What I've Read- 2011

Happy New Year!  What a great book year it's been for me.  I have loved writing this blog.  It has helped me to keep track of all the wonderful books I've read and it has allowed me to share them with friends and family.  I am always pleasently surprised when someone says to me, "Oh, I saw on your book blog..." 

So, without further ado, a list of all I read in 2011:

1. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
2. Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster
3. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
4. Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue
5. Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
6. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
7. Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
8. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonsen
9. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
10. The Quilter's Apprentice by Jennifer Chiaverini
11. Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
12. Round Robin by Jennifer Chiaverini
13. Hotel on teh Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
14. The Cross-Country Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverini
15. Where She Went by Gayle Forman
16. The Runaway Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini
17. The Quilter's Legacy by Jennifer Chiaverini
18. Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick
19. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
20. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
21. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
22. Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
23. The Master Quilter by Jennifer Chiaverini
24. Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo
25. The Sugar Camp Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini
26. Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick
27. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
28. Specials by Scott Westerfeld
29. Extras by Scott Westerfeld
30. The Christmas Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini
31. Bogus to Bubbly by Scott Westerfeld
32. Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
33. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
34. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
35. Circle of Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverini
36. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
37. These is My Words by Nancy E. Turner
38. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
39. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
40. The Quilter's Homecoming by Jennifer Chiaverini
41. Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins
42. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
43. Every Woman's Guide to Cycling by Selene Yeager
44. The Color of Water by James McBride
45. Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick
46. Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares
47. Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Wow!  That is quite a list!  I know 2012 will be even better.  Happy Reading!

Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Oh, my!  A few months back, I was perusing a few of the book blogs that I follow and I came across a book giveaway.  I had never heard of the book, but the description looked interesting so I signed up.  Weeks later, long after I had forgotten the giveaway, a book showed up at my door.  It was an Advanced Readers' Edition of Glow  by Amy Kathleen Ryan.  I have only just now been able to get to it and oh, my! 

Glow  is a wonderfully imaginative book built around a world hundreds of years in the future.  Two ships have left Earth, which has been ruined by pollution and war, to find a new planet.  The survival of the species is of utmost importance, but that's not as simple as it seems.  One of my favorite things in this book is that no character is all good or all bad.  It is difficult for the reader to know who to trust which leads to multiple plot twists and surprises.  I have seen this book described as sci-fi, paranormal, romance and even dystopian, but whatever you want to call it, it is fascinating.  I was riveted.  If we hadn't been visiting family for the holidays, I would have hidden in my room and read it straight through cover to cover. 

This book is the beginning of what is sure to be a very exciting series.  The next installment, Spark will be released in July 2012 and I can't wait!  It is so rare that I start a series at the very first and the waiting may drive me mad! 

Please read this and tell me what you think!

Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares

Did you read The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants  series by Ann Brashares?  If you haven't read them, I recommend you add them to your list.  Yes, they are another YA series, but these are fun and light and would make excellent summer reading or they would be a great choice for those of you who have recently finished the Hunger Games series and are needing a lift out of the darkness.  Once you've read the first four, please go out and pick up Sisterhood Everlasting .  This book picks up then years after the end of the Sisterhood series.  All four friends have their own grown up lives, but they aren't all sure what to do with them. 

One friend lives in Rhode Island, one in New York, one in San Francisco and one in Australia.  The distance between them becomes too much and one friend decides it is time for a reunion.  This reunion will change all of their lives and not in any way you might expect.  There are so many wonderful parts of this book that I would really love to share with you, but I am afraid it would really ruin it for you.  I don't like spoilers, though sometimes they are necessary, but with this book I just can't do it.  I really want you to read it and discover the story bit by bit like I did. 

I will leave you with one little nugget that I think is good advice for us all:

"You get older and you learn there is one sentence, just four words long, and if you can say it to yourself it offers more comfort than almost any other.  It goes like this....  Ready?"

"Ready."

"'At least I tried.'"

Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl is the third in the Caster Chronicles series.  I have an admission to make- I didn't actually finish this one.  Back in September, I reviewed Beautiful Darkness, the second in the series.  As you may remember, I haven't been terribly impressed with this series, but I continued because I felt like I wanted to find out what would happen.  I've said before that I have a difficult time not finishing a book or a series.  Usually this is because I am hoping the book will get better or because I suspect that my opinion of the book is somehow wrong.  With the Caster Chronicles, the online reviews have mostly been very good.  The reviews are the reason I began it in the first place.  I have now come to the conclusion that those reviews simply were not written for me.

One of the things that I have loved about Twilight is that so many people, both young and not so young, have returned to reading.  The YA genre has exploded and for the most part I would say that is a good thing.  More books available means more people are going to be able to find a book they will enjoy.  The downside is that not all of these books are good.  Or perhaps it's just that they aren't for me. 

With Beautiful Chaos, I just couldn't read it.  The plot is so busy, there are so many characters and the writing is so cryptic that the story becomes weighed down.  It isn't that I can't follow a complicated plot line and I enjoy reading well developed characters, but with these books it feels to me as if the writers just kept throwing things in to fill up the story, not to fill it out.  I was less than 100 pages in to this book when I couldn't get beyond the feeling that reading it was a chore.  There are so many good books out there that I can't waste my time on something I'm not really enjoying. 

Am I wrong about these books?  I'm happy to hear other opinions.  Perhaps I missed something. 

Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick

I just finished Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick.  It is the third in the Hush, Hush series.  You may remember back in August my review of Crescendo which was the second in the series.  I wasn't crazy about it.  I wasn't crazy about the first book and my feelings didn't really improve that much with the third.  And do you know what was really frustrating?  I thought this was the last in a trilogy.  I was wrong.  After I finished and it didn't seem like the story was complete, I did a little looking around online and discovered the fourth and final (thank goodness) installment will be released next fall.  Really?  I still have to read another one of these?  Well, of course the answer to that is no, I don't.  But I will.  There is something about me that makes it very difficult not to finish a book or series (more on that in a later post). 

This series is kind of fun.  The story focuses on fallen angels, the immortals they inhabit two weeks out of every year and the humans sometimes caught in the middle.  I can't say it has great writing and I'm not overly attached to the characters.  On the other hand, something keeps drawing me back in.  If you have been reading this series I would love to hear what you think. 

Every Woman's Guide to Cycling by Selene Yeager

My husband recently started riding his bike more and even joined up with a group of cyclists we know.  He is really enjoying it and so I thought I would give it a little try.  Now, if you have any illusions that I look anything like the woman on the cover of this book, please put them away right now.  I don't look like her and my bike looks nothing like her bike.  As a matter of fact, I ride a $100 Huffy that I bought at Toys R Us about ten years ago.  Try not to be jealous. 

We live in a beautiful climate and in an area that has miles and miles of bike lanes.  Cycling is very big here and I've been wondering if it is something I would enjoy.  The only problem is that cycling is not a cheap sport to just pick up.  Running is easy because it only involves a pair of running shoes.  As I learned from this book that I borrowed from the library, Every Woman's Guide to Cycling by Selene Yeager, a cyclist needs special shoes and special pedals that clip to those shoes and special clothes and a helmet and of course a fancy bike none of which is cheap.  The good thing is that my $100 Huffy is plenty sufficient to get me started, at least enough for me to decide if I even want to pursue the sport. 

This book speaks specifically to women riders and it addresses concerns women may have.  Yeager discusses proper fit of your bike, explains issues we may have with sensitive areas sitting for long periods of time in the saddle, prepares the reader for purchasing her own new bike and she even gives safety advice.  Also included in the book are training schedules and nutrition advice.  I have been riding my Huffy and as I progress I think I will eventually purchase my own copy of this book.  I learned so much, but I know I have so much more to learn.  Bike ride anyone??

The Color of Water by James McBride

December's book club selection was The Color of Water by James McBride.  It is the story of a white, Jewish woman, raised in unhappy circumstances in the South.  As a 19-year-old young woman in the 1940s, she leaves home, moves to New York and falls in love with and marries a black man.  James McBride is the eighth child resulting from their union.  This book is an interesting look at religion, economic status, class and of course race. 

I do not care for all memoirs (as a friend of mine says, they are often too self-indulgent), but this one I enjoyed immensely.  I find it very enlightening to step into another person's shoes and attempt to understand his or her life.  This book is not new having been published in 1997, but if you haven't read it yet, you really should.  Just this week as I passed the librarian's picks shelf at my wonderful local library, I noticed a copy of this book.  I recommend it.  Our librarian recommends it.  Really you should just pick it up and read it.  Go ahead.  You won't be sorry.