My Year in Books

Hello, my darlings, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope you had the most wonderful time, and wish you all a year filled with hope, love, laughter, and many, many books.

It's so good to be back from my short break. I needed it badly, but I need you guys even more. :)

Methinks it's the perfect time to look back at all I've accomplished, both in reading and blogging, and what could have been better. So here goes.

I read 253 books in 2013, somewhat less than in 2011 or 2012, but it's still a number I'm very happy with.
In this case, 253 books equal 76240 pages read, not counting the audiobooks, and there were many. When put like that, the number is staggering.
Only 8 of those books (around 3%) got a clean 5-star rating  and there were about 10 more with a 4.5 star-rating.

Here are my 5-star reads in 2013:

Bruised by Sarah Skilton

Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

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

In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell

Wrong Ways Down by Stacia Kane

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

Don't be surprised by the absence of Horde or Bronze Gods by Ann Aguirre on my list. Neiher is included because I was lucky enough to beta read both as she was writing them in 2012. But they are PERFECT!

Here are some of the things I'd like to point out:

Favorite female characters: Josie Moraine (Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys) and Charley Davidson (Fifth Grave Past the Light by Darynda Jones).

Favorite male characters: Richard Gansey III (The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater) and Terrible (Wrong Ways Down by Stacia Kane).

Book that made me cry the most: The Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

Favorite debut: In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters (Nominated for the William C. Morris award!)

What took me by surprise: Written in Red by Anne Bishop. Also, Bruised by Sarah Skilton.

Best book out of my comfort zone: If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

Disappointment of the year: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black. 

Favorite quote:

“A secret is a strange thing.

There are three kinds of secrets. One is the sort everyone knows about, the sort you need at least two people for. One to keep it. One to never know. The second is a harder kind of secret: one you keep from yourself. Every day, thousands of confessions are kept from their would-be confessors, none of these people knowing that their never-admitted secrets all boil down to the same three words: I am afraid.

And then there is the third kind of secret, the most hidden kind. A secret no one knows about. Perhaps it was known once, but was taken to the grave. Or maybe it is a useless mystery, arcane and lonely, unfound because no one ever looked for it.

Sometimes, some rare times, a secret stays undiscovered because it is something too big for the mind to hold. It is too strange, too vast, too terrifying to contemplate.

All of us have secrets in our lives. We’re keepers or keptfrom, players or played. Secrets and cockroaches — that’s what will be left at the end of it all.” 

― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

Tomorrow, I'll be posting my favorite covers in 2013, and after that, my favorite adult releases and my favorite YA books released in 2013. All posts will include international giveaways. I hope you'll stop by to check them out.

January 3rd:

January 4th:

January 6th:

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Again, happy new year, my lovelies. Please share your favorites in the comments.