Wednesday, January 1, 2014

My Best Reads of 2013

I said good-bye to some of my all time favorite series this year. The Wheel of Time came to end. This was one series I thought needed to end because the books were sooooo long, but hated for it to because it was so darn good! Sookie Stackhouse and the Southern Vampire series also came to an end, although I'm willing to bet there will be a few short stories here and there. I don't blame Charlaine Harris for ending it - they have made such a HUGE mess of it on HBO. The only good thing I can say about the changes they made from the books is that they kept Lafayette alive because that actor is awesome, but him a voodoo king? No, never mind, they managed to mess that up too.

I got stingy with rating books "5 stars" this year. Most were a 4. They only got 5 when they were truly of the "Hunger Games" or "Harry Potter" category. All the 5's will make this "Best of" list and some of my favorite 4's.

I managed to finish 192 books last year. My goal was 125, so I over did it a little. I had a semi-major surgery and wound up off work for 6 weeks or that number would have been a lot closer to 125.

Print Books: 10
E-Books: 80
Audio books: 102
Total pages: 59,200 (approximately - some books were audio only and had no page numbers so I could not count those and I'm too lazy to add them again to double-check)

January:
Die Snow White, Damn You Die! by Yuri Rasovsky
Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr
Trilogy within a series: Fever Dream, Cold Vengeance, Two Graves by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey

February:
Terminal Freeze by Lincoln Child

March (the big stay at home month!):
Angelfall by Susan Ee
4 books in a series by Wendy Corsi Straub: Lilly Dale: Awakening, Believing, Connecting, Discovering
Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls by Jane Lindskoid
Witch's Daughter by Paula Brackston
Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Ann Fowler

During the month of March I discovered two (well 3 really) new favorite authors and though their books are not really Hunger Games/Harry Potter category, they are delightfully entertaining.
3 books by Sparkle Abbey (2 people): Desperate Housedogs, Get Fluffy, Kitty-Kitty Bang-Bang
2 books by Molly Harper: Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs, Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men 

April:
Keeping the Castle by Patrice Kindi
Finding Colin Firth by Mia March
Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris
4 books by Molly Harper: Nice Girls Don't Live Forever, Nice Girls Don't Bite Their Neighbors, Driving Mr. Dead, The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires

May:
Splendors and Glooms by Laura Ann Schlitz
Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Towers of Midnight by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan (repeat read)

June:
Icons by Margaret Stohl
Memory of Light by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan
Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

July:
What You Want is in the Limo by Michael Walker
Dewey by Vicki Myron
A Witch's Handbook of Kisses and Curses by Molly Harper
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Suzanna Clarke

August:
The Appeal by John Grisham
In the Tall Grass by Stephen King and Joe Hill (novella)
Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

September: 
Wilder Rose by Susan Wittig Albert
Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (no, I had never read the real thing before)
Under the Dome by Stephen King

October:
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Yip and Tuck by Sparkle Abbey

November:
Hounded by Kevin Hearne

December:
2 books by Alane Ferguson (Forensic Mysteries): Angel of Death and Circle of Blood
Mistress of Dragons by Margaret Weis
Dangerous Dream by Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

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