Top Ten Tuesday | They #$@&%*! you up, your mum and dad...

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is 'Ten Books That Feature Characters...' and I've decided to talk about books with protagonists who are parents, because so often parenthood is the end of someone's story and I've never been entirely satisfied with the idea that a person's life comes to an end as soon as they have a baby. You're still you, you just have an extra responsibility and that doesn't mean your life and your interests have to come to a stand still. Isn't it much more interesting for children to be raised by parents that actually have personalities?

Five of these books I've read and five are on my TBR!

The title is a line from This Be the Verse by Philip Larkin.

Books I've Read

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin: I think Essun is the most bad-ass mother I've come across in fiction. There's not much I can say about this book, and this series, without giving too much away, all I will say is that you should read it.

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples: The main conflict of this series is that a child has been born to two people who should be on opposing sides of an intergalactic war. That the series is narrated by that child is a lovely touch, I think.

Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman: Noughts & Crosses is one of my favourite books and the series continues to get darker and darker. Again there's not much I can say about Knife Edge without spoiling the series, but its honest depiction of early motherhood has always stayed with me.

The Death Maze by Ariana Franklin: I don't love this series but, when I'm in the mood for an easy to read historical thriller, I do find myself turning to it. Set in the middle ages, protagonist Adelia is one of the earliest working single mothers I've come across in fiction!

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney: One of the driving forces behind this novel is protagonist Mrs. Ross's search for her teenage son who is suspected of murdering one of their neighbours. Really the book is about the town as a whole but it's an interesting read and one I'd recommend for the winter months!

Books on My TBR

The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss: I've heard nothing but amazing things about this novel, told from the point of view of a stay-at-home dad which isn't a perspective you see often in fiction.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry: Cora, recently widowed and glad to be rid of a husband who wasn't particularly nice, decides to use her widowhood to pursue her love of science, with her lady's maid and young son in tow. I'm determined to get to this one soon.

Timeless by Gail Carriger: Another one I'm aiming to read by the end of this year so I can finally finish the series and move on to Carriger's other books set in this world. I'm just about to start Heartless, in which Alexia is heavily pregnant, so by Timeless she'll have a mini-Alexia to keep her eye on. It's a nice change to come across a series that doesn't leave the characters behind as soon as they 'settle down' - Alexia's married and pregnant, but she's certainly not ready to settle!

The Untold by Courtney Collins: I'm not 100% sure but I believe this one is based on a true story. I've realised this year just how little I read about Australia and it's something I want to rectify, starting with this book!

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë: I've read bits of this book but still need to sit down and read it from beginning to end. I really should get to it soon. Like Cora in The Essex Serpent, the heroine of this novel also has a young son to think of and, considering the time in which she lives, it's pretty damn admirable what she does to keep him safe.

What did you talk about this week?

Books I Want to Re-Read

We all have a different relationship to re-reading, whether it's something we love to do and do often or something we never do. I'm a reader who's gone from one extreme to the other as I've grown; when I was younger I read and re-read my favourite books time and time and time again and was never any less delighted by them, and was recently reminded of this when I talked about Jacqueline Wilson last week.

I re-read Wilson's books an extortionate amount as a child, as well as my favourite Roald Dahls, such as The Magic Finger and Fantastic Mr. Fox, and my extensive Horrible Histories collection, but as I got older I began to devour more and more books until I didn't have the time to re-read if I wanted to keep reading new things. I fell in love with discovering new stories and characters and worlds and authors, just as I'd fallen in love with that safety net of familiarity in my childhood, and in doing so my love for re-reading was forgotten.

Then recently, having read Kirsty Logan's A Portable Shelter (reviewed here) and craving more short stories, I re-read Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (reviewed here) and really enjoyed the experience - especially as I didn't actually like the book the first time I read it about seven years ago. Now I'm keen to make more time for re-reading, and below are four books from my shelves I'd like to re-read, all for various reasons!

I first read Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus when it came out. Everyone was talking about it and I was certainly intrigued, which was unusual for me because I generally tend to be wary of hyped books since the dark reading years of my teens when every YA book was the same. I ended up enjoying the book, but not as much as I'd hoped and definitely not as much as what felt like every other reader. Morgenstern's descriptions and her world-building were stunning, I loved the idea of her circus, but I need characters to grab hold of me and make me care and something about Celia and Marco prevented me from doing that. Individually I quite liked them - Celia, in particular, and her relationship with her father intrigued me - but I didn't understand why the two of them liked each other and when I reached the end I realised I hadn't really cared what happened, I was just ready for it to end. My reading tastes have changed a lot since then, and I'd like to re-read this book at some point to see if I've grown to appreciate it more or if I feel just as 'meh' about the whole thing as I did then.

Sadly, you can only read Rebecca for the first time once, and I loved it when I did. If you haven't read it yet I can't recommend it enough, it's du Maurier's masterpiece and such a brilliantly written and plotted novel - it's all the more enjoyable the less you know going into it. Knowing what happens in the story and how it ends, I'd love to re-read it and see if du Maurier left any little nuggets of premonition for her re-readers.

The Goblin Emperor is one I've already re-read twice (once as an audiobook, so I guess that was more of a re-listen) and was the first book I re-read in a long, long time when I picked it up for a second time last year having loved it in 2015. If someone put a gun to my head and forced me to choose one all-time favourite book, I think I'd have to say this one - Maia is certainly one of my favourite protagonists of all time and I love how, more than anything, this book is hopeful, decent fantasy and such a soothing antidote to Games of Thrones' brutality. I can't get enough of this book, and I think it'll be one I continue to re-read until Katherine Addison gives me another book set in this world.

Persuasion was Jane Austen's final novel, published posthumously, and while Pride and Prejudice is a firm favourite it's actually Persuasion that's considered to be her masterpiece by many Austen fans. Until the past year or so, I definitely wouldn't have described myself as one such fan. Like The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories I was introduced to Austen through education when I was given this book to read during sixth form and it woke a hatred of Austen in me that it's taken me a long time to shake off. My reading tastes hadn't developed enough at the time for me to appreciate that Austen was writing a very tongue-in-cheek form of societal critique, and I was so frustrated that a woman I was constantly being told was an early feminist writer had written novel after novel about love and marriage. Why couldn't any of her heroines just stay single? Then I did that thing that most of us we all do: I grew up. As a twenty-something I understand Austen far more than eighteen year old me ever did, something I'm sure my English teacher would be incredibly proud of, and now I'd like to give Persuasion a second chance. I've actually started my re-read of this one and, while it hasn't completely grabbed me, I'm not hating it...

Do you re-read books? Is it something you'd like to do more of or less? Which books would you like to re-read one day?

Welcome to Jessticulates!

For several years now you'll have known me as Jess @ Curiouser and Curiouser, over at themoormaiden.blogspot.co.uk, but I've been thinking of changing that for a while now and, today, I decided to just go ahead and do it!

My content will be exactly the same, I'm still a nerdy book blogger who should be reading more than she is, I just wanted to give my blog a new name, something a little more original to me and something that meant my blog title and my blog URL are the same. That's been bugging me for a while, I can tell you that much.

Anyway, this is just a head's up to let you know that I didn't spontaneously delete my blog, I just spontaneously renamed it instead.

Speak to you all soon!

Top Ten Tuesday | Bookish Turn-Offs

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is all about the things that make us NOT want to read a book. I did struggle with this theme a bit at first, but the more I thought about it the more I remembered just how many bookish tropes get on my nerves. So, without further ado, here are my top ten eight!

A city girl starts a new life in the country... This has been done to death in contemporary - looking at you, Jenny Colgan - and while some stories can be charming, the more I see it the more it bugs me. I'm a country girl myself, I've always lived in the countryside and I love the countryside, and there's something a tad patronising about the way the country is often portrayed as this quaint, idyllic, backward place with no wifi. The countryside is just as varied as the big cities, and it'd be nice to see this reflected more in fiction.

It's hard being a white, middle-aged, middle class, able-bodied, cisgendered man, I think I'll have an affair... NOPE. Sorry fellas, but I don't care about your problems that aren't really problems. By all means give me a protagonist who fits all the afore-mentioned criteria but who is also a unique and real voice, but don't give me a man chasing a manic pixie dream girl.

Dude, where's the blurb..? I hate it when I want to know what a book is about, but all I get is a blurb so vague it might as well not be there or nothing at all. Some people like no blurb, and that's fine, but personally I want to have an idea of what a book's about before I give it my time.

Waaay too much blurb... On the other end of the scale, I'm immediately put off by a blurb that starts to feel like I'm reading an essay. I want to know what the book's about, I don't want to know the plot twist or the protagonist's love interest's grandmother's budgie's maiden name.

The Dead Girl Test... I've mentioned this before. The Dead Girl Test is a test I give every crime/thriller novel I pick up which involves the murder of women. If, at any point, the detective sees the corpse of a murdered woman and describes her as beautiful, I'm outta here. Why? Firstly, I hate the way that it implies that her death would be any less tragic if she were ugly. Secondly, I think corpses are too grim to be thought of as beautiful, especially if a person's been murdered and their body has just been found.

Three's a Crowd... Love triangles are done badly 99.9% of the time. I have no interest in them, especially after living through the dark years of YA brimming with the damn things.

Strike a Pose... This is purely personal taste, but I'm very, very rarely drawn to books that have the photograph of a person on the front. I like to imagine the characters for myself and I'm a big lover of simple, eye-catching, typographic covers.

Not Like Other Girls... In historical fiction in particular, I'm really bored of reading about heroines who are ahead of their time and are somehow better than the other women they know because they want to do something other than get married and have children. Can we stop the girl hate please?

What turns you off a book?

Should Our Books Have Trigger Warnings?

Get ready, guys. This is a long one.

Last year there was a lot of talk about the inclusion of trigger warnings in books. There were people who agreed with them, people who didn't, and people who didn't really give a hoot either way. I meant to write this post last year, and just didn't. I guess I wanted a little more time to mull over what I thought before I wrote a discussion post like this.

Now the first thing I will say is that my views aren't meant to offend or insult anyone, though I hope they won't, and I'll also say that I'm very lucky in that I've never needed trigger warnings. There are certain things I don't like to read or watch, but thankfully I've never experienced any traumatic or upsetting event that has made me require trigger warnings. I just wanted to get that out there because there's a good chance that people who do need trigger warnings may have very different views on this topic to me.

Last year I completed an MA in Creative Writing. This was a year in which I got to dedicate my time to a creative project in the form of a 30,000 word portfolio as well as a 5,000 word reflective essay to accompany the creative work. Including me there were ten people on my course, and it was nice to have such a small number of us; everyone was working on something completely different, and we had two seminars a week in which we read extracts from each other's work and offered constructive criticism.

Very early on in the MA, we all agreed we would include trigger warnings at the beginning of our submissions, in fact it was requested by a couple of my fellow students. Sometimes trigger warnings are necessary; they were certainly necessary for one of the students on my course, who frankly wrote some pretty horrific stuff. Immediately there was a debate as to whether or not they were needed, and not surprisingly the one student whose work was most in need of trigger warnings was the one student who disagreed with them most vehemently. The rest of us were happy to include them - ultimately, it was no skin off our nose.

In truth practically none of us - aside from one student - wrote particularly graphic, violent scenes, but trigger warnings aren't only used for violence. Some students found it difficult to read about mental or sexual abuse, sometimes because, like me, they just didn't like reading about it, and sometimes because they had unfortunately experienced it themselves. Others, such as a good friend of mine, found it very difficult to read about any form of violence towards animals.

But where do we draw the line between a trigger and something that people just don't want to read?

There are some books which have trigger warnings already. The first one that springs to mind is Danielle Vega's The Merciless. I haven't actually read this book, but I do know there is a warning at the beginning because it includes graphic scenes of torture. 

Pretty cover, though.

Some people are squeamish, there's no shame in that, and a trigger warning like this is very useful, particularly when the cover of The Merciless is so simple and, in some ways, rather misleading as to its contents. The trigger warning's also great for people for whom torture is a trigger; some people find it very, very upsetting to read about other people being tortured, or to watch it for that matter - I know a few people who will never go near the SAW movies for that very reason.

I guess what I'm saying is trigger warnings are good for people who need them, but what about the people who don't? Trigger warnings for them are unnecessary, they may even be considered a spoiler. What if a book includes a trigger warning that manages to ruin an upcoming scene in the book? And how much of a book needs to be considered a trigger to warrant a trigger warning? Would one little scene justify putting a warning right at the front of a book? What if that put a reader off reading it when, in reality, the majority of the book is perfectly safe for them to read, and the triggering scene may be so minute they may not even find it triggering? Could the warning itself, then, actually make the trigger worse than it is by making the reader feel as though they're building up to something awful?

Who decides what counts as a trigger? People who have triggers themselves, or the people that don't?

Most importantly, as someone who doesn't require trigger warnings, is my opinion even valid? After all, I have no right, nor does anyone who doesn't have triggers, to criticise another person for theirs.

I don't mind trigger warnings in books for those who need them. Perhaps the ideal solution is to print two versions of each book, one with triggers and one without, but as someone who works in publishing I know how costly and tricky that would be for most publishing houses. I do think there are some real benefits to including trigger warnings, however, that even go beyond the simple reason of protecting readers with triggers. The main advantage I can see is that trigger warnings might help some readers who want to explore a certain topic more.

For example, if someone wanted to read more about characters who experience eating disorders or substance abuse or self-harm they'd be easier to find, and those readers would find it much easier to broaden their knowledge on a certain topic or even come to terms with their own struggles. Books, after all, are wonderful healers.

Having said that, I can't help but find trigger warnings a little concerning. I'm not one of those people who thinks someone with a trigger should 'just get over it', and I think people who do have that point of view need to go and give themselves a long, hard look in the mirror.

 As someone with friends who have triggers I would never want to do anything that made them feel as though they were 'just being dramatic'; there's a reason I have friends who are triggered by violence towards animals and sexual abuse and terminal illness, and I never want to make them feel unsafe.

No, my worries are fairly simple. Where does it end? 

As a feminist I'm constantly met with 'not all men' whenever I'm debating something or fighting for what I believe to be right, because for some reason some men find their gender being accused of misogyny more infuriating than the fact that all women, at some point, have been made to feel unsafe, belittled or downright pissed off by a man. My worries with trigger warnings would be whether or not there would be some sort of backlash.

Would racists and homophobes request trigger warnings to warn them that the book they're holding in their hands includes POC or LGBT+ characters? I'd like to think publishers would never agree to that - in fact I'm sure they wouldn't - but these people have a way of ruining a good thing for everyone else, and if they couldn't have trigger warnings then perhaps nobody could and we're back to square one.

My other, perhaps even bigger concern, is for the younger readers with strict parents. I was very, very lucky growing up in that my parents let me read whatever I wanted; whenever they asked me what I was reading it was because they were curious, not because they wanted to know if it was appropriate. My parents trusted me to read what I felt ready to read, and they trusted me to put a book down if I was finding it uncomfortable. When I was very young they always read to me, so if anything did frighten me, which I don't think it ever really did back then (it's hard to get frightened by Biff and Chip), they'd be there for me to talk to about it.

This was one of the best gifts my parents could have given me. Not only was their trust liberating - I could read anything I wanted, so I got to explore so many stories from a young age - but it meant that I got to discover for myself what I found uncomfortable, and think about why that was.

I've known people who, as children, were only allowed to read what their parents approved for them first. Time and time again I've heard stories of children who desperately wanted to read Harry Potter but weren't allowed to because their parents and grandparents believed it was anti-Christian. When parents do this to their children they don't let them decide what scares them or upsets them, and all that creates is blind hatred, ignorance and bigotry. When my parents let me read whatever I wanted it meant I got to explore race, gender and sexuality during my early teens, and it made me a much more socially aware person.

I'm not saying parents shouldn't be involved in their children's reading - for heaven's sake read with your children, they love that! - but creatively strict parents have a lot to answer for, and I can't think of anything worse than one of those parents with a trigger warning. Their children would never be able to read again.

Should our books really be censored? Literature is one of the ultimate artistic modes of freedom - you have to be a certain age to see a film, but your age doesn't matter when you crack open a book - and each year we even celebrate Banned Books Week. There's a big difference between banning a book and adding a trigger warning, of course, but would adding trigger warnings somehow lead on to banning certain books altogether?

Ultimately I've given myself about a year to think about this topic and I still don't have a straight answer, and I don't think I ever will. As with most things I can see the pros and cons of including trigger warnings in the books I read, though as someone who doesn't need them I'm still not entirely sure if my thoughts on the matter are even valid.

What do you think?

Seven Deadly Tropes

So Shannon over at It Starts at Midnight posted her Bookish Sins, and they were so much fun that I decided to share some of my own because, when it comes to books, I have quite a few pet peeves!

1) The Brooding/Unhealthy Love Interest

I know I probably sound like your mother, but that boy really is bad news! One of the main reasons I don't tend to read an awful lot of YA is because in my experience it's a genre brimming with these brooding, unsociable, horrible love interests. These are the kind of guys who, if you met them in real life, you'd probably want to stay as far away from as possible, and yet in book form they seem to make everyone swoon. There's nothing romantic about a guy who thinks the world owes him something and spends his days moping about how unfair the universe is, all while managing to look hella cute despite never cracking a smile.

This isn't something that's seen only in YA, of course. It's remarkable the amount of people who romanticise Heathcliff; those of you who have read Wuthering Heights will know there's nothing romantic about the guy at all. He's really quite awful.

Yeah, he totally looks like a guy you should date.

2) "I'm not like other girls!"

UGH. This is something else I often come across in YA: female characters who believe they're better than other women because they don't care about their appearance or because they spend their weekends reading all six of Jane Austen's novels. 

Shockingly women are as diverse as men; a girl can be a black belt in karate who enjoys playing video games and wearing makeup, just as another girl can enjoy shoe shopping and baking while also being a huge fan of the X-Men and Renaissance Literature. The worst thing writers can do - especially women writers - is pit different kinds of women against each other. It's just not cool.

3) The Dead Girl Test

Whenever I dip into crime fiction - which, unless it's historical crime, isn't all that often - there's always something I look for: does it pass the Dead Girl Test?

If you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about just go to the nearest shelf of crime fiction, whether you have an accumulation of it yourself or next time you're in a library or book store, and read a few of the blurbs. The majority of them will be about a police officer trying to catch someone who has been brutally murdering women.

Now that's not the part I have a problem with, but what does bother me is that you can guarantee that at some point there will be a scene in which a woman's body will be discovered and someone will describe how beautiful she is.

Firstly, dead bodies are grim. It doesn't matter if they've started decomposing or not, there's just something horrifying about corpses. No matter how pretty a person might have been when they were alive there is nothing to romanticise about their corpse. (In fact if your first thought upon seeing a dead body is 'hm not bad' then I think alarm bells should start ringing...)

Secondly, what I hate about this trope is that it implies that if the victim were as ugly as sin it wouldn't be as tragic. I know that's not what the author's saying, but I do think there's an element of that there and it really bugs me.

4) You've Got a Friend in Me

Again, this is something I tend to see a lot of in YA: whatever happened to girl/guy friendships? In recent years there have certainly been more, but so often if a boy and girl are best friends then at some point one falls in love with the other and it's so frustrating.

Friendships are so beautiful and powerful that a lot of the time romance can spoil them. Think of your friends - your best friends - if they were in peril you wouldn't even think before you helped them, would you? There's that old saying that 'friends are the family you choose', and I hate seeing friendships ruined for the sake of...

5) Three's A Crowd

If there is any hint that a book contains a love triangle then the likelihood is I won't bother reading it. I'm so bored of them, and in my experience they're done well very rarely. In YA nowadays love triangles tend to be made up of three things on my list; the brooding guy, the heroine who's not like other girls, and the best friend. So I think I'll pass.

6) Instalove

Does anyone actually like this?

7) It Matters if You're Black or White

I loathe whitewashing. I hate it in my films (I'm looking at you, Exodus) and I hate it on my book covers. If a character is a POC then it really shouldn't be difficult to put a POC on the cover if you're having people on the cover at all!

I wrote a post about this topic which you can check out here if you're interested in hearing more of my thoughts on this issue!

What are some of your bookish peeves? Don't forget to check out Shannon's post!

My 2015 Reading Goals!

It's New Year's Eve!

To celebrate the coming arrival of 2015, I've given myself some reading challenges for throughout the new year. I'm not going to put too much pressure on myself - if I don't complete these challenges then I don't, and that's fine - but sometimes challenges can be the push that we need to make us read out of our comfort zone, or to make us read at all!

Goal No.1 - Complete 10 Series

Whether I've already started them or I start and finish them in 2o15, I want to try and complete 10 series in 2015 because I read a lot of standalones in 2014. That isn't a bad thing - I love me a good standalone - but I've been missing series lately, and I'm hoping I might discover some amazing ones with this challenge.

Possible candidates for this challenge:

1. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
2. Dust Lands Trilogy by Moira Young
3. Healer Trilogy by Maria V. Snyder
4. Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray
5. Women of the Underworld Series by Kelley Armstrong
6. All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness
7. Eon Duology by Alison Goodman
8. The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater
9. Skulduggery Pleasant Series by Derek Landy
10. Parasitology Trilogy by Mira Grant
11. Tudor Witch Trilogy by Victoria Lamb
12. Temeraire Series by Naomi Novik
13. Vivian Apple Duology by Katie Coyle
14. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
15. The Blood Books by Tanya Huff

Goal No.2 - The Retelling Challenge

Throughout 2015 I'm going to take part in the Retelling Challenge, hosted by Mel at The Daily Prophecy. You can find my introduction post here!

Here's a list of retellings I'd like to try and get under my belt:

1. For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund
2. Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
3. Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
4. Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay
5. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters
6. The Meat Tree by Gwyneth Lewis
7. White Ravens by Owen Sheers
8. The Prince's Pen by Horatio Clare
9. The Mirk and Midnight Hour by Jane Nickerson
10. Winter by Marissa Meyer
11. The Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine

Goal No. 3 - Read 5 Classics

I don't think I read any classics in 2014, which is pretty shocking.

Possible candidates for this challenge:

1. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
2. Villette by Charlotte Brontë
3. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
4. Persuasion by Jane Austen
5. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Goal No. 4 - Read At Least 3 2015 Debuts

I also didn't read a single debut novel in 2014 - in fact, other than Cress and My True Love Gave to Me, I'm not even sure if I read any books that were published in 2014. As I've mentioned before, I'm not very good at staying on top of the trends!

Possible candidates for this challenge:

1. The Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker
2. The Well by Catherine Chanter
3. The Hourglass Factory by Lucy Ribchester

Goal No. 5 - Read More Short Story Collections

I read My True Love Gave to Me this month, and it made me realise both how much I enjoy short story collections and how few of them I've read. I own a few, and there are a few I'd like to own, so I'm going to try and read some more in 2015!

Possible candidates for this challenge:

1. Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories by Various
2. Love Hurts by Various
3. Jigs and Reels by Joanne Harris
4. The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
5. Don't Look Now and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
6. His Last Fire by Alix Nathan
7. Magic For Beginners by Kelly Link
8. Across the Wall by Garth Nix

Goal No. 6 - Read More Poetry Collections

I managed to read more poetry this year than I thought I would, so I'd like to read some more in 2015!

Possible candidates for this challenge:

1. Faery Tales by Carol Ann Duffy
2. The Shape of a Forest by Jemma L. King

Goal No. 7 - Read More Non-Fiction

I only read two pieces of non-fiction in 2014, so I'd like to read some more in the coming year.

Possible candidates for this challenge:

1. The Creation of Anne Boleyn by Susan Bordo
2. This Book is Gay by James Dawson
3. The Penguin Book of Witches by Katherine Howe
4. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
5. Witches: A Tale of Scandal, Sorcery and Seduction by Tracy Borman

Goal No. 8 - Reread Harry Potter

Every year I tell myself I'm going to reread the Harry Potter series, and each year I manage not to. In 2015 I really want to make myself reread them - I miss Hogwarts!

What are your reading plans for 2015?

Best Books of 2014 | Top 10 of 2014

Today is the first day of Top 10 of 2014, hosted by Two Chicks on Books! I wasn't sure whether I was going to take part initially, but in the end I thought: why the hell not? I love events like these because they always introduce me to new blogs and bloggers that I've been unaware of before, and it's a lot of fun seeing which books other people talk about.

The first category is Best Books I've Read in 2014. I've been a little naughty in that, through Top Ten Tuesday, I've actually already listed my top ten, but I'm still going to do it again and leave a link to my Top Ten Tuesday post here.

So, in the order I read them, my Top 10 Books of 2014 are:

1. American Gods by Neil Gaiman (reviewed here!)
2. Cress by Marissa Meyer (reviewed here!)
3. Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers
4. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (reviewed here!)
5. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
6. Feed by Mira Grant (reviewed here!)
7. The Undressed by Jemma L. King
8. Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier
9. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (reviewed here!)
10. Christmas at Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop by Jenny Colgan (reviewed here!)

Which books made your list?

2014 End of Year Book Survey | Twelve Days of Christmas!

2014 became the year that I really became a blogger. I still have a long way to go on this blogging adventure, but I've updated my blog regularly throughout the year - something I always struggled with before - and I've found so many wonderful blogs (and bloggers!) that have made the whole experience a lot of fun.

So to celebrate my first proper year as a blogger, I'm going to take part in The Perpetual Page-Turner's end of year book survey!

2014 Reading Stats

Number of Books You Read: 53 so far!

Number of Rereads: 2

Genre You Read the Most From: Historical fiction. I think.

Best In Books

1. Best Book You Read in 2014?

Feed by Mira Grant. So much love for that book. (Reviewed here!)

2. Book you were excited about and thought you were going to love more but didn't?

The Giver by Lois Lowry was a huge disappointment for me. (Reviewed here!)

3. Most surprising (in a good or bad way) book you read in 2014?

Grave Mercy was a very pleasant surprise. I thought it was going to be just okay, but I actually really enjoyed it!

4. Book you "pushed" the most people to read (and they did) in 2014?

I've basically been telling everyone to read Feed since I finished it, and I've managed to get one of my friends to at least start it - although that could be because I bought her the trilogy for her birthday...

5. Best series you started in 2014? Best sequel of 2014? Best series ender of 2014? 

For the sake of mentioning three different series, I'd have to say that the His Fair Assassin trilogy was the best series I started, Cress was the best sequel, and Blackout was the best series ender. Even though I haven't actually finished reading it yet...

(And shout out to the Rosie Hopkins series for helping me out of my reading slump and cheering me up!)

6. Favourite new author you discovered in 2014?

 Daphne du Maurier. She isn't a new author by any means, but I read her for the first time this year and fell absolutely in love with her. I wrote a post about my favourite new authors of 2014 here if you'd like to check it out.

7. Best book from a genre you don't typically read/was out of your comfort zone?

I don't tend to read a lot of poetry (even though I should!) but one of the best books I read this year was The Undressed by Jemma L. King, and I want to read more of King's work in future.

8. Most action packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?

Feed. Loved it. It was amazing. Read it. (I should warn you now that Feed is probably going to be mentioned a lot.)

9. Book you read in 2014 that you are most likely to reread in 2015?

Probably Cress! I loved it, and Winter isn't coming out until November.

10. Favourite cover of a book you read in 2014?

I love the covers for The Lunar Chronicles.

11. Most memorable character of 2014?

Georgia Mason, star of Feed and my baby.

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2014?

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. Stunning book.

13. Most thought-provoking/life-changing book of 2014?

Again, Feed. I really, really loved this book.

14. Book you can't believe you waited until 2014 to finally read?

Honestly I'm pretty ashamed that it took me until 2014 to cross Rebecca off my TBR.

15. Favourite passage/quote from a book you read in 2014?

"This is the truth: We are a nation accustomed to being afraid. If I’m being honest, not just with you but with myself, it’s not just the nation, and it’s not just something we’ve grown used to. It’s the world, and it’s an addiction. People crave fear. Fear justifies everything. Fear makes it okay to have surrendered freedom after freedom, until our every move is tracked and recorded in a dozen databases the average man will never have access to. Fear creates, defines, and shapes our world, and without it, most of us would have no idea what to do with ourselves. Our ancestors dreamed of a world without boundaries, while we dream new boundaries to put around our homes, our children, and ourselves. We limit our potential day after day in the name of a safety that we refuse to ever achieve. We took a world that was huge with possibility, and we made it as small as we could." - Feed by Mira Grant

16. Shortest and Longest Book you read in 2014?

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was the shortest, and American Gods by Neil Gaiman was the longest.

17. Book that shocked you the most?

That would have to be Feed.

18. OTP of the year

Cinder and Kai from The Lunar Chronicles, Lilian and Henry from the Rosie Hopkins books, and Sybella and Beast in Dark Triumph. Sorry, I couldn't choose only one.

19. Favourite non-romantic relationship of the year?

I will forever love the bromance between Cinder and Thorne.

20. Favourite book you read in 2014 from an author you've read previously?

That would have to be The Graveyard Book. I ended up reading a lot of Gaiman this year, having previously read Neverwhere and Smoke and Mirrors, and even though I adored American Gods, which was the first book I read this year, I think I love The Graveyard Book just a little more. I don't know what it is about this book, it's just enchanting.

21. Best book you read in 2014 based solely on recommendations

Uh... I honestly don't know.

22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2014?

I have to admit I'm sort of attracted to Skinner Sweet from American Vampire, but I also love Thorne from The Lunar Chronicles and Beast from His Fair Assassin.

23. Best 2014 debut you read?

I haven't read any because I'm a terrible person book blogger. I'm hoping to cross Half Bad and Red Rising off my TBR before the end of the year, though!

24. Best worldbuilding/most vivid setting you read this year?

I know I keep mentioning it, but I loved how Mira Grant imagined the future in the Newsflesh trilogy. Everything felt so well thought out; it's the most realistic zombie story I've come across.

25. Book that put a smile on your face/was the most fun to read?

Cress, I think. I smiled a lot.

26. Book that made you cry/nearly cry in 2014? 

Glitches, Feed, Deadline, The Graveyard Book and Christmas at Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop all made me cry because I'm a huge cry baby and I get very emotional about characters I love.

27. Hidden gem of the year?

I think I have to say The Undressed again. So far I'm the only person who's rated it on Goodreads and it's such a great poetry collection that needs a lot more love!

28. Book that crushed your soul?

Feed. It's just going to keep popping up.

29. Most unique book you read in 2014?

I really enjoyed my reread of Tim Burton's The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories. It's such a bizarre little collection.

30. Book that made you the most mad?

The Withered Root by Rhys Davies. I just really hated it.

Your Blogging/Bookish life

1. New favourite book blog you discovered in 2014?

This is the first year I've properly blogged, so pretty much all the blogs I've followed have been my new favourites. But I will say some special shout outs to Mallory, Chrissi, Leah, Shannon, Mel, Rinn, Deanna and Cecily who all have great blogs and are also lovely people.

2. Favourite review that you wrote in 2014?

I really enjoyed writing my review of Rainbow Rowell's Attachments.

3. Best discussion/non-review post on your blog?

I've loved writing my Classics & Contemporaries posts, so much so that instead of limiting myself to a specific number like I was originally going to I'm just going to keep making them as and when I feel like making them!

I've also really enjoyed writing my Stories & Songs posts.

4. Best event that you participated in?

I think that'd have to be Sci-Fi November, hosted by Rinn Reads and Oh, The Books - it was a lot of fun! But this year I've also really enjoyed taking part in blog hops like Top Ten Tuesday and What's Up Wednesday.

5. Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2014?

For me the fact that I have been posting regularly has been a real success for me, because it's something I could never do when I tried to get into blogging in the past.

6. Most popular post this year on your blog?

I honestly don't know. Probably one of my Top Ten Tuesday or What's Up Wednesday posts!

7. Post you wished got a little more love?

Any of my Classics & Contemporaries posts. :)

8. Best bookish discovery?

This year I discovered that I do actually like sci-fi!

9. Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you set for yourself at the start of the year?

I'm two books away from completing this year's Goodreads challenge!

Looking Ahead

1. One book you didn't get to in 2014 that will be your top priority in 2015?

Lamentation by C. J. Sansom - I can't wait for the paperback release!

2. Non-debut you are most anticipating in 2015?

The Dinosaur Lords by Victor Milán

3. 2015 debut you are most anticipating?

The Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker

4. Series ending/sequel you are most anticipating in 2015?

Winter by Marissa Meyer. I'm so excited!

5. One thing you hope to accomplish/do in your reading/blogging life in 2015?

I'd love to see if I can complete ten series in 2015!

6. A 2015 release you've already read and recommend to everyone

I haven't read any - I'm not special enough. ;)