All posts tagged books

Use of Force Was Not My Favorite

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

I recently read Brad Thor’s Use of Force, which is a good book, but was not one of my favorites.  The Kindle version of the book was $1.99, which was a good deal.  I’m not sure if I would have wanted to pay the normal full price for this book, but it did provide a few good hours of entertainment.

The book deals with terrorism, ISIS, and the recent refugee crisis, which makes the story interesting.  I enjoyed the main storyline of Use of Force, where the main character, Scot Harvath, was trying to track down the bad guys.  This part of the story was paced well, and was enjoying.  I also liked how the story took place partly during Burning Man, which made the book even more timely.

I normally enjoy Brad Thor’s books, but this one was not my favorite.  There were several chapters devoted to a battle that Harvath and his team fought against some of the terrorists, which some people might find interesting, but it didn’t really capture my interest.  There was another subplot where a good-guy-turned-bad-guy tried to go after some of Scot Harvath’s coworkers; it didn’t particularly grab my attention.  There was another subplot regarding a medical condition with one of the regular characters; it wasn’t resolved in this book, but if you read the entire series, it might add interest to the series.

Use of Force is an interesting book; however, if I was only going to read one Brad Thor book, it wouldn’t be my first choice.  I tend to enjoy his books, but there are other books that he’s done that I have liked more.

CandidCover TBR Wipeout Challenge – Update #1

By Brookelorren on 10 Comments

Summer 2018 TBR Wipeout ChallengeIt’s time for the first update to the Summer TBR Wipeout, hosted by The Candid Cover!  I wasn’t sure how well I would do, since I had to start work again, but I ended up reading six books.  I read 16 books last month when I wasn’t working, so not so bad (In my June update, I said I had read 15 books, but I forgot that I did a reread of Warcross, because I keep track of my rereads in a different place).

So these are the books that I finished:

  • Origin – Dan Brown
  • Ever the Hunted – Erin Summerill
  • Caraval – Stephanie Garber
  • Throne of Glass – Sarah J. Maas
  • The House of One Thousand Eyes – Michelle Barker
  • Batman: Nightwalker – Marie Lu

They were all good, although I only gave Origin and The House of One Thousand Eyes three stars on Goodreads: Origin just didn’t seem to be full of puzzles like the previous Dan Brown book I read, The Lost Symbol, did, and just wasn’t my cup of tea.  I think The House of One Thousand Eyes is an important book, because there is very little fiction that I’m aware of that’s written about East Germany during the time of the Stasi, even though there were a few issues with the book that caused me not to rave about it as much as some of the other readers on Goodreads have.  The reviews for both of these books will be out later this summer.

I’m already on the waiting list to read Ever the Brave and the sequels to Throne of Glass at the library;  Kingdom of Ash isn’t available (yet) at my library to put on hold, but since I’m still 44th on the waiting list for Tower of Dawn, I don’t want to be the first to get my hands on it anyway… I prefer to read the books in order.

I don’t really have an interest in superheroes, but I couldn’t really say that Marie Lu could write about anything and make it good if I wasn’t willing to test that theory out.  Batman: Nightwalker was certainly not my favorite Marie Lu book, but it was good, and I can still say that I’ve liked everything that she has published.  My daughter does like superheroes though, and when she saw me reading the book, her eyes lit up.  She’s been really depressed lately and nothing has made her eyes light up recently.  I’ll be loaning the book to her this evening.

So that’s my first update to Candid Cover’s Summer TBR Wipeout!  Will I ever completely wipe out my TBR?  Yeah, right.  Not unless people stop writing books (and that’s never going to happen).  But I did read some of those books that I see people always talking about and finished reading all of the published Marie Lu books.  So I’m pretty happy with the reading that I did do.

I Love The Young Elites

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

Young Elites coverToday I will be reviewing the Young Elites trilogy, so it looks like I will be reviewing all nine of Marie Lu’s books this year.  My review for Wildcard will come out September 18th or 19th, and I’ll probably end up reviewing her Batman: Nightwalker book in September as well.  Like my review of the Legend trilogy last month, I will review all three books at once.

The Young Elites trilogy is comprised of three books:  The Young Elites, The Rose Society, and The Midnight Star.  I like the second two books better than the first book of the trilogy; in fact, I currently have two Young Elites related fanfics in progress, and they are more influenced by the second two books.

The three books follow the story of Adelina Amouteru.  As a child, she caught the blood fever and one of her eyes become infected and had to be burned out, leaving a scar.  She also was marked with silver hair.  Although she was still pretty, her scar left her marked: she was a malfetto.

Many people who caught the blood fever as children survived with marks of various types and lived as malfettos.  People hated and feared them.  Adults who caught the blood fever died.

Some children who got the blood fever eventually discovered that they had supernatural powers.  These people became known as The Young Elites.

The blood fever also infected her sister Violetta, who survived and remained unmarked.  Violetta remained pretty, and was the favorite of their father.  Over time, Adelina became resentful and bitter towards her sister.

Until one night, her father decided to sell her to a wealthy merchant… as a mistress.

Adelina wasn’t having that.  She decided to escape instead.  In the process of escaping, she accidentally killed her father — and discovered that she had the power to conjure up illusions.  She was an Elite.

She is taken in by a group of Elites known as The Dagger Society.  They taught her how to use her powers.  She falls in love with the leader of The Dagger Society.  While all this was happening, she discovers that she is trapped into making impossible choices.  She doesn’t know who to trust, and we are led along through all three books.

Themes

Trust and rejection are a huge part of this story.  Adelina feels like she is rejected by everybody in her life.  Society rejects her for being a malfetto.  She’s rejected by her father.  She feels like she is rejected by her sister.  Then, she is rejected some more.  The more she faces rejection, the more bitter and dark her soul becomes.  When she achieves power over others, she takes it out on them.  She becomes one of those wicked people that you read about as the villains in many other stories.  Yet… you don’t wish ill for her.

Another theme in this story seems to be about mental illness.  As Adelina becomes more powerful, she starts seeing hallucinations and has nightmares.  If she existed in the 21st century and not in a fantasy novel, we would say that she had a mental illness.  Her hallucinations only contribute to the darkness in her heart, until it almost seems impossible for her to crawl out of this dark hole that she’s dug for herself.  My theory on this trilogy is… that she would never have been able to crawl out of this hole on her own.

But, never fear, that is not the end of her story.  A third theme of this story is unconditional love.  There are people that love Adelina for who she is and not what she can do for them.  These are the people that finally help her redeem herself in the bittersweet end.

Setting

I love the setting for this book.  The world is a fantasy, medieval-type world (quite unlike Legend, which is a future dystopian setting).  Each part of the world has a different flavor to it.  The world that Adelina is born into seems to have the flavor of Italy, and in particular, Venice.  The northern part of the world reminds me of the Celts.  In the South, where Adelina’s ancestors hail from, the world seems like medieval Persia.

I felt that this was a really clever way to set up the world.  In my Young Elites WIP, Saving Adelinetta, I’ll be extending on the theme of her settings; but I still have about 1/3 of the first draft to do, and it’s going to need a lot of editing, so who knows when I will finish it.

Overall

This is one of my favorite stories.  In order to write fanfiction, I have to spend a lot of time reading the original books, getting into the character’s heads, and studying what the story is trying to say.  I’ve only written for four fandoms, and this is one of them.  The Young Elites trilogy is good enough for me to want to live in these character’s heads and reread the books enough to write fanfics based on it.  I think that’s enough of an endorsement to say that I really like it.

Far Forest Scrolls was… Okay

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

I recently had the opportunity to review Far Forest Scrolls Na Cearcaill.  It sounded really great.  What’s not to like about a fantasy story with dragons and adventure?  It looked like it might have a little Celtic influence as well (I’ve done a little bit of studying Irish and there are a few words in Irish in this book).  It turned out, the book was just okay.  The book has a lot of potential; I just didn’t think that it was where it should have been for a published novel.  Especially not for a book that is scheduled to cost $24.95.

Plot

Far forest scrolls happens in a medieval fantasy setting.  There is a “squad” of squires that the story revolves around, mostly Bellae, who is a pre-tween who discovers that she has a gift for talking to animals.  The squires (and their knights) go through many adventures.  Bellae (or her friend) has been foretold to be the chosen one in the upcoming Na Caercaill, which I think means some sort of cataclysm or world-shaking event.  There is also war on the horizon, which the squires and knights must prepare for.

What I Liked

While overall, I wasn’t a fan of this book, it wasn’t without its merits.  The story was imaginative, and I thought Bellae was a cute character, and she had some nice friendships with some of her squadmates.  You could tell how she loved animals, which was quite endearing.  There were parts that were pretty exciting.  The story was written with a good vocabulary, with colorful words.  Some of the illustrations were good.

What I Didn’t Like So Much

The book felt a little amateurish.  For example, sometimes the characters would explain concepts of the world that the other characters probably already knew, but the reader didn’t.  It made the dialogue sound a little off.  There were a lot of characters in this book, and in the beginning, they were introduced a little too quickly — I had trouble keeping everything straight.  The same holds true for the places in this world.  The book also had several illustrations.  While a smattering of the illustrations looked like they were professionally done, some of the illustrations looked like they came out of someone’s sketch book.  You could even see the outline of the page where it had been scanned.  The sketches and illustrations broke up the text on my Kindle, although if you read this in the hardback version, that wouldn’t be a problem.

The book seemed to have an abrupt ending.  There really was no climax to the story; no great battle that they win and then they have to go fight an even bigger battle, like many other trilogies/duologies/tetralogies etc. have.  They were in the middle of a fight, some reinforcements show up, and then… that’s all folks.  The web site describes this as part of a pentology, so there must be more to this story coming.

This book was categorized as a Young Adult novel, but I would probably put it in the Middle Grade category.  The main characters are Middle Grade age, and there is some banter that I think would be better appreciated by a Middle Grade audience.  Some of the vocabulary might be advanced for Middle Grades, but the storyline itself I think has more Middle Grade appeal.

After I agreed to review this book, it was taken off Goodreads.  It is also no longer on NetGalley (where I received my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review).  Perhaps the author withdrew the book so they could make further revisions (it was supposed to be released August 3rd).  I hope that they do that, because while I didn’t particularly think the story was great, it does have the potential to be a good story.

Welcome to the Summer 2018 TBR Wipeout Challenge

By Brookelorren on 15 Comments

Summer 2018 TBR Wipeout ChallengeWelcome to the Summer 2018 TBR Wipeout Challenge, hosted by The Candid Cover.  It is the chance for you to get some of those books off of your Want to Read list.  Signups will be going on until July 5th.  Plus, you could win a prize just for signing up!  Good deal, yeah?

I have set a goal to read 10 books between now and when this challenge ends, on August 12th.  That’s about two per week.  If I read more, great!  If not, The Candid Cover is going to come to my house and flog me (well, not really; this is a low-pressure challenge).

So what am I going to read for the summer TBR challenge?  I’m not 100% sure, but I am on the waiting list for several books at the library and Amazon is delivering a few more.

Here are the book series on my waiting list.  If they become available, I will read them:

  • Throne of Glass Series – 6 books
  • Mortal Instruments Series – 5 books (I read City of Bones already, you can read my review here)
  • Red Queen Series – 4 books
  • Caraval Series – 2 books

I’m currently reading Origin by Dan Brown and will probably finish that in the next day or two.

I checked out Ever the Hunted from the library and am on the waiting list for Ever the Brave by Erin Summerill.  I’m #5 on the waiting list for the second, so it may not become available during the Summer TBR Wipeout, but if it is, I’ll probably end up reading it.

With part of my birthday Amazon credits, I recently bought:

  • Batman: Nightwalker – Marie Lu – I am normally not into superheroes or anything, but I like every other book that she has written, and I guess I’m wondering if she could do the superhero theme justice.
  • Rora – James Byron Huggins – this has been on my TBR for more than 5 years.  I figure I should probably read it.
  • This Savage Song – Victoria Schwab – it looked interesting and it was on sale for $1.99, so I figured that I should get it.

Outside of the books listed above, I don’t have any top priority books at the moment for the TBR Wipeout Challenge.  There are a  few books coming out on September 18th that I want to read fairly badly, but they’re not out yet.  So, for the most part, I will probably let serendipity be my guide as I pick books to read.  I’m trying to read about one pre-release ARC per week, so I’ll probably pick out books from there that sound good at the time.  Lately, I’ve been seeing quite a few sale announcements on Twitter for books I want to read (I’ll try to remember to post them here when I see them); if I see a book that I’ve been thinking about reading and I can get it for cheap, I’ll probably end up getting that.

I hope you join me for the TBR Wipeout Challenge and get some of those books off your TBR list!

This Savage Song ON SALE

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

This Savage Song coverToday, This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab is ON SALE for $1.99 (ebook version)!  I don’t know how long this sale is supposed to go on, but for all I know, the sale might end tonight, so if you’re interested in it, now would be the time to get it.

I haven’t read it yet, but it looks interesting, and one of my Twitter friends alerted me to this deal, so I figured I’d probably want to read it.

From Goodreads:

 

There’s no such thing as safe in a city at war, a city overrun with monsters. In this dark urban fantasy from author Victoria Schwab, a young woman and a young man must choose whether to become heroes or villains—and friends or enemies—with the future of their home at stake. The first of two books.

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.

If you’re interested in reading this book, I hope this finds you before the sale ends!

Series I Want to Finish Someday (And One I Don’t)

By Brookelorren on 34 Comments

Today is Top Ten Tuesday, sponsored by That Artsy Reader.  Today’s theme is Series I’ve Given Up On, but since I don’t really have many of those, I’m modifying it a bit, and am doing Series I Want to Finish Someday (And One I Don’t).  Since a lot of the series that I have been reading have recently finished, I don’t have a full 10 to give you, but I’ll give you what I have.

Ace of Shades CoverI just recently finished reading Ace of Shades by Amanda Foody (I hope to review it next week).  This is the first book of a planned trilogy.  Since the other two books in the series aren’t out yet, I can’t exactly read them yet.

I don’t know if I will buy the follow-on books or get them at the library yet, however.  I only paid $1.99 for the first book on my Kindle; although I do plan on reading the remaining books in the series, I don’t know if it’s a book I want to read over and over and over again, like some of the books that I buy.

City of Bones CoverCity of Bones is a series that I am currently on the waiting list for at the library.  I’m currently #7 on the waiting list for the next book, City of Ashes.  At some point I’ll get to the top of the waiting list and I’ll probably review a bunch of books from these series in quick succession.

While I didn’t give this book a five-star review, I did enjoy it, and (I peeked ahead) I’ve read some excerpts from her later books and am looking forward to getting to them.  Someday…

An Ember in the Ashes CoverAn Ember in the Ashes is the first book of Sabaa Tahir’s tetralogy.  I just read her first three books for the first time this month, and I absolutely love them!  I’m looking forward to the last book coming out next year, especially since the characters are still in distress, and I’m hoping that Ms. Tahir helps them save themselves and at least lets them be a little happy (if not, there’s always fanfiction).

I definitely plan on pre-ordering this one as soon as it becomes available.  Since the last book in the series A Reaper at the Gates, just came out, I don’t know when that will be.

Warcross coverWarcross is the first book in Marie Lu’s latest series.  I pre-ordered this on April 10th this year (only reason I know is because it was the day that The Fates Divide came out, which was another book that I eagerly looked forward too).

Out of the three series that I’m looking forward to reading, this is the one that I’m looking forward to the most.  Fortunately, I only have to wait until September to read it (less than 3 months now!).

The One Series I Don’t Plan on Continuing…

I won’t say that I will never read the rest of the Illuminae series, but I don’t have any plans to do so any time soon.  If I do continue reading these, it will not be on the Kindle.

This book was really difficult to read on my Kindle.  The concept is pretty cool.  There are different files to read, and it is very graphic.  It doesn’t translate to the Kindle well at all, because I wasn’t able to resize the pages, making it hard to read.  There were graphic pages where the words swirled around, which were also difficult to read on a Kindle.

I think what disappointed me the most about Illuminae, however (the Kindle visual problems are quite easy to fix by reading these books in hardback) was how in the very middle of the book, the story completely pissed me off.  I can’t say why without giving away spoilers, but I went to google the ending in order to find out whether it was worth finishing or not; even then, I put down the book, went to bed, and finished it the next day.

As far as I know, the next books aren’t continuations of this story, but tell the story from a different angle, I don’t think I’m going to finish.  I’m not interested enough to continue reading this book at the moment.

Ember in the Ashes Sale on Today!

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

Just thought that you might want to know, the Kindle version of An Ember in the Ashes is currently on sale TODAY for $2.99 (I know that it says $9.99 next to this paragraph, but if you’re reading on June 15, 2018, it’s actually $2.99).  I posted a glowing review for it yesterday, so if you’re interested, now is the time to get it.

Sabaa Tahir’s Twitter feed says that the sale is for today, so I wouldn’t count on it being this price tomorrow.

Since I picked up the copy that I read at the library, I took advantage of this offer myself.  I’ll probably eventually want to get the entire series in hardback, but for now, at this price, it’s hard to pass up.

Indianapolis is a Harrowing Tale of Lost History

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Indianapolis CoverIndianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man (that title is a mouthful) by Lynn Vincent is an excellent story of a World War II naval disaster that you may never have heard of.  If you are a fan of World War II history, or military history in general, I highly recommend it.

The Indianapolis was the ship that was chosen to deliver the nuclear weapons that were used to help end World War II to Japan.  After the ship made its top secret delivery, it was sunk by an enemy submarine.  The captain was court-martialed, his career was destroyed, and the survivors felt that the whole situation was unjust.  The captain was finally exonerated about 75 years later, after most of the survivors had already passed away.  Indianapolis is the story of the delivery, the sinking, the destruction of Captain Charles McVay, and finally, his redemption.

I first heard of the Indianapolis last year, when I read Bill O’Reilly’s Killing the Rising Sun, which is another excellent book on World War II.  Although that book focused on the war in Japan in general, I remember reading about the fate of the Indianapolis (and its captain) and thought that it was really sad.  When I had the opportunity to read Lynn Vincent’s book on this ship in exchange for an honest review, I jumped at the chance.

Indianapolis tells the story of the ship from before the delivery of the atomic weapons to Captain McVay’s absolution.  It tells about how the crew dealt with the sinking ship.  It tells about how the crew fought off sharks, dealt with dehydration and hunger, and tried to keep from going insane.  It tells about the incompetence of the Navy in even recognizing that such an important ship was lost in the first place.  It describes what could potentially be thought of as corruption during McVay’s court martial, and the bureaucracy that prevented him from receiving justice for well over half a century.

The story was exciting.  Vincent helps us get to know many of the sailors over the course of the book, which helped me care about what happened.  The descriptions of the ship’s sinking and the sharks in the water were page turners, almost as if you were reading fiction.  You feel for the captain as he realizes that his career was sunk.  I cried tears of joy at the end when he was finally cleared of all charges, even though he had committed suicide years before.

One of the problems that I have with some military books is that they sometimes tend to use a lot of military terminology without adequately defining them.  As a former military officer, I’m familiar with terms like 1MC, forecastle, gunwale, bulkhead, and the like, but if you’re not familiar with shipboard terms, don’t worry with this book.  Vincent doesn’t introduce naval terminology without defining it for you, and she often even tells you how to pronounce it.  If you’re new to military books, this can be a great help.

If you like to read history and are familiar with the US fight against Japan in World War II, I highly recommend this book (if you need a refresher on the US fight against Japan, Killing the Rising Sun might be a good place to start).  Indianapolis is a good book if you want to delve more deeply into the war and want to read a good story of shipwreck and survival.

Indianapolis won’t be released until July 10th, but you can pre-order it now.

Best Books I Read in 2017

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I’m finally publishing my long-overdue list of the best books I read in 2017.  Now, you may be thinking “Aren’t we already halfway through 2018?”  You are absolutely correct.  At any rate, I’ve been publishing the list of my favorite books of the year for nearly 10 years, and I missed 2017, so I’m writing it now.  I did write this list down in my journal on January 1st, so I’m actually not relying on memory.

My annual best books list are for books that I personally read for the first time in a year.  So… you may find a lot of books that were published years ago that I just got around to reading.  Also, even though I read translations of books (for example, I read Carve the Mark in Spanish and Divergent in German earlier this year) they don’t count, if I’ve read the book before.  So without further ado, here’s my list.

The 2017 List

10) The Age of Reagan – The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order: 1964-1980 was #10 on my list of top books that I read last year.  I got this giant bag full of books from our library a year ago and this was one of the books that seemed interesting.  It’s not a book that focuses on Ronald Reagan as president, but it does talk about the circumstances that led to his campaign and how he ended up getting elected.  It’s on the scholarly side (I do end up with Erudite in all of the “which Divergent faction do you belong in” quizzes, after all) but if you’re interested in 20th century history, you might like this.

9) The Better Angels of our Nature – Ever wonder where the phrase “there’s more than one way to skin a cat” came from?  Or perhaps “cut off your nose to spite your face”?  Maybe you don’t want to know.  Anyway, Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of our Nature was a book that I had been meaning to read for a while, and finally got around to.  It was a fairly quick read (for a nonfiction book) and I learned all sorts of interesting things.  I also feel very fortunate to live when I do, and not in times where people literally did cut off each other’s noses.  This book makes a very good case that we live in the most peaceful time in human history.  Pinker is not a big fan of Christianity, but beyond that, there is a lot of good stuff here.  Maybe he does have a good case against huge religious organizations that would send people on crusades, however.  At any rate, this was a great book with a lot of interesting history in it.  If you like history, you may want to put this on your books to read.

8) Daily Life in Medieval Times – I bought this book years ago.  Daily Life in Medieval Times is one of those books that you can read for a little while and put down, not because it’s not interesting, but because it talks about one subject, then moves on to another subject.  I started this book before and “ooh, squirrel, I mean, a book!” found other books that I just had to read right then, and it never got read.  Until last year.  It made my top 10 books of the year.

7) The Third Target – The lowest-ranking fiction book that made my list, The Third Target is a thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat.  I don’t think that I’ve ever read anything by Joel C. Rosenberg that I didn’t like.  I reread his The Last Jihad series last year as well, but since I had read it before, it wasn’t eligible for this year’s list.

6) American Miracle – If you find American history and divine providence to be interesting, American Miracle by Michael Medved is a really interesting story about some of the amazing coincidences that happened that allowed the United States to form as a country and make it what it is today.

5) The Game of Thrones (books 1-5) – If I read multiple books in a series in a year and they all are worthy, I bunch them all together in my end of year list.  The Game of Thrones is a very complex book with a lot of characters and plot turns, and it’s not appropriate for younger audiences, but it is an exciting series of books.  The only downside to this book series is that book 6 still hasn’t been published, and who knows when it will.  By the time the follow-up book, Winds of Winter, comes out, I may have to reread this series.  Which is not bad, because there’s a lot going on and I’m not sure that I can keep all the characters in plot in my mind after only one read, but it’s something to keep in mind.

4) Deep Under Cover – Deep Under Cover by Jack Barsky is the story of how one man was recruited by the KGB (or was it the German Stasi… it doesn’t matter) and ended up spying in America.  It was interesting and kept me wanting to find out more.

3) Defying Hitler – I read a lot of 20th century books last year (some of which did not make this list).  Defying Hitler, by Sebastian Haffner, is the only book that has ever made this list that is unfinished (although the way things are going, The Game of Thrones might be finished by a ghostwriter).  It is the oldest book that made the list this year, at least in terms of when it was written.  Defying Hitler is a first-hand account of a teen and young man growing up in the years that Adolph Hitler was gaining in popularity.  It was very interesting, and worth the read.

2) Carve the Mark – When a book is released in the year potentially affects how high a book gets on this list, I suppose.  Carve the Mark, by Veronica Roth, was one of the first books that I read last year, and gets second on my best books of 2017 list.  If I read this book last, it might have made the top spot, because it is outstanding, but I read it first.  This is an exciting read and I couldn’t wait to read the ending (and I loved the second book in the duology).  I reviewed this book on my blog last year.

1) Warcross – The best book that I read in 2017 was also the last book that I read in 2017: Warcross by Marie Lu.  I read it on December 31st, finishing an hour or two before midnight.  There are just some authors that reliably write good books, and I wanted to make sure that it had the chance to get on my best books list for the year, so I spent most of the day reading it.  I wasn’t disappointed.  I loved this book, and I’ll probably read it a couple more times this year (I’ll definitely read it again before I read Wildcard, which I pre-ordered over a month ago).  I haven’t put out the review yet (I plan on publishing a review for it later this month).

So there’s the list of the best books that I read for the first time in 2017.  Better late than never.  I hope to not be so late with publishing my 2018 list.