Top Ten Tuesday | More Anticipated 2017 Releases

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 'Top Ten Most Anticipated Books For The Second Half of 2017', so below are the ten books, published between July and December of this year, that I'm most looking forward to!

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: Ng's debut, Everything I Never Told You (reviewed here), was the best book I read last year, so I can't wait to get my hands on her second novel. She has a real talent for writing families and I'm hoping this book's going to be just as good as, if not better than, her first.

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: If you've been following my blog for a while then you'll know I'm a big fan of Moreno-Garcia's work. Her debut, Signal to Noise (reviewed here), is one of my favourite books of all time and I really enjoyed her second novel, Certain Dark Things (reviewed here), too. Her third novel seems to be a kind of fantasy of manners book - it's giving me The Night Circus vibes - and I can't wait to read it.

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant: Grant is the author of one of my other favourite books, Feed, and Into the Drowning Deep is a novel-length sequel to her horror novella, Rolling in the Deep (reviewed here). I must thank Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies for bringing it to my attention, because after reading Rolling in the Deep I remember thinking I'd love to read something longer about Grant's killer mermaids.

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin: The final book in Jemisin's The Broken Earth trilogy which is simply fantastic. I can't wait to see how Jemisin concludes this story.

Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann: I love me some Tudor history, and this book sounds fascinating. When we think of Tudor England we imagine a very white England, but Kaufmann has written a book about the black people who were very much around during this time. October is Black History Month in the UK, so I'm aiming to read this book this autumn.

There's Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins: I haven't read any of Perkins' novels, Anna and the French Kiss etc. don't really interest me, but I did enjoy her short story in My True Love Gave to Me and I'm very interested in checking out a novel described as Scream meets YA. I really enjoyed Riley Sager's Final Girls (reviewed here) earlier this year, so I'd love to read more novels that play on slasher movie tropes.

Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw: Urban fantasy doesn't tend to be a genre that reels me in, but every now and then I'm in the mood for it and this sounds interesting! I love it when stories play around with the Dr. Helsing figure.

A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge: This has a beautiful cover, ghosts and it's released on my birthday - what's not to love? I've also read virtually no historical fiction set during the English Civil War, so this should be interesting.

The Tiger's Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera: Eastern-inspired high fantasy and girls kissing. It's all I need in a book.

The Orphan of Florence by Jeanne Kalogridis: If a story's set in Florence then I'm already sold, and if it's set in Renaissance Florence I want it even more.

Which books made your list this week?

Top Ten Tuesday | First Impressions

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 I Loved Less/More Than I Thought I Would', so my list is divided in half with five books I liked more than I thought I would and five I liked less than I thought I would. On with my list!

Books I liked more than I thought I would

Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: I know! Considering how much I talk about this book, who'd've thought I wasn't always sure it was going to be for me. I don't know what it is, but I'm never drawn to books set during the '80s so I really didn't know what I was going to make of this. What I got was a fantastic coming-of-age story along with totally unique witchcraft - I love it!

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: I saw Mallory @ The Local Muse mention this and decided to pick it up, but it seems the '80s aren't the only decade I tend to stay away from - to be honest I don't tend to read much fiction set in the 20th century after the 1950s, and I'm not usually a big lover of family sagas because there's always at least one person I don't care about and I get bored, but this debut proved to be the exception. It's written and plotted beautifully and I can't recommend it enough.

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn: This is a tricky one in that I didn't realise I had actually really enjoyed it until a couple of weeks after I finished it. When I initially finished I wasn't sure how to feel about it, and I felt little cheated by the ending, but then I couldn't stop thinking about it and the more I think about it the more I realise how cleverly it was plotted.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: Austen and I have a difficult relationship and a couple of years ago I read Northanger Abbey after avoiding Austen for around five years. I actually quite liked it, and I'm tempted to give her another chance.

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney: I had a very similar experience with this book as I did with Dark Places. I couldn't stop thinking about it despite not enjoying it as much as I thought I would, and now I think I'd like to re-read it in future so I can fully appreciate it.

Books I liked less than I thought I would

St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell: I went into this short story collection full of hope and it just wasn't for me. I liked a lot of the ideas behind some of the stories, but I felt like every single story had a very weak ending that Russell just didn't know how to execute... so she didn't do anything. Not for me, sadly!

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn: Unlike Dark Places, I haven't developed a new respect for Sharp Objects since I finished it and I was so hopeful. I don't really have any interest in reading Gone Girl, but I do think Flynn is a fantastic writer and I was very excited to read her debut; I love stories that explore mother and daughter relationships, especially the creepy ones like Carrie and Black Swan, and I'm all for Southern Gothic, but this story and I didn't get along at all. Dark Places felt clever, Sharp Objects felt gratuitous.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik: I didn't dislike Uprooted, but I didn't love it either and I was hoping I would as my lovely friend Natalie @ A Sea Change thought very highly of it. I just felt kind of 'meh' about the whole thing and that was mainly because of the way it was written; I don't know what it is about Naomi Novik's writing in this book, but it felt like a struggle to get through. The cover is beautiful, though.

Among Others by Jo Walton: So many people love this book and I hated it! I really wish it didn't because it sounds like the perfect book, but I had way too many problems with it to enjoy it.

Summer Days & Summer Nights ed. by Stephanie Perkins: I really enjoyed My True Love Gave to Me, but I ended up DNFing this one. So many of the stories were so bloody depressing until it eventually got to the point where I realised I didn't care anymore. I did enjoy Leigh Bardugo's story, so I'm planning to read Six of Crows this year.

Which books made your list this week?

Olympic Book Tag

The 2016 Olympic Games begin this Friday, which is bizarre; it feels like only yesterday I was watching the 2012 opening ceremony and Rio seemed so far away. How time flies.

Despite not being sporty in the slightest I do enjoy watching bits of the Olympics and luckily, for unfit bookworms such as myself, the lovely Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight has created an Olympic Book Tag so people like me can get involved with the celebrations without breaking out into a sweat, tears or any other kind of bodily fluid.

So, without further ado, let's do the Olympic Book Tag!

I actually found this really difficult to answer, because it's very rarely that I love a book from the very first page. Some of my favourite books in the world I wasn't sure about when I first started reading them, and some books I hate I thought I was going to enjoy when I read the first page. In the end I decided to go with My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland, because it was just what I needed when I read it and, from the very first page, I was invested, interested and entertained.

Technically it's more of a space trip than a road trip, but the title says it all: Becky Chambers' gorgeous debut really is about the long way to a small, angry planet. I love this book, and I can't wait to read A Closed and Common Orbit!

I really don't like love triangles, so I can't answer this one. I'm sure there are some brilliantly written ones somewhere but they're not something I enjoy reading at all.

I enjoyed Transformations, I love poetry that's inspired by fairy tales, but I'm still learning how to understand poetry; I read fiction and non-fiction way more than I read poetry, something I'm trying to rectify, so when I do read poetry I don't always understand it the first time around...

You can't get more summery than a summer-themed anthology! Honestly this anthology is a lot gloomier than I expected it to be considering how cutesy the cover is, so I'd recommend My True Love Gave to Me over this one.

There's a lot more violence in Dark Places than I was expecting, but it suits what's essentially a violent story. I wasn't keen on Gillian Flynn's debut, Sharp Objects, but this book is brilliant.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Fingersmith is the twistiest, turniest book I've ever read, and it's fantastic. Check out Sarah Waters if you haven't already!

I'm still not over it.

One of my favourite novels of all time, The Goblin Emperor's like a rich, delicious bar of chocolate you have to savour to enjoy. To be honest whenever I read this book I speed through it because I love it so much, but it's certainly slower than a lot of the more action-packed fantasy books out there.

I adored The Rainbow Fish when I was a little girl - it's one of the first books I can remember reading, or having read to me, along with The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and I think I actually liked this one more than The Very Hungry Caterpillar...

If you didn't know already I love guinea pigs, so what could be more perfect than A Guinea Pig Pride & Prejudice?

I know it's basically SFF blasphemy, but I really didn't enjoy Among Others and I had to force myself to finish it. Check out my review here if you'd like to know more about my thoughts on it!

Whose friendship could possibly be better than Harry, Ron and Hermione's? I love these three dorks, and this series, a hell of a lot.

All three of these books are on my TBR! Dark Mermaids is a crime thriller that features Olympic swimmers who, rather topically, were doped by their government; The Fair Fight is all about 18th century female boxers; and Eat Sweat Play is a non-fiction book about the role of sport in women's lives.

Thanks to Shannon for creating a great tag, and if you want to do it then do it! I'd love to see your answers.

Top Ten Tuesday | My Summer TBR

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 a freebie, so I'm going to share my summer TBR with you!

The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson: I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley which I still haven't read because I've been saving it for the summer months - I think it sounds lovely.

Summer Days & Summer Nights ed. by Stephanie Perkins: I really enjoyed My True Love Gave to Me, so I'm looking forward to diving into this summery anthology!

Diving Belles by Lucy Wood: My family and I are off to Cornwall in the last week of July. and I'm planning to take Diving Belles with me; this is a short story collection in which all of the stories have been inspired by Cornish folklore, making it the perfect book to take on holiday with me!

The Muse by Jessie Burton: I loved The Miniaturist so, naturally, I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of Burton's second novel at the end of this month.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray: I'm pretty sure Beauty Queens was on my summer TBR last year too, but I still haven't got around to reading it - it sounds like a great read for the summer, and I'm looking forward to some tongue-in-cheek, feminist fun!

The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger: I finally read Soulless this month and had so much fun with it that I'm planning to read the rest of the series, and I'd love to get all of the books under my belt over the summer.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë: As it's Charlotte Brontë's bicentenary this year, it only seems right to re-read her most famous novel. I love Jane Eyre but it's been quite a while since I read it, so I'd love to read it again this summer.

Which books made your list this week?

2016 Releases I've Pre-Ordered: The Updated Version

Earlier this year I wrote a post about some of the 2016 releases I've pre-ordered, and today I'm back with an updated version because some of the books I mentioned last time have since been released and there are some books that have since become available to pre-order!

The Tale of Tales by Giambattista Basile (Penguin Classics, April): Before the Brothers Grimm, before Charles Perrault, before Hans Christian Andersen, there was Giambattista Basile, a seventeenth-century poet from Naples, Italy, whom the Grimms credit with recording the first national collection of fairy tales. The Tale of Tales opens with Princess Zoza, unable to laugh no matter how funny the joke. Her father, the king, attempts to make her smile; instead he leaves her cursed, whereupon the prince she is destined to marry is snatched up by another woman. To expose this impostor and win back her rightful husband, Zoza contrives a storytelling extravaganza: fifty fairy tales to be told by ten sharp-tongued women (including Zoza in disguise) over five days.

Summer Days, Summer Nights ed. by Stephanie Perkins (Pan MacMillan, June): Maybe it's the long, lazy days, or maybe it's the heat making everyone a little bit crazy. Whatever the reason, summer is the perfect time for love to bloom. Summer Days, Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories, written by twelve bestselling young adult writers and edited by the international bestselling author Stephanie Perkins, will have you dreaming of sunset strolls by the lake. So set out your beach chair and grab your sunglasses. You have twelve reasons this summer to soak up the sun and fall in love.

Unicorn Tracks by Julia Ember (Harmony Ink Press, April): After a savage attack drives her from her home, sixteen-year-old Mnemba finds a place in her cousin Tumelo’s successful safari business, where she quickly excels as a guide. Surrounding herself with nature and the mystical animals inhabiting the savannah not only allows Mnemba’s tracking skills to shine, it helps her to hide from the terrible memories that haunt her. Mnemba is employed to guide Mr. Harving and his daughter, Kara, through the wilderness as they study unicorns. The young women are drawn to each other, despite that fact that Kara is betrothed. During their research, they discover a conspiracy by a group of poachers to capture the Unicorns and exploit their supernatural strength to build a railway. Together, they must find a way to protect the creatures Kara adores while resisting the love they know they can never indulge.

Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst (Balzer + Bray, November): Betrothed since childhood to the prince of Mynaria, Princess Dennaleia has always known what her future holds. Her marriage will seal the alliance between Mynaria and her homeland, protecting her people from other hostile lands. But Denna has a secret. She possesses an Affinity for fire—a dangerous gift for the future queen of a kingdom where magic is forbidden. Now, Denna must learn the ways of her new home while trying to hide her growing magic. To make matters worse, she must learn to ride Mynaria’s formidable warhorses before her coronation—and her teacher is the person who intimidates her most, the prickly and unconventional Princess Amaranthine (called Mare), sister of her betrothed. When a shocking assassination leaves the kingdom reeling, Mare and Denna reluctantly join forces to search for the culprit. As the two work together, each discovers there’s more to the other than she thought. Mare is surprised by Denna’s intelligence and bravery, while Denna is drawn to Mare’s independent streak. Soon their friendship is threatening to blossom into something more. But with dangerous conflict brewing that makes the alliance more important than ever, acting on their feelings could be deadly. Forced to choose between their duty and their hearts, Mare and Denna must find a way to save their kingdoms—and each other.

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler (Knopf Doubleday, June): Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister Bunny? Plus, she’s always in trouble at work – her pre-school charges adore her, but their parents don’t always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner. Dr. Battista has other problems. After years out in the academic wilderness, he is on the verge of a breakthrough. His research could help millions. There’s only one problem: his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. And without Pyotr, all would be lost. When Dr. Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he’s relying – as usual – on Kate to help him. Kate is furious: this time he’s really asking too much. But will she be able to resist the two men’s touchingly ludicrous campaign to bring her around?

As I Descended by Robin Talley (HarperTeen, September): Maria Lyon and Lily Boiten are their school’s ultimate power couple—even if no one knows it but them. Only one thing stands between them and their perfect future: campus superstar Delilah Dufrey. Golden child Delilah is a legend at the exclusive Acheron Academy, and the presumptive winner of the distinguished Cawdor Kingsley Prize. She runs the school, and if she chose, she could blow up Maria and Lily’s whole world with a pointed look, or a carefully placed word. But what Delilah doesn’t know is that Lily and Maria are willing to do anything—absolutely anything—to make their dreams come true. And the first step is unseating Delilah for the Kingsley Prize. The full scholarship, awarded to Maria, will lock in her attendance at Stanford―and four more years in a shared dorm room with Lily. Maria and Lily will stop at nothing to ensure their victory—including harnessing the dark power long rumored to be present on the former plantation that houses their school. But when feuds turn to fatalities, and madness begins to blur the distinction between what’s real and what is imagined, the girls must decide where they draw the line.

The Muse by Jessie Burton (Picador, June): England, 1967. Odelle Bastien is a Caribbean émigré trying to make her way in London. When she starts working at the prestigious Skelton Art Gallery, she discovers a painting rumored to be the work of Isaac Robles, a young artist of immense talent and vision whose mysterious death has confounded the art world for decades. The excitement over the painting is matched by the intrigue around the conflicting stories of its discovery. Drawn into a complex web of secrets and deceptions, Odelle does not know what to believe or who she can trust, including her mesmerizing colleague, Marjorie Quick. Spain, 1937. Olive Schloss, the daughter of a Viennese Jewish art dealer and English heiress, follows her parents to Arazuelo, a poor, restless village on the southern coast. She grows close to Teresa, a young housekeeper, and her half-brother Isaac Robles, an idealistic and ambitious painter newly returned from the Barcelona salons. A dilettante buoyed by the revolutionary fervor that will soon erupt into civil war, Isaac dreams of being a painter as famous as his countryman, Picasso. Raised in poverty, these illegitimate children of the local landowner revel in exploiting this wealthy Anglo-Austrian family. Insinuating themselves into the Schloss’s lives, Teresa and Isaac help Olive conceal her artistic talents with devastating consequences that will echo into the decades to come.

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Thomas Dunne Books, October): Welcome to Mexico City, an oasis in a sea of vampires. Here in the city, heavily policed to keep the creatures of the night at bay, Domingo is another trash-picking street kid, just hoping to make enough to survive. Then he meets Atl, the descendant of Aztec blood drinkers. Domingo is smitten. He clings to her like a barnacle until Atl relents and decides to let him stick around. But Atl's problems, Nick and Rodrigo, have come to find her. When they start to raise the body count in the city, it attracts the attention of police officers, local crime bosses, and the vampire community. Atl has to get out before Mexico City is upended, and her with it.

The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley (Tor, May): A powerful collection of essays on feminism, geek culture, and a writer’s journey, from one of the most important new voices in genre. The Geek Feminist Revolution is a collection of essays by double Hugo Award-winning essayist and science fiction and fantasy novelist Kameron Hurley. The book collects dozens of Hurley’s essays on feminism, geek culture, and her experiences and insights as a genre writer, including “We Have Always Fought,” which won the 2014 Hugo for Best Related Work. The Geek Feminist Revolution will also feature several entirely new essays written specifically for this volume. Unapologetically outspoken, Hurley has contributed essays to The Atlantic, Locus, Tor.com, and elsewhere on the rise of women in genre, her passion for SF/F, and the diversification of publishing.

The View From the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman (Headline, May): An inquisitive observer, thoughtful commentator, and assiduous craftsman, Neil Gaiman has long been celebrated for the sharp intellect and startling imagination that informs his bestselling fiction. Now, The View from the Cheap Seats brings together for the first time ever more than sixty pieces of his outstanding nonfiction. Analytical yet playful, erudite yet accessible, this cornucopia explores a broad range of interests and topics, including (but not limited to): authors past and present; music; storytelling; comics; bookshops; travel; fairy tales; America; inspiration; libraries; ghosts; and the title piece, at turns touching and self-deprecating, which recounts the author’s experiences at the 2010 Academy Awards in Hollywood.  Insightful, incisive, witty, and wise, The View from the Cheap Seats explores the issues and subjects that matter most to Neil Gaiman—offering a glimpse into the head and heart of one of the most acclaimed, beloved, and influential artists of our time.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (Tor, April): Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter. No matter the cost.

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton, October): Lovelace was once merely a ship's artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who's determined to help her learn and grow. Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people can fill it together.

Paper Girls, Vol.1 by Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang and Matthew Wilson (Image Comics, March): In the early hours after Halloween of 1988, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama and otherworldly mysteries collide in this smash-hit series about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood.

Rat Queens, Vol.3: Demons by Kurtis J. Wiebe, Tess Fowler and Tamra Bonvillain (Image Comics, April): Having survived the end of the world, the Queens follow Hannah back to where it all began: Mage University. A long perilous journey awaits the Rat Queens as they attempt to find out what happened to Hannah's father while battling their own demons.

American Vampire, Vol.8 by Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque (DC Comics, July): Vampires in space? It's 1965. Pearl and Skinner escaped The Gray Trader with more questions than answers, and their search for clues leads them to ... NASA! You've never seen vampires like this before, as the second major story arc of American Vampire: Second Cycle begins!

Have you pre-ordered any books this year? Which books are you most looking forward to in 2016?

2016 Releases I've Pre-Ordered

So I went on a bit of a pre-ordering spree in the last couple of months of 2015 and January. I want to try and buy less books this year (hahaha) but now that I'm working I don't see why I shouldn't pre-order the books I really want to get my hands on! I know amazon is kind of evil in the bookworm, if I could afford to I wish I could buy all of my books from bookshops, but I do really like to pre-order stuff from amazon. Why? Because they don't charge you until they dispatch your order, so rather than spend a ridiculous amount all at once, my book buying is just as staggered throughout the year as it usually would be.

Anyway, here are the ten books I've pre-ordered this year. I also pre-ordered Stars Above, which has already arrived, and there are a few others I want to pre-order but haven't been able to yet, so these aren't the only books I'll be pre-ordering. It's most of them, though!

So Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Seanan McGuire (also known as Mira Grant) are releasing new books this year, and considering Signal to Noise and Feed are two of my favourite novels of all time, it's to be expected that I've already pre-ordered these two. Certain Dark Things is about vampires and drug lords in Mexico City, and it just sounds brilliant, while Every Heart a Doorway sounds like a darker and better version of Narnia.

I want to continue to read more non-fiction this year, and these two sound great. Firstly, the cover of The Geek Feminist Revolution is fantastic, and it sounds like a book that's going to be right up my alley; this is probably my most anticipated non-fiction book of this year! The View from the Cheap Seats is a collection of Neil Gaiman's essays, and considering Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite writers I'm looking forward to reading some of his non-fiction - other than Make Good Art, I haven't read any.

Unicorn Tracks is Julia Ember's debut novel that involves LGBT+ characters and unicorns. Naturally I've been ancticipating it for a while, and I can't wait to get my hands on my copy of it! Paper Girls is the first volume of a new series written by Brian K. Vaughan, the writer behind Saga, and illustrators Cliff Chiang and Matthew Wilson. It's been described as Stand By Me meets The War of the Worlds, so I'm there!

An anthology of female-led historical fiction is what awaits me in A Tyranny of Petticoats, featuring authors such as Marissa Meyer, Robin Talley and Elizabeth Wein. Needless to say, I'm excited. The last anthology I read was My True Love Gave to Me, and because I enjoyed it so much I decided I might as well go ahead and pre-order Summer Days & Summer Nights - I'm hoping there'll be a UK edition that matches my edition of My True Love Gave to Me.

Robin Talley's As I Descended and Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl are both Shakespeare retellings, and as 2016 commemorates 400 years since Shakespeare's death I imagine we're going to see a lot of those. I really, really enjoyed Talley's debut Lies We Tell Ourselves, so I'm really looking forward to her modern day lesbian retelling of Macbeth, and while I haven't read any Anne Tyler before I think her retelling of The Taming of the Shrew sounds wonderful.

Have you pre-ordered any 2016 releases?

Top Ten Tuesday | Hyped Books I've Never Read

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 'Top Ten Hyped Books I've Never Read' or, in my case, in which Jess has read basically none of the most popular YA books out there.

I have nothing against YA. In fact I think YA's pretty great, but I definitely haven't read mainly YA in a while. I don't want to say I've 'grown out of it' because a) I don't think it's possible to grow out of books and b) I think saying something like that sounds as though you're saying YA is a juvenile genre, when actually there's a lot of really important YA out there.

However, as a reader who primarily reads speculative fiction I find it very hard to read YA that isn't the same as the last YA book I read. I think the genre is definitely starting to change, in fact it's always changing, but what I mean is it does seem to finally be growing out of the constant love triangles between the heroines who aren't like other girls, who are plain but stunning, and the two guys who are either the friendzoned best friend or the dark, brooding asshole.

Anyway. There's a lot of YA I haven't read, despite how popular it might be, because it falls into that trend and, not to sound too much like a hipster, I really hate that aspect of YA. I hate the sameness to so many books in the genre, though I fully understand there are plenty of YA books that are completely different.

(I should also say that if the books I just said I didn't like are the books you do like, that's fine! I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad about what they read, this is just how I personally feel.)

I also find myself reading a lot more standalones than series nowadays, and it's so rare to come across a YA book in the speculative fiction category that doesn't get stretched into a series.

So some of these hyped books I haven't read for the reasons above, and there's nothing wrong with that, and some of them (not all of them are YA!) I haven't read because I just haven't gotten to them yet!

On with my list!

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell: This has been on my TBR for a long while, and now I even own a copy so I will get around to it at some point, but I'm very hesitant to go into it. On the one hand I love that this is a YA book with an overweight protagonist, but on the other hand I've seen many reviews that have talked about the blatant racism and fetishism surrounding Park that have made me really reluctant to pick it up. The reviews I've seen in which they've pulled direct quotes from the book have made me cringe.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins: I know a lot of people love this book and the two books that follow it, but it's just never interested me. I did enjoy Stephanie Perkins' story 'It's a Christmas Miracle, Charlie Brown' in My True Love Gave to Me, but I still have no real interest in picking up any of her novels.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas: Maas and I just don't get along. I have nothing against her personally, of course, but I just have no interest in her stories. I picked up a copy of Throne of Glass and then ending up DNFing it after a couple of chapters because I just wasn't feeling it, and I have no interest whatsoever in A Court of Thorns and Roses. I think it's amazing that she has such a huge fanbase, it's really lovely, but sadly I'm not one of those fans.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare: Again, I just have no interest in reading this series. See? YA blasphemy. I know Cassandra Clare has an even bigger fanbase than Sarah J. Maas, but I've just never found any of her books that appealing. Plus I don't like the way she speaks to some of her readers.

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi: Yet another series I have no interest in. I don't like love triangles and, even though a lot of people seem to love him, Warner puts a bad taste in my mouth and I really don't like it when a character's behaviour is excused because they have daddy issues.

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead: Now this one I would quite like to read, I've just never gotten around to it. Since Twilight I've stayed away from YA vampire stories, but I don't think that's fair because I imagine there are plenty of YA vampire stories that are amazing. Though I must admit I've never found vampires that interesting; when it comes to fantastical creatures I'm a lot more interested in witches and werewolves. I've heard a lot of great things about this series, so I'd like to give it a try eventually!

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell: I've owned Fangirl since it was released because I'd heard such wonderful things about it, but ever since I came across those reviews of Eleanor & Park I've been hesitant to go near any of Rowell's writing. The only novel of her's I've read is Attachments, which I thought was only okay, and I read her short story in My True Love Gave to Me which, while I enjoyed it, wasn't one of my favourites. Not only that but I've been nervous to read a book about a girl starting uni now that I've left, because I'm worried I'll feel really sad.

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater: I own this and I can't wait to get to it, I just haven't read it yet!

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab: Same goes for this one, I haven't read it yet but it's waiting on my shelf for me!

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson: I own this one too, in fact I own the whole Mistborn trilogy because I heard such amazing things about it, but I'm slowly getting back into high fantasy and I don't feel quite ready to tackle this one yet. I will, though!

Which books made your list?