To Read or Not To Read

Here's are the good, the bad and the ugliest books of 2016. THE GOOD: I read a grand total of 42 books this semester! Yay! And they were all good, for the most part. I'm not a super harsh critic on books (except for the ones that I really hate), but I like to think about this: books are entertainment and they are meant to make me happy. If they made me happy, then they did their job. I think all of the books this semester did that to some extent. I'll list a few of my favorites from this semester. This Adventure Ends by Emma Mills was such a fun read. The story follows Sloane, who just moved from New York to Florida, as she finds friends and then finds a reason to show them just how hard she'd fight for them. It takes her on an adventure to find something that her friends lost, and Sloane takes it upon herself to track it down, even if it takes her out of state. I really love this book because I loved the characters and how the adventure developed while Sloane di...

I'm going to be quite frank: my to-read shelf has 437 books on it. That's a lot of books. Obviously. But there are definitely a select few I want to read in the very near future, but they're on the shelf for a reason: I still really want to read all of them. For now, here are five books that made the top of the list: The Last Beginning: Lauren James. I read the first book after I had it shipped from Australia because I wanted to read it so badly. Needless to say, I think I'll be doing the same thing for this book sometime in the near future because Lauren James is a British writer and the first book (The Next Together) hasn't even been published in the United States yet. (Um, hello? Publishers? Are you going to get on that please? I need all my other American friends to see how cute Katherine and Matthew are and how AMAZING this book is!) The Last Beginning is the companion to The Next Together, about a girl named Clove who is determined to find her lost re...

I apologize in advance if every else's favorite hero and favorite villain are the same as mine, but to leave them out would have been a sin. Heroes: Harry Potter from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series: Harry is a classic, guys. He was also what got me into reading in the first place, and even though now I see who he is as a character and the whole broad spectrum of all the things I know now, when you're a fourth grade kid who's reading about a fourteen-year-old who gets to go to magic school . . . well, let's just say you keep on waiting for your Hogwarts letter no matter what age you're at. Clary Fray from Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments: Clary is also a classic, even though she's a bit more modern than Harry Potter. She's really passionate and she's also new to what she's exposed to. Hey! Who does that sound like? She's basically Harry Potter reincarnated into an awesome female character who deals with super enhanced warr...

(Okay, not really, but I wanted a fun title, and hyperbole was there so I had to use it . . .) (Also, disclaimer, I read this book probably three weeks ago, so if anything sounds vague, my sincerest apologies, but I've read six books since then.) (Lastly, this review can be found on my Goodreads, under the username NatalieM22.) And now! For the review of Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half. For those unfamiliar with this story, it is just a bunch of hilarious stories, mixed with some not-so-hilarious stories, of Allie Brosh's life. A good handful include her dogs, and all of them include a little bit of mayhem. In class, I already explained that I really don't love the cover. Yellow is just a very unattractive color, especially on a book cover, and even though it pops out, I can't find myself to give this one any excuses. Also, even though the pictures on the front make sense in the story, I don't know if I would have picked up the book if you threw that on...

I did not realize how strongly I felt on this subject until asked to write about it, and I think this post will show you what I mean. I read a lot of YA Fiction books, so I feel pretty acquainted with the general theme of YA Fiction books covers. I honestly think they're some of the coolest covers ever, but that's just me. So you can imagine that I went home and started to pull some books off my shelf. I have 154 YA Fiction books on my shelf and I pulled out 18 that I would love to show off. I don't really like simple book covers, I've learned. I like book covers that are more in your face and pop out at you screaming "READ ME!" because then I feel more inclined to do so. I'll give you the full list of the 18 books at the end, because you should read them, they're all pretty good and I'm going to be talking about the covers, not the books. This Adventure Ends by Emma Mills First and Then by Emma Mills I'll talk about these two first....

(*The article referenced is called "Against YA: Read whatever you want. But you should feel embarrassed when what you're reading was written for children." by Ruth Graham*) I am a big YA Fiction reading. BIG. My bookshelf is full of John Green, Rainbow Rowell, Becca Fitzpatrick, Veronica Roth, Natalie D. Richards, Sabaa Tahir, Gayle Forman, Jay Asher, Emma Mills, Cassandra Clare, Jennifer Niven . . . do you want me to go on? I know YA Fiction like the back of my hand, so when someone, somewhere, turns against it, you know I'll be defending it. So you can imagine that, just by this title, I got mad. Livid. I'll take you through exactly what made me mad. I'll start with the quote. "The largest groups of buyers in that survey--accounting for a whopping 28 percent of all YA sales--are between 30-44." I don't know about you, but I'm in high school and before I got a job, I begged my mom to buy me books. I wrote essays as to why my mom shou...

In no particular order, here are my all-time favorites, of all the books I've ever read. Not surprisingly (at least to me), they are all YA Fiction, a genre in which I basically spend all my time, although I'm finding that Neil Gaiman's fantasy is something I really enjoy, so maybe I'll read more of his work and pieces like his. Without further ado . . . 1. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell Summary: Cath, an avid Simon Snow fanfiction writer, is crushed when her twin sister wants to have a different college experience than she does. So Cath gets a roommate who doesn't want a roommate and she blindly goes throughout college at the beginning. Then Cath and her roommate Reagan realize that the other isn't so bad so they start hanging out, including Reagan's boyfriend Levi. Trying to balance her new friends, her twin sister's freshman year drinking problems, her dad's empty-nest syndrome and finishing her Simon Snow fanfiction story before the last book...