#AMonthofFaves: 5 Books That Deserved the Hype

 

Hello everybody! First of all Merry Christmas Eve :). Today's topic on the Month of Faves event is 5 books that deserved the hype . I wasn't sure if we were limited to books we read on 2014, but looking around to other people's post I figured it would be ok. So here they are, 5 books that I read and found that they more than deserved the hype.

 

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami: I've found that this is one of those books that you are either going to hate or love, and I loved it. It is super weird, and sometimes you pout the book down thinking: what the H did I just read. But it was so involving and different! it is also a huge book, so I understand why so may people just put it down completely, but in my opinion it is worth to push through.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline: This was such a fun read you guys! But once again, it really depends on the reader. It has a lot of pop culture references, mostly from the 80s, but also to the gaming world. So if you don't like or even don't care for those, you might not enjoy it as much as I did. However it was great for me. The characters were fun, the rhythm very fast paced and exiting. 

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed: I have talked to you about this one almost on every post of this months event, but I will do it again, just because it was so beautiful. Sure, it made me cry, but that is just how touching the whole book was. I've been recommending it all over town since I finished and I intend to continue doing so.

The Martian by Andy Weir: Just as RPO, this one is a book that might not be for everyone. There is quite a bit of science and sarcasm. Mark, the main character, is not a pleasant person necessarily, but boy it was fun. Also just like RPO, A read it after me and it made him very happy too, and considering we have quite different reading tastes that is a plus on my list :).

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern: Wow, I just realized this was one of my first reviews in this blog! And even almost 3 years after I still have a lot of love for this book. It is magical, it has action, love, whimsical world building... everything! Even some delicious treats that with just the description will make you salivate. I am a bit sad that I couldn't re read it this December with the Sword and Laser book club, but as it turns out I lent it to my cousin back in 2012...and she hasn't finished it yet, if you can believe that.

Well there you have it, my 5 books for today. I wish you a lovely Holiday time!

#AMonthofFaves: Picking Favorites!

I think we can all agree that this event is making our TBR grow and that this is a good thing ;). Here are my favorite posts of the week:

On Monday Andi from Estella's Revenge gave us all book envy with her recently acquired list!

On Tuesday I met Christina's Blog: You Book me All Night Long (great name right?) and I loved her list of top 10 read of 2014. For this same post, Andi was a favorite once again

On Wednesday we discussed 5 fave Winter Reads and Tanya from GirlXOXO had great suggestions for the cold weather! I also loved Florinda's picks for this topic (I also think that Fangirl is a good winter read). You can find her at The 3 R's Blog.

On Thursday it was time for 5 winter must haves and I have to say guys, your winter is definitely not like mine at all!!! Favorites include Andi, Trish and Flo, all of them with great products to keep us comfy and cozy in this frightful weather!

A Month of Faves: Top 10 (or so) Favorite books of 2014

Well, here it is, I am finally telling you my top 3 books of the year. But first I will introduce some of the runner ups:

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

Dawn (Xenogenesis #1) by Octavia E. Buttler

Angelmaker by Nick Harkway

What We see When We Read by Peter Mendelsund

The Martian by Andy Weir

El ruido de las cosas al caer (The sound of things falling) by Juan Gabriel Vásquez

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

And now....drum roll please, here are my top 3 of the year!!!

As I said, 2 non fiction, 1 fiction, all of them by women and one of them in Spanish :D

Here are some exceprts from my reviews that explain why they were my favorites

Nosotras que nos queremos tanto by Marcela Serrano:

It was a splendid read and I would recommend to all of my contacts and beyond. It has taken me a while to write this review, mostly because I feel that words fall short for what this book made me feel. So I can only say, read it!.

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed:

I know this is a short review, particularly for a book that I loved, but I cannot put into words how this book makes me feel. It made me laugh, cry, laugh while crying, miss my family like crazy, made me tell people I love them and even took away weight from my shoulders. I would recommend this book to everybody, but get some tissues first. Now go and read it.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tart

It was a beautiful book, full of sentiment; a book that I have recommended several times already and that I might even re listen too.

2014 was a good reading year for me, I hope you had a wonderful year too!

A Month of Faves: A Year in Books Timeline

http://www.kfstudio.net

Which month did you … read the most, the least, read the book you liked LEAST for the year, read your longest book, tried a new genre, fell hard for a book boyfriend, re-read a favorite, finished an epic series, read something you’ve been wanting to read for a long time etc.

January: The month of my birthday!!! I read 7 books on January (one of them on my top 3 ;))  This is also the month I read my least favorite books of the year: 2 romances that were given to me on Christmas on a gift exchange. I read them on a dare, but safe to say that so far I haven't found romances I like. 

February: the month I finally got around to reading a Neil Gaiman. 

March: Only read 4 books this month, but I read Angelmaker and loved it!

April: Read-A-Thon!!! I read The Last Unicorn that month and got to meet Peter S. Beagle

May: The month I read the most: 12 books that month!!! Great books that month with Dreams of Gods and Monsters (excellent series) and The Martian

June: The month I joined NetGalley! My first book from them It Girl, wasn't that great, but during this month I read my other fiction favorite of the year, in Spanish.  

July: The month I first read Dawn and fell in love with Xenogenesis

August: It was slow month for my reading. Best book of the month was The Name of the Wind but I never got to write the review :/

September: The month I participated on my first official Read-A-Long with The Haunting of Hill House.

October: Read-a-Thon part 2. I also read 12 books this month and it is the month I first read Meg Medina. It is also the month I was introduced to another YA series I quite enjoyed with The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer.

November: Non-fiction November, Oh gosh, it feels so long ago and it ended less than a month ago!. Ok, so I read my non-fiction favorite during this month.  It was also during November that I read the longest book I've read this year with Three Daughters

December: I've finished 2 books so far this month and I should finish another 2 at least. But this month has been proven to be busier than usual with my experiments finally working. So that's good, but it takes time from the reading. 

What about your year??

A Month of Faves: Fave New-to-Me Author Discoveries

Hello, hello everybody. How is your holiday season going? Mine has been busy, and it will remain that way so better not think too much about it. Today's post for #AMonthofFaves is Favorite Authors that you discovered recently. This year I discovered a lot of authors, but none of the following wrote my 3 favorite books of the year. The thing is, even though I really loved those 3 books, they were the first time I ever encounter their writing, and I am not sure yet I would read anything by them. Probably, but time will tell. Here I present to you 3 authors and my reasons why I think I would read anything by them:

Octavia E. Butler: Thanks to the Sword and Laser Book club I came to read Dawn, the first book in the Xenogenesis trilogy. I immdiately loved the style and I then read Adulthood Rites and it was amazing. I only have to read Imago from this series, but I already now I am going to love it. Her world construction, the way she touches humanity so on point...it is amazing, I have no better word. 

Meg Medina: I read Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick your Ass in part because the people from Book Riot kept mentioning it and I was not disappointed at all. But it is more than her writing beautiful realistic Latino characters guys; afterwards I listened to her interview from Our Reading Lives (another BR podcast) and I was smitten. She was so nice and interesting, and I just felt identified, you cannot compete with that! I follow her on Twitter and she is just great.

 

Emily St. John Mandel: One of my last books of the year was Station Eleven (I haven't written my review, but I am on it, I promise) and it blew my mind. It was so different and the narrative was beautiful; I have no idea how she made such an intricate web, but oh boy she had me from the first moments. I already had Last Night in Montreal on my wishlist, but it has recently moved to my must haves 

There you have it, 3 fantastic ladies that blew my mind in 2014. What about your new faves??

December, A Month of Favorites!: Introduction Post

This December I will be participating in A Month of Favorites. Don’t know what it is? Well:

All December-long, Estella's Revenge, Girlxoxo, and Traveling with T will be sharing our fave bookish (and sometimes non-bookish) experiences from throughout the year AND we want YOU to join us! The schedule of topics is posted below – in some cases, we’ll be joining with other bloggers' events – and other times, one of us will be hosting a link-up. Plus, there will be 3 GIVEAWAY WINNERS for a book of your choice from Book Depository. Every time you post on one of the topics below, and join the Linky on one of our 3 blogs – you’ll be entered to WIN!

I won’t be able to do ALL the post, but I will sure try to make the most J. Our first subject is:

Faves Month Introduction

This has been such a wonderful year of reading guys! I’ve participated in amazing bookish events and with this I managed to not only read almost double the amount of books I read last year (96 so far and I think I will manage to get to the 100!), but I also managed to read with more variety. Now, as most years, I mostly read Fiction (87%). I do not classify my books by genre, further than fiction vs non-fiction, so forgive me if I can’t give you any more data here.

How have I read? Well, this year 45% has been in paper, 25% as ebooks and 30% in audio. Of this, 52% I own, 30% from the library, 16% borrowed from friends and 2% as Galleys.

When do I read? ALL the time now, thanks to Audio books, because now I can read while doing lab work that does not require my attention (washes for example) But other than that it has to be when I get back home and I want to disconnect.

While some authors have shown up several times this year, I don’t feel like they were necessarily my favorite authors necessarily, is just that I was finishing series, although I think it is safe to say that anything Laini Taylor gets out there I will read from now on, because I so loved the Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy.

And now I am supposed to hint to you which one of the books I’ve read so far was my 2014 favorite, without telling you upright. Well, you know this would be so much easier if I could point just one!

I have narrowed it down to three wonderful books. They are all written by women, 2 fiction and 1 nonfiction. One of the fiction ones and the nonfiction really touched me on a very emotional level, I went to read them with sincerely no expectations other that people that I care for have read them and seemed to love them and I loved the books in return. The other fiction book was a big one, not only in size but also regarding how much talk it got! None of the books was actually published this year.

Very close and I guess runner ups on my favorites this year, would’ve been The Martian, Angelmaker and What we See when we Read. But I will discuss those later this month ;)

So that is my introduction. If you guessed what were my faves this month let me know, and off course let me know of YOUR favorites!!

Have a wonderful week and month!