Random Musings of a Bibliophile

2016 in BOOKS For the past few years Jamie at Perpetual Page Turner has created an end of year survey to recap a year of reading. She didn't do a new one this year, but I enjoy doing it so much I decided to use last year's template for this year. (Edit 12/29: Jamie has put her post up! Go and check it out , along with all of the links to other people's surveys.) Reading Stats Number of New to Me Books: 153 Genre I read Most of: MG Speculative (links are to my reviews) MG Realistic: Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand MG Speculative: The Left-Handed Fate  by Kate Milford YA Realistic: Burn Baby Burn  by Meg Medina and Exit Pursued by a Bear  by E.K. Johnston (I couldn't chooooosssse!!!!!) YA Speculative: Rose & Thorn by Sarah Prineas  Adult: Earth Bound  by Emma Barry and Genevie ve Turner Book I was Excited About Then Disappointed In: The Legend of Sam Miracle by N.D. Wilson Most Surp...

Here are some shorter musings on recent reads. Impyrium by Henry H. Neff This isn't really my favorite type of book. I don't typically enjoy worlds that are distant futures of our own mixed with traditional fantasy elements. This one made little sense to me despite the intricate very very detailed world building. (This book is loooooong. And detailed. Did I mention the details?) I find that in these books I grown annoyed at the quaint references to things in our own time. This held true in this book. All the details of the world and the author's need to continuously explain his plot to me left little page space for character development. I wasn't invested in them at all. I recognize that a lot of this is personal taste issues. The book is not bad, it's just really not for me. If you have a young person in your life who loves to devour long epic type fantasies, this is for them. Making Mistakes on Purpose  by Elise Primavera This is one of those absurd over th...

I have mentioned several times before my penchant of reading a recommended book without actually ever looking at the synopsis. Such was the case with Insert Coin to Continue by John David Anderson. It was recommended and  is a Cybils nominee so I just didn't bother. I assumed it was a book about a kid who gets trapped inside a video game. But that's not what happens at all. His life becomes  a video game, and that's an interesting twist to the story idea. Bryan is a master at playing Sovereign of Darkness, his favorite video game. He's defeated it several times but he keeps playing because he is absolutely certain there is a secret hidden extra level after defeating the ultimate bad. One night all is effort and time are rewarded when it looks like he's unlocked it..... Then his computer crashes. Bryan wakes up the next morning to the words INSERT COIN TO CONTINUE flashing above his alarm clock with numbers counting down from 20. And he can't move his legs...

Top Ten Tuesday  is a Meme hosted by  The Broke and the Bookish This week's TTT topic: Favorite New To Me Authors I Read for the First Time in 2016 Patrick Samphire made his MG debut this year with Secrets of the Dragon Tomb . He also released a novella set in the same world titled The Dinosaur Hunters . I loved both of them and can not wait to read his 2017 release. Michael Dante DiMartino is one of the original creators/writers of Avatar: the Last Airbender, which I've never watched. (I know.) Rebel Genius is his first novel and I could not put this book down. I'm really looking forward to seeing where he takes this series. Also I will watch ATLA now. I can't remember who first recommended Joanna Bourne's books to me, but I have a lot of friends who love them. Now I love them too. Her series spans Revolutionary through Post-Napoleon France and its wars with England. British Intelligence agents and French women dedicated to their country in vari...

It's time for one of my favorite posts of the year! I love characters. They are what keep me reading and make me fall in love with books. Here is a list of the characters I fell in love with for the first time in the past year. (If I read a book with characters I loved, but was introduced to through a series in a previous year, I don't include them in this list. It is for new new characters.) There is something truly special about characters who stick with you long after you've closed the pages of the book where they live. Adrian Hawkhurst and Justine DeCrabillac from the Spymasters series by Joanna Bourne I have a great fondness for a lot of the characters in this series: Doyle and Maggie are awesome too, as are Pax and Camille, but I haven't been as invested in a ship in a romance series like I was in Adrian/Justine......well, ever. Probably because most romance series don't have ships like this one, where it is featured in more than on e book. Bourne made i...

I tend to not be able to resist books that feature teens on summer adventures in Europe (especially if they promise a bit of romance). I've been burned by a lot of these books, but Love & Gelato  by Jenna Evans Welch is one that didn't disappoint on any level and left me fully satisfied at the end. Lina is spending the summer in Florence with the father she has never met. It was the dying wish of her mother who died of cancer a few months before Lina arrives. Determined to only be there for the summer and then return to the  US, Lina is not at all excited about forced bonding time with Howard and definitely doesn't want to settle in. She is here only for her mother. When an old friend of her dad's gives her the journal her mother kept during her time in Italy, Lina knows she has to read it no matter how sad it makes her feel. Armed with the journal and the help of her new friend Lorenzo, Lina sets out to follow her mother's footsteps from all those years ago ...

F uzzy is the latest offering  from Tom Angleberger (author of the Origami Yoda series) and was cowritten by Paul Dellinger. It is a humorous school story that is full of intrigue,  humor, and robots. Fifty years in the future schools are controlled by a strict Federal School Board. The students take tests every week to prove that they are "upgrading" well enough. In one school Max (Maxine) is having a rough time. Her test scores are falling even though she studies hard and knows the answers. The computer vice-principal known as Barbara is also constantly giving her discipline tags. But Max has something to be excited about because her school is about to get the first robot to be integrated with humans. The handlers of "Fuzzy" choose Max as the robot's guide and soon the robot and the girl are connecting. When Fuzzy figures out that Barbara has developed a mind of her own and is changing students' test scores. Fuzzy, Max, and their other friends have to t...