I know I just did a whole series of books I'm excited for in 2017, but what about the books I read in 2016? Well last week kicked off a series of my top ten reads from (only three) different genres that I read this year! You can see a schedule below for what to expect. Hope you find some great books here.
Overall (Last Week) | Contemporary (This Week) | Science Fiction (Next Week) | Fantasy (December 29)
THIS ADVENTURE ENDS
Author: Emma Mills
Source: eARC via Publisher
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: October 4, 2016
Review!
Summary:
Sloane isn't expecting to fall in with a group of friends when she moves from New York to Florida—especially not a group of friends so intense, so in love, so all-consuming. Yet that's exactly what happens.
Sloane becomes closest to Vera, a social-media star who lights up any room, and Gabe, Vera's twin brother and the most serious person Sloane's ever met. When a beloved painting by the twins' late mother goes missing, Sloane takes on the responsibility of tracking it down, a journey that takes her across state lines—and ever deeper into the twins' lives.
Filled with intense and important friendships, a wonderful warts-and-all family, shiveringly good romantic developments, and sharp, witty dialogue, this story is about finding the people you never knew you needed.
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EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR
Author: E.K. JohnstonSeries: N/A
Source: Purchased from Chapters
Publisher: Dutton Books For Young Readers
Publication Date: March 15, 2016
Review!
Summary:
Veronica Mars meets William Shakespeare in E.K. Johnston’s latest brave and unforgettable heroine.
Hermione Winters is captain of her cheerleading team, and in tiny Palermo Heights, this doesn’t mean what you think it means. At PHHS, the cheerleaders don't cheer for the sports teams; they are the sports team—the pride and joy of a tiny town. The team's summer training camp is Hermione's last and marks the beginning of the end of…she’s not sure what. She does know this season could make her a legend. But during a camp party, someone slips something in her drink. And it all goes black.
In every class, there's a star cheerleader and a pariah pregnant girl. They're never supposed to be the same person. Hermione struggles to regain the control she's always had and faces a wrenching decision about how to move on. The assault wasn't the beginning of Hermione Winter's story and she's not going to let it be the end. She won’t be anyone’s cautionary tale.
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WILD SWANS
Author: Jessica SpotswoodSeries: N/A
Source: Purchased from B&N
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date: May 3, 2016
Review!
Summary:
The summer before Ivy’s senior year is going to be golden; all bonfires, barbeques, and spending time with her best friends. For once, she will just get to be. No summer classes, none of Granddad’s intense expectations to live up to the family name. For generations, the Milbourn women have lead extraordinary lives—and died young and tragically. Granddad calls it a legacy, but Ivy considers it a curse. Why else would her mother have run off and abandoned her as a child?
But when her mother unexpectedly returns home with two young daughters in tow, all of the stories Ivy wove to protect her heart start to unravel. The very people she once trusted now speak in lies. And all of Ivy’s ambition and determination cannot defend her against the secrets of the Milbourn past….
Purchase:
WHISPER TO ME
Author: Nick LakeSeries: N/A
Source: eARC via Publisher
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's
Publication Date: May 3, 2016
Review!
Summary:
A remarkable story of strange beauty and self-discovery from Printz Award winner Nick Lake
Cassie is writing a letter to the boy whose heart she broke. She’s trying to explain why. Why she pushed him away. Why her father got so angry when he saw them together. Why she disappears some nights. Why she won’t let herself remember what happened that long-ago night on the boardwalk. Why she fell apart so completely.
Desperate for his forgiveness, she’s telling the whole story of the summer she nearly lost herself. She’s hoping he’ll understand as well as she now does how love—love for your family, love for that person who makes your heart beat faster, and love for yourself—can save you after all.
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THE SERPENT KING
Author: Jeff ZentnerSeries: N/A
Source: ARC via Stefani
Publisher: Crown Books For Young Readers
Publication Date: March 8, 2016
Review!
Summary:
Dill has had to wrestle with vipers his whole life at home, as the only son of a Pentecostal minister who urges him to handle poisonous rattlesnakes, and at school, where he faces down bullies who target him for his father's extreme faith and very public fall from grace.
The only antidote to all this venom is his friendship with fellow outcasts Travis and Lydia. But as they are starting their senior year, Dill feels the coils of his future tightening around him. Dill's only escapes are his music and his secret feelings for Lydia neither of which he is brave enough to share. Graduation feels more like an ending to Dill than a beginning. But even before then, he must cope with another ending one that will rock his life to the core.
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SEVEN WAYS WE LIE
Author: Riley RedgateSeries: N/A
Source: eARC via Publisher
Publisher: Abrams
Publication Date: March 8, 2016
Review!
Summary:
Seven students. Seven (deadly) sins. One secret.
Paloma High School is ordinary by anyone’s standards. It’s got the same cliques, the same prejudices, the same suspect cafeteria food. And like every high school, every student has something to hide—from Kat, the thespian who conceals her trust issues onstage, to Valentine, the neurotic genius who’s planted the seed of a school scandal.
When that scandal bubbles over, and rumors of a teacher-student affair surface, everyone starts hunting for someone to blame. For the seven unlikely allies at the heart of it all, the collision of their seven ordinary-seeming lives results in extraordinary change.
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THE YEAR WE FELL APART
Author: Emily MartinSeries: N/A
Source: ARC via Publisher
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: January 26, 2016
Review!
Summary:
Few things come as naturally to Harper as epic mistakes. In the past year she was kicked off the swim team, earned a reputation as Carson High’s easiest hook-up, and officially became the black sheep of her family. But her worst mistake was destroying her relationship with her best friend, Declan.
Now, after two semesters of silence, Declan is home from boarding school for the summer. Everything about him is different—he’s taller, stronger…more handsome. Harper has changed, too, especially in the wake of her mom’s cancer diagnosis.
While Declan wants nothing to do with Harper, he’s still Declan, her Declan, and the only person she wants to talk to about what’s really going on. But he’s also the one person she’s lost the right to seek comfort from.
As their mutual friends and shared histories draw them together again, Harper and Declan must decide which parts of their past are still salvageable, and which parts they’ll have to let go of once and for all.
Purchase:
ANY OTHER GIRL
Author: Rebecca PhillipsSeries: N/A
Source: eARC via Publisher
Publisher: Kensington
Publication Date: January 26, 2016
Review!
Summary:
After a disastrous, reputation-destroying party at the end of junior year, Kat Henley has a new plan. When it comes to boys--especially other people's boys:
Don't touch.
Don't smile.
Don't charm.
In the past, drawing attention to herself helped distract people from what really makes Kat different--having two gay parents. But it also cost her friendships. Kat can't afford to lose any more of those, especially not her cousin, Harper. They're spending one last summer together at the lake, where they run into an intriguing newcomer named Emmett Reese. After years of trying to prove she's just like everybody else, Kat has found someone who wants her because she's not. A boy who could be everything she wants too--if Harper hadn't liked him first. . .
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SUMMER OF SUPERNOVAS
Series: N/A
Source: ARC via Author
Publisher: Crown Books For Young Readers
Publication Date: May 10, 2016
Review!
Summary:
Fans of Jennifer E. Smith and Jenny Han will fall in love with this heartfelt and humor-laced debut following one zodiac-obsessed teen as she struggles to find the guy of her cosmic dreams.
As the daughter of an expert astrologer, Wilamena Carlisle knows that truth lies within the stars. So when she discovers a planetary alignment that won’t repeat for a decade, she’s forced to tackle her greatest astrological fear: The Fifth House—relationships and love. But Wil must decide whether to trust her heart or her chart when she falls for a sensitive guitar player whose zodiac sign points to cosmic disaster.
If Wil’s fate is truly written in the stars, then this summer is about to go supernova. . . .
Purchase:
HOW TO MAKE OUT
Author: Brianna ShrumSeries: N/A
Source: eARC via Publisher
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Publication Date: September 6, 2016
Review!
Summary:
Sixteen-year-old Renley needs three thousand dollars for the math club’s trip to New York City, and she knows exactly how to get it: she’s going to start a how-to blog where people pay for answers to all of life’s questions from a “certified expert.” The only problems: 1) She doesn’t know how to do anything but long division and calculus. 2) She’s totally invisible to people at school. And not in a cool Gossip Girl kind of way.
So, she decides to learn to do . . . well . . . everything. When her anonymous blog shifts in a more scandalous direction and the questions (and money) start rolling in, she has to learn not just how to do waterfall braids and cat-eye makeup, but a few other things, like how to cure a hangover, how to flirt, and how to make out (something her very experienced, and very in-love-with-her neighbor, Drew, is more than willing to help with).
As her blog’s reputation skyrockets, so does “new and improved” Renley’s popularity. She’s not only nabbed the attention of the entire school, but also the eye of Seth Levine, the hot culinary wizard she’s admired from across the home-ec classroom all year.
Soon, caught up in the thrill of popularity both in and out of cyberspace, her secrets start to spiral, and she finds that she’s forgotten the most important how-to: how to be herself. When her online and real lives converge, Renley will have to make a choice: lose everything she loves in her new life, or everyone she loves in the life she left behind.
Purchase:
I really liked Seven Ways We Lie. I just got a bunch of the ones on your list and am super excited to get to them!
ReplyDeleteOoh, I'm glad to see your list! I'm honestly not a very big contemporary fan, but I have been feeling like I need to try and branch out a bit more, so I will definitely be looking through the books on your list. :)
ReplyDeleteI haven't read any of these, but I have read another book Brianna Shrum and I really enjoyed it, so I want to read that one! And The Serpent King is also on my list. One of the best contemporaries I read this year was called How To Game The Walk of Shame!
ReplyDelete