybe it was because I was expecting disappointment because I have had such bad experiences with YA but this book really impressed me! Not only could I relate because it was set in England, it was also about rain and we ALL know England only has one type of weather: rain xD It also felt very possible and very real and therefore was frightening which was awesome!

The Girl at Midnight

This was a solid debut novel! It had adventure, wasn’t too bad on the romance, fell a little at the end, but had diversity and homosexual relationships in and was a great story!

Ender's Game (The Ender Quintet, #1)

This was my first dip into SF and did not disappoint! That twist ending (which is spoiled in the film’s trailer -_-) had me BLOWN away. I thought (and still think) it was my best intro to SF ever and it is still very high on my best books list! It’s adventurous, brutal, fun, suspenseful, has good messages in it. Yes the author is a douche but man it’s a good book!

Death Note, Vol. 1: Boredom (Death Note, #1)

I guess this should’ve been in the obvious pile? xD

Hope you enjoyed these!

Do you agree? What are you favourite debut novels?

Top Ten Tuesday #40

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This Week’s Theme: Ten Books I Plan To Have In My Beach Bag This Summer or Ten Books I Think Make Great Beach Reads – well I already did my summer read (here) so I shall pick 10 books that are perfect for a fun, sunny day at the beach! ^_^ warning: I’ve probably never read any of the books I’m about to post, but I’ll try!

Romance/Contemporary

The Selection (The Selection, #1)Pride and PrejudiceThe Distance Between UsThe Fill-In BoyfriendAnna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1)

To All the Boys I've Loved Before (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #1)99 DaysMy Life Next DoorCan You Keep a Secret?

Adventure

The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1)

There you go! I tried xD

Have you read any of these books? Do they fit as a summer beach read? Let me know in the comments below and links to your TTT!

What’s The Story Saturday? #7

whatthestorysaturdays

A meme-thing created by me. All are welcome to join!

Rules:

Pick a book cover (preferably one where you don’t know the plot).
Guess what the story e.g. who’s our mc; female? male? what genre is it? what happens?.
[Optional >] After that actually read up about the synopsis and comment on whether you think yours is better xD

This Week’s Is:

whatthestorysaturday6

My Story: I’m getting a YA/City of Bones vibe (even though I’ve never read the book!) so maybe a group of teenage hunters or it’s an underground society of teenagers who fight against supernatural beings. It’s set in….. New York? (that is NY right? o_O)… if it is YA then we can assume the MC is a girl and will fall in love with a SPN creature! … or is this a secret society, adults, who fight in the background against criminals, kinda like a Person of Interest but in like 1960s or something without tech… isn’t this the author who wrote The Winner’s Curse? … it’s defo a YA with a female lead then! xD

The Actual Synopsis: Darcy Jones doesn’t remember anything before the day she was abandoned as a child outside a Chicago firehouse. She has never really belonged anywhere—but she couldn’t have guessed that she comes from an alternate world where the Great Chicago Fire didn’t happen and deadly creatures called Shades terrorize the human population. Darcy decides to infiltrate the Shadow Society and uncover the Shades’ latest terrorist plot. 

After Thoughts: I was pretty bang on! YA/female lead/stopping criminals/deadly creatures, I technically got all that! It also mentions there’s romance (subgenre on GR) so ding ding ding I win! ^_^ bad luck for the author though because doesn’t this mean her book is all too predictable?

What did you think the story behind the cover was? Have you read the book?

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!