TTT: Mid-Year Best Books Read in 2017

Crap, I’m a bit behind on books, so hopefully I’ll remedy my lack of reading for an entire month during my summer break. Which, let’s be honest, will probably happen because this is Day 2 of vacation and I managed to clean and organize two rooms in my house. Two more rooms to go and I’m pretty much done with a majority of my summer to-do list where my house is involved!

Anyway, this mid-year list is likely to change by the end of the year, though I’m pretty sure A Conjuring of Light is going to stay way up there, because Schwab is love.

Top Ten Best Books Read in Mid-2017

A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab – Hands down my favorite read of the year. The feels for this book was strong. SO MANY FEELS. I can’t even begin to describe how much I adore this book and how much of the book was pretty much me crying over the sad bits and dancing giddily over the smutty awesomely lovely bits. But yes. If you haven’t heard of this series and Victoria Schwab yet, I highly recommend this series.

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir – Baaaah. Another one with so many feels, mostly because I totally ship two people who probably aren’t going to end up together, because they’re both practically two peas in a pod. Also, Helene is badass, and um, really badass. And I am totally excited to read her POV in the second book, because I’m pretty sure she shows up again as a POV by then.

Silence Fallen by Patricia Briggs – Helloooo Prague. I mean, the beginning of the book totally mentioned chocolate and I was already sold. This was a great installment to the Mercy Thompson series, mostly because Mercy is out of her element, and out of the country, to boot. She’s fighting off vampires and foreign wolves and still rocking it on the survival level. Also, Adam POV. How could I not love this book?

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher – The late Carrie Fisher (may the Force be with her in peace) has a distinctly funny voice when it comes to narrating her audiobooks. I loved this one to bits because she’s so candid, and she’d made me laugh in her narration. The book was on the short side, but still pretty succinct in her discussion about the problems she’d faced in her life.

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon – Loved this book because of the magic system in place here. Clairvoyance isn’t something I tend to gravitate toward as far as magical systems go, but this one worked in the world’s favor. Also, there was a bit of steam rising by the end of the first book, and by the end of the book, I was seriously clamoring for the next book, just so I could go back to the Warden again.

Q & A by Vikas Swarup – The movie Slumdog Millionaire was loosely based off of this book, and all in all, I enjoyed the movie just as much as I enjoyed the audiobook narration of the book. There were different scenarios that took place, though the framework largely remained the same. The book could have done with a few scenes edited out, but the movie, IMHO, could have added a bit more to the richness of the scenes.

The Jane Austen Handbook: Proper Life Skills from Regency England by Margaret C. Sullivan – I’m actually not sure whether this handbook was meant to be cheeky or not, but occasionally I found it rather serious and to the point, while other times it has that tone of sarcastic British witticism. I still enjoyed it, and it’s definitely a book to grab and read if you’re a Janeite.

Gilded Cage by Vic James – One of the ARCs I enjoyed reading this year was definitely this book. It’s a dystopian YA focusing around several characters, some of whom have special powers, while others do not. It’s an interesting book, and to be honest, something like this has been done before; it reminded me of Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard some, but I honestly thought the story in Gilded Cage was better executed. For one, the females in the book were not shat on and actually had more interesting personalities as opposed to them all fighting for the same effing guy.

Fables: Camelot, Vol. 20 by Bill Willingham – Loved the cover for this volume! Also loved the sister tension between Rose Red and Snow White in this, as well as the fact that characters I loved took larger roles in this book. Also, it is coming off of some crazy storyline direction from Vol. 19, which was, quite honestly, a clusterfudge of “OMG I CANNOT.”

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden – This was a beautiful, old-school fairy tale retelling! Also grabbed this as an ARC and did not regret it, because it was just SO GOOD. But now it’s going to take a while to get to the second book, which I am excited to read because more of the Frost-King and the girl he protects from his evil brother.

What made your top list so far this year?