Z is for Zusak | Blogging from A to Z

The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak

How could I mention anyone other than Markus Zusak for 'z'? In fact on the final day of the A to Z challenge it seems pretty fitting to mention a book that's narrated by Death himself.

I only read The Book Thief after a friend of mine bought it for me for Christmas. I love historical fiction, but for the most part I stay away from fiction set during the Second World War, not only because I just don't find Modern history quite as interesting as Medieval and Early Modern history, but also because it's often just so upsetting. I love it when books bring out emotions in me, whether they make me happy, furious or bereft, but The Holocaust is something else entirely. It's a dark period of our history that should never be forgotten about, but it's so, so upsetting.

I'm so glad that I did read it, though. Like many of the books I love now I read it while I was at university and it made me cry more than once. Not just a few little tears, either, this book made me weep. What I love most about it is that it's just so different, and I don't even mean the whole 'narrated by Death' thing (though that is an interesting element!); another reason I tend to stay from WW2 fiction is because it's often quite samey, but in The Book Thief we're told the story of a little girl from Germany during the Second World War. We see Germany portrayed not as a country brimming with mini-Hitlers, but as a country who is suffering just as much as the rest of the world, perhaps even more so.

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

Y is for Young | Blogging from A to Z

Blood Red Road
by Moira Young

Blood Red Road was one of those books I did not expect to like at all. Just pick up a copy and look at the way it's written and you may understand why I was a little hesitant to pick it up at first. I'd not long finished The Hunger Games when it was recommended to me, and I refused to believe anything could fill the void Katniss had left behind, but I kept seeing it everywhere and when I finally found a copy for only £1.99 I knew it was time to just get it over with and buy it.

I didn't read it for a little while after buying it until one night during the final term of my undergrad degree when I was struggling to sleep. I suffered a lot with insomnia during those months - final exams and a dissertation will do that to you! - and I thought I'd pick it up and read the first few pages until I fell asleep. The next thing I knew it was 4 in the morning and I'd read 2/3s of the book. If my eyelids hadn't been fighting to stay open I would have finished it there and then, but it turns out I did need sleep after all.

I ended up loving this book. I loved Saba and I loved the world and I loved Jack and I even found myself loving the way it was written. Saba has such a distinct voice, and reading this book was such a fun, gritty adventure. It was just what I'd needed.

W is for Wilson | Blogging from A to Z

Girls Under Pressure
by Jacqueline Wilson

If someone had asked me who my favourite author was when I was a little girl, my answer would have been Jacqueline Wilson immediately. I'm still surprised myself that I read and loved pretty much every one of her books during my childhood considering I feel most at home within the realms of speculative fiction, but whenever Wilson brought out a new book I had to get my hands on it. From The Illustrated Mum to Lola Rose to How to Survive Summer Camp, I just adored her stories, as many children still do, and I think one of the great things about Wilson's writing is that she doesn't talk down to anyone. She tackles some pretty sensitive subjects that aren't often seen in a lot of children's fiction, such as foster care and mental illness, and children appreciate that. There are so many stories out there about orphaned children who grow up to save the world; now and then it's nice to read a story about children who grow up and save themselves.

While I loved basically everything Wilson wrote - aside from Love Lessons, which was the last new release of Wilson's I ever read before I left her behind in my childhood - I have a particular fondness for her Girls series. Partly because of the CITV adaptation that was on when I was younger, which was a lot of fun, but mainly because Ellie was a heroine I really needed. As soon as I hit puberty I started gaining extra weight that I couldn't shift, not to mention I had these 'boob' things getting in the way whenever I wanted to run anywhere. I started developing real body confidence issues, issues I still struggle with now, when some of the other kids began to comment on the changes in my body and make fun of me for it.

It's very rare to come across a protagonist in children's and/or teen fiction who's overweight, so the fact that Ellie was meant a lot to me. She made me feel a little less alone, and made me realise that people come in all shapes and sizes and that's okay.

V is for Vaughan | Blogging from A to Z

Saga
by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

I've gotten really into graphic novels this year - I've been reading a bunch of them - and I was super pleased when, at the start of this year, I was finally able to get my hands on Saga. Why? Because I started my job in December, and at the beginning of 2015 I got my first lot of wages - huzzah!

I ended up buying the first three volumes of Saga from Waterstone's in York while I was visiting my best friend for New Year's, and after I got home I read all three of them in one sitting. After that, I naturally ordered Volume 4 and read it pretty much as soon as I got my hands on it, and now apparently I have to wait for Volume 5 which, frankly, can't get here fast enough.

I'm not sure if Saga is my favourite graphic novel series - I also started Rat Queens this year, and unfortunately Rat Queens is very, very hard to compete with - but it definitely comes in at a close second. Vaughan's dialogue is witty and natural, and Staples's art is just beautiful; she has such a fantastic imagination for science fiction, so even if you don't think Saga would be your kind of thing you should pick up a copy just to see the way she's designed the characters.

Bring me Volume 5!

T is for Takaya | Blogging from A to Z

Fruits Basket
by Natsuki Takaya

I was first introduced to Natsuki Takaya not through her manga, but through the anime adaptation of Fruits Basket, which is still one of my favourite animes of all time. Granted I don't watch much anime nowadays - if at all - so the ones I love I love a lot, but Fruits Basket and Inuyasha are tied for my all-time favourite spot.

Because I loved the anime so much, my best friend was kind enough to buy me the first three volumes of the manga for my birthday a few years ago, and since then I've managed to get my hands on the first eleven. I do still need to finish the series, though - in fact I'm tempted to buy the ones I still need and then just do a mass reread of the entire series.

Fruits Basket tells the story of orphan high school student Tohru Honda who finds herself living in a tent, only to discover that tent is on Sohma property. When they realise she can't afford a home of her own, the Sohmas - consisting of cousins Yuki, Shigure and Kyo - invite her to live with them, which she agrees to so long as she can earn her room by doing the cooking and cleaning for them. It's really quite Snow White-esque.

But the Sohmas have a secret. A pretty big one. Within each generation of their family, thirteen people are cursed so that when they are embraced by a member of the opposite sex they transform into one of the animals from the Chinese zodiac. It sounds bizarre, but this series is just so fun. It'll make you laugh just as much as it'll make you cry, and I highly recommend checking it out!

S is for Shelley | Blogging from A to Z

Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley

There are three books which I consider to be my favourite classics; Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I read all of these classics while I was at university, and while Romanticism is not a literary movement I find all that interesting (I'm much more of a Victorian girl) I am glad my Romanticism module gave me the opportunity to read Frankenstein, which has to be one of the most brilliant books I've ever read.

That Mary Shelley began writing this when she was 18 astounds me; the ideas she tackles in this story are so thought-provoking, from the conflicts between science and morality to the consequences of creating a life and what it really means to play God. There's a reason this classic is so many people's favourite, it really is a masterpiece.

R is for Rees | Blogging from A to Z

Pirates!
by Celia Rees

When it comes to the genres we love, I think most of us can name one particular book that really whet our appetite for them. For me that book was Pirates! 

Celia Rees is a British author who's pretty well known for her historical fiction aimed at children and teens; she's probably best known for Witch Child, another book that got me into historical fiction when I was young before I really recognised historical fiction as its own genre. I think I was around 11 or 12 when I first found Pirates! in my local library, and I just couldn't resist a story about two girls running away to become pirates.

I know it probably sounds strange me saying that I didn't really recognise historical fiction as a genre, but I've been into history for as long as I can remember so it never really occurred to me that a book set in the past needed its own genre; I thought everyone would pick up historical fiction as willingly as they'd pick up contemporary because I thought history was cool and, hey, you're still just reading a story about people, right?

It wasn't until I got a little older that the realisation dawned on me that not everyone finds history as interesting as I do - which is fine! I didn't start becoming interested in science fiction until the past year or so - and there certainly is some terrible historical fiction out there, but I'm glad I had writers like Celia Rees and Eva Ibbotson who made sure, from a very young age, that I would never find the genre intimidating!

P is for Perkins | Blogging from A to Z

My True Love Gave to Me
ed. by Stephanie Perkins

I haven't actually read any of Stephanie Perkins' novels and I don't know if I ever will, but over Christmas I certainly enjoyed reading the anthology she edited and contributed to! All of the authors who feature in this anthology are authors whose work I don't usually read; in fact the only authors in the anthology I'd read before this were David Levithan, Gayle Forman, Rainbow Rowell and Holly Black, and even then I hadn't read much! The only book of Levithan's I'd read was Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (reviewed here!), which he wrote with Rachel Cohn, the only book of Rowell's I'd read was Attachments (reviewed here!) and I thought it was only alright, the only book of Black's I'd read was The Coldest Girl in Coldtown (reviewed here!) and I didn't like it all that much, and the only book of Forman's I'd read was If I Stay (reviewed here!), which I really enjoyed.

I was determined to read Christmassy reads during the Christmas season, something I'd always failed at before, and last Christmas I managed to do just that - and it was a lot of fun! This anthology, in particular, was a highlight for several reasons; reading so many different Christmassy stories felt a little like sitting down to watch Love Actually, and I really enjoyed getting to experience the writing of so many authors in just one book. Reading this book also made me realise how much I enjoy anthologies, and I've since collected a few more to enjoy. I'd definitely dip in and out of this again come next Christmas, and if you'd like to see my review for each of the stories you can find it here!

My personal favourites from the anthology were 'Polaris is Where You'll Find Me' by Jenny Han, 'The Lady and the Fox' by Kelly Link, and 'It's a Yuletide Miracle, Charlie Brown' by Stephanie Perkins.

O is for Orwell | Blogging from A to Z

Nineteen Eighty-Four
by George Orwell

Though I didn't read it until I was around 20, I was first introduced to 1984, and to the dystopian genre, during my teens when the rest of my drama class and I ended up incorporating a lot of dystopian themes into our practical exam. Drama was the one subject in school where the exams were fun, because it was basically a performance!

In the end we did something completely different to the project we started - for various reasons our ideas fell through - but from that moment on I was hooked on this idea of dystopia. I've always loved stories which involve rebellions and people fighting against corrupt governments or monarchies; I grew up with films such as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Braveheart, and with those kinds of stories under my belt from a young age my love for rebels and outlaws was firmly cemented.

Orwell is considered to be the godfather of modern dystopia. If you haven't read 1984 I highly recommend it, though maybe don't read it if you're in a really happy mood. It's bleak and hopeless and numbingly chilling, but it's also just fantastic. Read it!

N is for Nix | Blogging from A to Z

Sabriel
by Garth Nix

The Old Kingdom is another series I discovered, and loved, during my teens. I first read Sabriel when I was around 13 or 14, and for years now I've been telling myself I need to reread the series because I can't remember a lot of what happened in Abhorsen, which I do vividly remember reading while on holiday in Cuba when I was 15.

I will always love Garth Nix for writing a high fantasy series with two female leads, neither of whom have a story revolving around romance. I won't say Sabriel and Lirael are 'kick ass' heroines because that's a term that's begun to annoy me as a lot of the time it seems to be used to imply that only heroines who are physically strong and tomboy-ish are 'good' heroines. But I suppose I'd better stop there before I go off on one of my rants...

What Sabriel and Lirael are are well-rounded, believable, realistic women. They're both intellectual and fairly quiet, disproving the theory that a heroine must be boisterous to prove that she's a 'strong, independent woman'. Yes the pair of them can certainly kick ass if they so choose, but they also cry, and feel fear and sadness that Nix doesn't criticise them for - in fact they're made all the stronger by brushing themselves off and getting back up to face another day.

I'm always going to love The Old Kingdom, and Garth Nix, for giving me a series during my teens that showed me to always expect better from what authors have to offer me. Nix showed me I didn't have to put up with the dozens of female-led stories out there that crapped all over feminism by suggesting the only thing we're good for is arm candy, because there are always authors out there ready and willing to tell a different story.

M is for Meyer | Blogging from A to Z

Cinder
by Marissa Meyer

When I first heard of Cinder I thought it sounded like a lot of fun, and I thought reading it would be a lot of fun. Thankfully, I was right, but I had no idea The Lunar Chronicles were going to end up becoming one of my all time favourite series. I love a good fairy tale retelling, but they can be hard to do well; what Meyer has managed to do is take these old stories and breathe new life into them - they're just so original!

This series is also fantastic in terms of its diversity. Throughout the series so far our settings have included China, France, Africa and the moon, we have four leading ladies - all of whom are completely different ladies, meaning there's a heroine for everyone, but who don't compete against each other in any way - and we have an array of characters from all different races and cultures. Our Cinderella has prosthetic limbs and our Prince Charming's Chinese - I can't remember the last time I came across a retelling with so much diversity.

I love this series so much, and while I can't wait to get my hands on Winter I also really don't want this series to end.

L is for LaFevers | Blogging from A to Z

Grave Mercy
by Robin LaFevers

I think all of us can be guilty of just looking at a book and thinking 'I don't think I'd enjoy that'. I'm certainly guilty of doing that, in fact that's what happened with Grave Mercy. Now I'll admit that by this point I think I know my taste fairly well, so while I'm always willing to try something new and I'm always open to reading out of my comfort zone with the chance I'll discover a new favourite, I'm also usually right when I think I won't like a book.

Grave Mercy is one of the few books that proved me wrong. I don't know what it was that convinced me to pick this book, and this series up, in the end. Perhaps it really was just that the promise of assassin nuns wasn't something I could turn away from, whatever the reason I'm so pleased I decided to give it a chance because now I love the His Fair Assassin trilogy. These books are so much fun, while also being packed with political intrigue and girl power. Are parts of them still a little cheesy? Yes, especially in this first book - the second, Dark Triumph, is much more sinister - but sometimes we all need a little cheesy, and the fluffier scenes are certainly balanced out with some much darker ones.

K is for Kent | Blogging from A to Z

Burial Rites
by Hannah Kent

Burial Rites was my first book of this year. I finished it while I was on the train from York to South Wales, a fairly long journey in which you need plenty of things to keep you occupied, after visiting a friend of mine for New Year. It was a fantastic New Year, probably one of the best I've ever had; York is a gorgeous city, and we brought in the New Year standing outside York Minster while the bells chimed. New Year's Day we spent the day inside where it was warm, snuggled in bed, ordered pizza and binge-watched the first three seasons of Parks + Rec. Like I said, it was a great New Year.

Burial Rites is a brilliant read for the winter time because of its setting in the harsh Icelandic countryside, although it's well worth reading any time of the year because of its content. It's based on the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last woman to be executed in Iceland after being accused of murdering her employer. This book is heartbreaking, and Kent's writing is just stunning. I ended up tearing up on the train and getting some very peculiar looks from people.

Whether you like historical fiction or not, give this beautiful debut novel a read.

J is for Jackson | Blogging from A to Z

The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson

Art by M. S. Corley

I'm ashamed to say I hadn't even heard of Shirley Jackson until 2013. Thankfully one of the friends I made on my MA course introduced me to her work, and last Easter I read The Haunting of Hill House.

Horror isn't a genre I read a lot of, and I'm not a particularly big watcher of horror films, either. I like horror films that also have a story (even if I do end up not being able to sleep for a few days after watching them) but watching a film just to see a group of teenagers getting tortured or chopped off or whatever else directors feel like doing to them isn't a fun past time of mine. 

When it comes to horror books, the only ones I'd ever read before reading this one were a few Victorian Gothic classics, which were certainly considered to be horror when they were published, and Stephen King's Misery. (Unfortunately I'm not a Stephen King fan; Misery is the only book of his I've actually been able to get through, there's something about his writing style I just don't like).

I wasn't sure what I was going to make of The Haunting of Hill House, because it's so easy for haunted house stories to be rubbish, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Not only did I enjoy Jackson's writing style, but this book also gave me the heebie jeebies; Jackson doesn't need to rely on gore to frighten you, she just reaches her fingers into your mind and subverts everything you thought you knew to be true. Her skill isn't in what she writes, but in what she chooses not to write.

I is for Ibbotson | Blogging from A to Z

A Company of Swans
by Eva Ibbotson

Eva Ibbotson's one of my guilty pleasures, though I don't feel all that guilty. Sadly she passed away a few years ago, but during her life she wrote a lot of stories for children and teenagers, and it was during my teens - when I was around 14 - that I first read A Company of Swans.

Ibbotson's writing style is just lovely; whenever I read her historical fiction, like A Company of Swans, I always picture it in my head as a colourful, exquisite period drama with sumptuous costumes, stunning manor houses and dashing male leads. For me her books are pure escapism, and I can still remember how happy I felt when I first read this book because it took me away from everything else.

H is for Huff | Blogging from A to Z

Blood Price
by Tanya Huff

Tanya Huff's one of those authors who, in my opinion, not enough people have read and that's a real shame. Not only is Huff a great writer, but the stuff she writes about is just awesome. Her favoured genres are SFF, and throughout the many books she's written she often plays around with ideas of gender and sexuality, subverting stereotypes or just blatantly beating them over the head with that brilliant thing we call feminism.

Her Blood Books, in particular, are fantastic; combining crime with urban fantasy, Huff creates a world of vampires, demons, werewolves, and even mummies, in the middle of Toronto, all with a wonderful female lead. Vicky is a fab heroine. She's funny and serious and believable and headstrong, meaning she's basically everything I love, and Huff's other characters are a lot of fun, too.

Plus the great thing about this series is the mash up of genres; if you're an urban fantasy fan who'd like to try getting into crime, this is a pretty great place to start, and if you're a fan of crime who'd like to try a bit of SFF then this is the book for you!

G is for Grant | Blogging from A to Z

Feed
by Mira Grant

Ah, here it is: my favourite book of 2014. People who've been following my blog for a while are probably sick of me gushing about it, but I'm not going to stop talking about this book until I've gotten more people reading it. And hopefully loving it, too.

I adored this book. Adored it. I'm not a big reader of zombie books at all, but Feed isn't your typical zombie book - in fact I'm not even sure I'd class it as a zombie book because it's less about blood and guts and killing zombies and more about how the world would react to this kind of virus. Grant's attention to detail in this book is just stunning, and in Georgia Mason she's created one of my all time favourite heroines. Georgia made me want to trust journalists, that's how much I love her.

I'm not gonna lie, it's not all that hard for me to get emotional; give me a heartbreaking scene in a book or a film and the likelihood is I'm going to tear up. There have only been a few books, however, that have made me sob, and Feed was one such book. This book broke me - in fact I'm fairly certain I cried more over this than I did The Book Thief, and I cried quite a lot over The Book Thief.

I've since made it my mission to read as much of Grant's work as possible, because I just think she's fabulous. I still need to read Blackout, the final book in the Newsflesh trilogy, which I haven't finished yet because I don't want this trilogy to end, and also because both Feed and Deadline made me cry and I'm not sure I can take any more heartbreak. Grant also writes under her real name - Seanan McGuire - and has written an urban fantasy series following a changeling, October Daye. I have the first book in that series, Rosemary and Rue, and I'm looking forward to reading it soon!

Basically Feed is amazing. Read it.

F is for Funke | Blogging from A to Z

Inkheart
by Cornelia Funke

I first read Inkheart when I was 16, and I found a copy of it in a little independent bookstore while on holiday in Scotland. I remember that holiday fondly - we went to the Edinburgh Dungeon, which was so much fun - and I was incredibly pleased to finally have my hands on a copy of this book. It was one of those books I'd always been aware of, I'd just never read it. I don't know why, either, because I love books about books very much.

To this day I still love the Inkworld trilogy, and I've often thought of re-reading it along with many of the other series from my teens I'd like to revisit, although sadly I no longer have my copy of Inkheart. From what I can remember one of my sisters borrowed it, and neither of them are particularly good at looking after my stuff. As I'm sure you can imagine I'm pretty gutted not to have it, especially as I got it on that great holiday, but I do still have my copies of Inkspell and Inkdeath sitting safely on my shelf. I should probably replace my copy of Inkheart at some point, but I'm still holding out hope that one day I'll find my first copy.

E is for Eliot | Blogging from A to Z

Silas Marner
by George Eliot

Like Agnes Grey, which I talked about for Letter B, Silas Marner is another one of those divisive classics; there are people out there who think it's horrendously boring, and then there are people like me who think it's a beautiful and underrated story.

When you say George Eliot's name the first story to pop into your head might be Middlemarch or Daniel Deronda, but Silas Marner is always the story I think of after first being introduced to Eliot through it during my A Level English Literature course. What I love most about this classic is the sense of people getting what they deserve, even if it's not in the way you first expect it. It's something I try to emulate in my own writing, though I doubt I do it quite as skilfully as Eliot.

This is the book which made me realise that when it comes to classics it's the literature from the 19th century I most enjoy. I love the themes - from the rise of the new woman, to imperialism, to the Gothic - and I enjoy the rich character studies so many 19th century classics contain.

If you're new to 19th century literature and you find dense books intimidating, something like Silas Marner might be a great starting place for you!

D is for Dahl | Blogging from A to Z

The Magic Finger
by Roald Dahl

Like pretty much every child in the UK, I was raised on Roald Dahl's stories. The BFG, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach and Matilda were often companions of mine throughout my childhood, and my poor Dad probably lost count of the amount of times he had to read Fantastic Mr. Fox with me. I loved Fantastic Mr. Fox.

In all honesty I could have talked about any one of those books today, but The Magic Finger is particularly special to me despite it being one of the few Dahl books I never actually owned my own copy of as a child. Not only is The Magic Finger one of Dahl's lesser talked about children's stories, it's also the first story I can remember reading straight through completely by myself. I don't know if it was the first book I read alone, but it's the first I remember and the main reason I remember it is because I was constantly borrowing it from my local library.

There was something about this story that I just loved as a child. I don't know whether it was the magic, the thought of this horrid family being forced to live in a nest or simply the fact that I loved that this little girl had the power to punish people with the power in her finger. As a little girl myself I loved that.

Now I do have my own copy, and it's tucked safely on my shelf. If I ever had children of my own, I know for a fact I'll be reading it to them.