Books

My 2013 Reads

Happy New Year! I just know that 2014 is going to be a great year!

My new year's resolution in 2012 was to read 50 books, which I did, but I decided I wasn't going to have a reading resolution in 2013. I did want to keep track of what I read, because what can I say, I like lists! 

  1. Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl*
  2. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
  3. Gorgeous by Paul Rudnick
  4. The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson
  5. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare*
  6. Just One Day by Gayle Forman
  7. Captain Underpants and the Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers by Dav Piley
  8. Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
  9. All You Never Wanted by Adele Griffin
  10. See Jane Write: A Girl's Guide to Writing Chick Lit by Sarah Mlynowski and Farrin Jacobs
  11. Save the Cat by Blake Snyder
  12. Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan
  13. Bond Girl by Erin Duffy
  14. Legend by Marie Lu*
  15. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
  16. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
  17. Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
  18. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by EL Konigsburg*
  19. Open Road Summer by Emery Lord (coming April 15, 2014)
  20. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan 
  21. The Lonely Hearts Club by me (there's a reason I had to re-read it!)
  22. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walters
  23. Exile by Kevin Emerson (coming April 29, 2014)
  24. When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle*
  25. Ink is Thicker Than Water by Amy Spalding
  26. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
  27. Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block*
  28. The Chapel Wars by Lindsey Leavitt (coming May 6, 2014)
  29. United We Spy by Ally Carter
  30. Just One Year by Gayle Forman
  31. The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr*
  32. Rotten by Michael Northrup
  33. The Darkest Path by Jeff Hirsch
  34. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (coming May 13, 2014)
  35. Only Everything by Kieran Scott (coming May 6, 2014)
  36. Life by Committee by Corey Ann Haydu (coming May 13, 2014)
  37. Noggin by John Corey Whaley (coming April 8, 2014)
  38. The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith (coming April 15, 2014)

*denotes book club book

I'm not going to single out any particular book because I loved so many of these books. But I do have to say that I can't even get over how many AMAZING books are coming out in April and May. Every single one of them is truly wonderful, and I was honored to give blurbs to a few (Exile, Open Road Summer, The Chapel Wars, Only Everything, and Life by Committee). All of the spring books deserve to be put on your spring to-read list (along with Better Off Friends, of course). ;-)  

It'll be interesting to see how many books I read this year, I'm starting off by reading Kate Atkinson's Life After Life. What's on your to-read pile for 2014?

Happy reading! Elizabeth

My 2013 reads so far!

Hello everybody! My apologies for being MIA on my blog. That usually means that I'm busy traveling or writing. I hope people will be happy to learn that it's the latter. I've been busy working on two different books (that's in addition to Better Off Friends which is coming in March 2014). One of the books is something that I've been wanting to write for a long time, so I'm doing that during my "free time" and not sure what will come of it. The other book is one that I'm pretty much bursting at the seams to tell you all about, but unfortunately I have to wait on that... 

I've also been busy reading some great books. As those of you who follow my blog may remember, I did a reading challenge last year. I didn't make a resolution to read fifty books again, but did decide to keep track just for fun. 

I did want to single out a few books. There are two books on writing that I read to help me with the one project that's very different from what I've done in the past: See Jane Write and Save the Cat. I've never read any "craft" books before and both were extraordinarily helpful. Save the Cat basically changed how I approached this one story. There's a "beat sheet" used in the book and I used that to replot the book and it helped make it so much better (I hope!). I highly recommend it to anybody out there who is stuck plot-wise or just needs to re-focus.

Also, there are two books on this list that haven't come out yet. Two Boys Kissing, by my dear friend and editor David Levithan, is just as inspiring and beautiful as you'd expect his books to be. And readers with a good eye will see why I FREAKED OUT in public while reading this one scene. That's all I'll say, for now. The other book is by debut author Emery Lord, Open Road Summer. I was asked to read this for a possible blurb, and I absolutely loved it and was honored to do so. Put this author and book on your radar now!

So below are the twenty books that I've read so far. I'm actually not that far away from where I was last year so I might just make it to fifty yet. Who knows! Crazier things have happened, like me trying to write two books at once!

  1. Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl*
  2. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
  3. Gorgeous by Paul Rudnick
  4. The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson
  5. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare*
  6. Just One Day by Gayle Foreman
  7. Captain Underpants and the Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers by Dav Piley
  8. Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
  9. All You Never Wanted by Adele Griffin
  10. See Jane Write: A Girl's Guide to Writing Chick Lit by Sarah Mlynowski and Farrin Jacobs
  11. Save the Cat by Blake Snyder
  12. Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan
  13. Bond Girl by Erin Duffy
  14. Legend by Marie Lu*
  15. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
  16. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
  17. Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
  18. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by EL Konigsburg*
  19. Open Road Summer by Emery Lord (coming April 15, 2014)
  20. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan (coming August 27, 2013)

 *denotes book club book

I'm currently reading Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walters, then I have to debate between my insanely huge to-read pile. What's on your to-read list?

XOXO, Elizabeth