Tag Archives: Scott Westerfeld

Best Of 2012 – Not just the boring categories!

2 Jan

Hello and Welcome to the year 2013!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! 2013 has some amazing book releases so I am SUPER STOKED for this year. Now, like all book lovers and bloggers, I just had to create a Best of 2012 blog. While most people do one in December, I read lots of books over the holidays so I wanted to wait until the year actually ended before I created my list. You never know what gems you can find in the last weeks of the year! I also wanted to add some variety to the blog so I asked my book soul mate Amy to pick her favorites in each category. You can read her Top Ten Books Read of 2012 here.

Please note that these books are not only the books that were published in 2012. We wanted to included all the books we read so some of them are a few years old. I hope you all enjoy and please add your favorites in each category in the comments!

Favorite Book of 2012

Sydney                     Amy

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The Selection by Kiera Cass     Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Favorite Author of 2012

Sydney               Amy

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Cinda Williams Chima         Neil Gaiman

Best Female Protagonist

Sydney           Amy

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Penryn – Angelfall by Susan Ee          Beatrice – Divergent by Veronica Roth

Best Male Protagonist

Sydney         Amy

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Han – Seven Realms Series        Po – Graceling Realms Series

Best Romance

Sydney         Amy

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America and Maxon, The Selection               Katsa and Po, Graceling

Most Resourceful

Sydney         Amy

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Gaia, Birthmarked  by Caragh M. O’Brien    Viola, The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Best “Come to Jesus” Moment

Sydney         Amy

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James, Ballad by Maggie Stiefvater    Katy, Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Most Badass Character

Sydney         Amy

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Deuce, Razorland Series by Ann Aguirre       Katsa, Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Favorite Series

Sydney                Amy

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Seven Realms by Cinda Williams Chima      Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Best Fantasy Book

Sydney                Amy

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Graceling by Kristin Cashore            Stardust by Neil Gaiman

Best Dystopian Book

Sydney                Amy

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Ready Player One by Ernest Cline      Poison Princess by Kresley Cole

Best World Building

Sydney                Amy

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Seven Realms by Cinda Williams Chima         Divergent Series by Veronica Roth

Best Cover

Sydney                Amy

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Angelfall by Susan Ee                   Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Most Looking Forward to Release of 2013

Sydney                Amy

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Prodigy by Marie Lu                       Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris

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Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

21 Nov

Book One of Leviathan Series

Rating: Three out of Five Stars

I am a huge Scott Westerfeld fan after the Uglies series. It’s on my “Ultimate Top Favorite Series” list so I thought I would push my boundaries a little bit with a an author I enjoy. So cheers to me for frolicking into the meadow of steam-punk land hand in hand with my good friend Scotty! Whoo!

Unfortunately, I was kind of punched in the face by a meadow tiger with this book. I hadn’t really done any research on steam punk before but I figured “how different could it be?”. Being a SciFi, fantasy, dystopia, post-apocolyptic genre lover I talk A LOT about WSOD (Willing Suspension of Disbelief). For those that don’t know what it means, it’s basically how far can an author push a made-up world/plot in story before your brain goes “this is too surreal for me to enjoy”. Leviathan exploded my WSOD. The concepts were just too crazy for my meek mind to handle. The only way I had any idea what was happening was because of the pictures that Westerfeld inserted into the chapters. I read a lot of crazy shit, dragons that talk, mind magic, hell I love the batshit crazy world of Alice in Wonderland! But this history meets furturistic technology, Darwin meets Apple, Inc. Holy crap balls, what a ride.

Needless to stay, I like to be punched once in awhile. It’s the only way to learn and grow and all that jazzy jazz. I like the overall plot and characters, even though it was all a tich bit Bourne Identity-ish (they NEVER get hurt? WTH!) and happenstance may be a little TOO coincidental.

If you are looking at moving into steam punk, this a good book to ease into. I will read the rest of the series eventually, but I think I need to get my bearings again, do a little research so I can comprehend the basics so that next time I will enjoy it and not play catch up the whole time.

So while frolicking may not have happened, I tripped and stumbled into a quite enjoyable genre, once I have background. Snaps for new books!

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