It's that time again when I name some of my favorite reads and various book superlatives for the present year.  For those of you who aren't familiar with my superlatives lists, I bring you the lists from previous years that I've featured on my main blog and BookLikes blog (Note: it looks like my 2013 list was incomplete, but I figure I'll share that one anyway).

 

Rose's Favorite Reads of 2012: Part I

 

Rose's Favorite Reads of 2012: Part II

 

Rose's Favorite Reads of 2013: Part I

 

Rose's Favorite Reads of 2013: Part II

 

This superlative list will be two posts in total.  This post will kick off that series, starting with some interesting factoids and a list of 10 of my favorite books from this year  Let's do this.

 

***

 

So, in total for this year, I've read 168 books (maybe slightly more because there were some I didn't mark, but I know it was less than 200), which is way, way less than my total from 2012 (which was 365 books), and far less than the goal I set for myself this year (450).  

 

Some interesting tidbits:

 

First book I finished in 2014: "Garden of Lost Souls (Flin's Destiny #2)" by Erik Olsen (4 stars, Children's/Middle Grade Fantasy)

 

 

 

Last book I finished in 2014 (technically): "The Silent Wife" by A.S.A. Harrison (4 stars, Adult, Mystery/Suspense)

 

 

 

Longest book I read in 2014: "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn (560 pages, Adult, Suspense/Thriller)

 

 

 

Shortest book (not a novella or short story) I read in 2014: "Out of Sync" by Amanda Humann (103 pages, Children's/Middle Grade)

 

 

Shortest short story/novella read in 2014: Mrs. Maddox (Beautiful #1.5) by Jamie McGuire (2 stars, New Adult/Romance)

 

Longest short story/novella read in 2014: "The Nekkid Truth" by Nicole Camden (2.5 stars, Adult/Mature, Erotica)

 

 

Breaking down my reads by age group:

 

Children's/Middle Grade: 10 books

Young Adult: 41 books

New Adult: 36 books

Adult: 39 books

Non-Fiction (various age ranges): 42 books

 

So technically, I had about an even spread of reading through most categories, save for Children's/Middle Grade.

 

Breaking down my reads by star rating:

 

5-stars: 20 books

4-stars: 41 books

3-stars: 35 books

2-stars: 40 books

1-stars: 32 books

 

Rose's Top Ten Reads of the Year:

 

            

 

In no particular order of rank:

 

Hate List - Jennifer Brown: Definitely one of my favorite reads of the past year, it practically reduced me to tears by the time I finished the book, and I read the book in both audio format and physical.  It's the story of a young woman who copes with the aftermath of a tragedy, in which her boyfriend shoots multiple students at her high school before turning the gun on himself.  After getting in the line of fire herself, she has to both cope with her physical and mental scars to come to terms in the aftermath of the tragedy.  Brown's account is so vivid and realistic, especially getting into the eye of the character here.  It's one that cemented Jennifer Brown as one of my favorite YA authors.

 

Read my review of "Hate List" on Writing Through Rose-Tinted Glasses

 

Prep School Confidential - Kara Taylor: Kara Taylor is another of my favorite up and coming YA authors, and if you haven't checked out this series yet - it's a fun one.  I loved "Prep School Confidential", not just for its fiesty heroine, but believable characters and overarching mystery.  There aren't a lot of standout mystery titles I've come across in YA, but this one is funny, smart and harrowing to follow.

 

Read my review of "Prep School Confidential" on Writing Through Rose-Tinted Glasses

 

Thin Space - Jody Casella: Jody Casella's narrative in "Thin Space" really struck a chord with me, not just because of its viewpoint of a boy's loss of his twin, but with an interesting twist on events as his narrative comes to pass.  It was amazing, and one of my 5-star reads of the year.

 

Read my review of "Thin Space" on Writing Through Rose-Tinted Glasses

 

Frenzy - Robert Lettrick:  Dude, I haven't read a survival horror this year that struck me as strongly as "Frenzy", and it's a middle-grade book!  Robert Lettrick creates a potent narrative surrounding a very dimensional cast that's funny, developed, and kept me on my toes throughout the work. This is one read that I was exposed to on NetGalley and I bought it as soon as it was available.  I'm really glad I had a chance to read it.

 

Read my review of "Frenzy" on Writing Through Rose-Tinted Glasses

 

The Silent Wife - A.S.A. Harrison: "The Silent Wife" took a little while for me to get into, but it ended up being well worth the journey.  A slowly unfolding suspense and eye into a deteriorating relationship, with an unexpected direction to events.

 

The Martian - Andy Weir: My favorite read of the year, hands down.  Andy Weir's account of a man stranded on Mars and his journey of survival and path to rescue is well drawn, well-researched, and hilarious. Mark Watney's voice leaps through the page.

 

Read my review of "The Martian" on Writing Through Rose-Tinted Glasses

 

Lies We Tell Ourselves - Robin Talley: A wonderfully told narrative during a volatile time in American History - I really loved this honest narrative told between two girls who must confront their differences and each other during the Civil Rights era.

 

The Belief in Angels - J. Dylan Yates: Probably my favorite New Adult/Literary book of this past year - it's a wonderfully told meeting of generations - between a young woman growing up in a dysfunctional family during the 1970s and her grandfather, a survivor of the Holocaust.  Beautifully written and evocative.

 

Read my review of "The Belief in Angels" on Writing Through Rose-Tinted Glasses

 

Flying - Megan Hart: Megan Hart's "Flying" pleasantly surprised me this year, providing a refreshingly developed narrative of a woman navigating the rough turbulence of her relationships while contending with issues within her family.  I loved the development of the characters, the intimacy of the narrative, and the feisty heroine.

 

Read my review of "Flying" on Writing Through Rose-Tinted Glasses

 

and last but not least:

 

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn: I guess you guys saw this one coming.  With a wonderful use of unreliable narration and developed characters in the midst of a deteriorating marriage and whirlwind events, Flynn's narrative is distinct and despite my love/hate relationship with the book, I enjoyed the journey. It left me thinking long after turning the final page.

 

Read my review of "Gone Girl" on Writing Through Rose-Tinted Glasses

 

That's all for this entry.  My Superlatives for the year are coming in the next part.

 

Cheers,

Rose

Book – The Belief in Angels
Author – J. Dylan Yates
Star rating – ★★★★★
Plot – excellently told, enjoyable, touching
Characters – very diverse, well explored and relatable
Movie Potential – ★★★★★
Ease of reading – very easy to read
Cover – ✔
Suitable Title – ✔
Would I read it again – ✔

** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK, BY THE AUTHOR, IN RETURN FOR AN HONEST REVIEW **

I loved and agreed with every word of the author’s note. As a science geek myself, this really captured my attention and intrigued me. I knew after I read this, that if the whole book was written in the same style, with the same attention, then I was going to love it. And I did.
The whole story is profound, captivating and touching. I loved everything, even the parts that were difficult to read, sad and emotional. I completely lost track of time, while reading.
“What I understand now about survival is that something in you dies. You don’t become a survivor intact. Survival’s cost is always loss. This is my mourning book.” As a survivor myself, of cancer, I feel this sentence very deeply. Either the author know this from personal experience for herself, or from another, close to her. I don’t think anyone would/could know or feel this, unless for themselves.
I planned to only read the first chapter, when I started reading this book, because it was late when I started. Then I got swept into the story, from page one, and I was unable to put it down. Little Jules was adorable and her story was heartbreaking, almost from the get go. I love how her coping mechanism is to think of her life like a movie, with a narrator that limits the damage of the serious stuff that happens to her. I love how strong she is, despite all the bad things that happen in her life, and how she’s determined to survive and take care of her brothers, even though she’s so young.
I love Samuel, as a character, and I could see from the beginning that Moses and David were either going to turn out like Jules or like their mother. I couldn’t wait to find out which way they would go.
I found it so sad that Jules spent so long having her home life ignored. Unfortunately, it’s a sign of the times, that it was ignored in those days and tolerated. It’s such a shame that she few up calling her parents by their first names, in a disassociation of sorts that helps her cope with what happens.
“We became less like children and more like neglected pets. […] We developed independence beyond out years. Within our own pet universe we found hierarchy and function.”
I absolutely love the inclusion of grandpa Samuel/Szaja’s story and the Jewish element. The author really researched or knew about this era and the personal experiences of the Jewish at this time. The emotion, the trauma and the history was so well explored and delicately handled. I felt like I lived the experience with Samuel, rather than being an outside observer. I also love the way that Jewish words were dropped into the story in appropriate places and never completely explained. They weren’t singled out, as words that needed to be explained, but their meaning was clear through the sentence and their usage.
This part really killed me, and had me welling up, knowing why it took so long and yet, without the author telling me:
“My foter had no way of knowing that my escape from Eastern Europe would take another twenty-five years.
That life, my boyhood life, is the sweetest time. The winters are long and harsh and the work tiring, but the reward of my family, together and laughing, is all I ever needed. I knew this, even then.

But my foter is excited and happy, and it is hard not to be happy with him. Standing there in the orchard with him, the late summer sunrise lighting everything golden as the sun began its slow climb into the day, I inhaled the scent of the ripe apple trees and the damp earth.
“I stood there with a smile on my face, knowing with a dreadful certainty that I would never experience that kind of happiness again.”
I also really love how Jules was very similar to Samuel in many ways; she was spunky, independent, guilty for no reason and feisty. Jules is definitely my kind of girl:
“Kind of in general. Like Jo in Little Women, “I am angry nearly every day of my life.” When anyone makes me mad, I slug them, which gets me in lots of trouble.”
I really love Jules so much. She’s so amazing.
“What did he do to make Paulina cry? Whatever it is, it’s time for him to pay for all the bad things he’s done to Wendy and to us, and I am going to be the person that brings him down. Like Vito Corleone.
You, Jules Finn, will bring Howard Finn to justice, gangster-style.”

This is by far a happy story, but I’m hooked and addicted. I can’t wait to see how it turns out. You can’t just read one chapter at a time. I get so sucked in, when I read it, that I barely see the chapter headings go by. I can’t help but be fascinated to see where the story goes. Samuel’s story is even more heartbreaking than Jules’s story. More than anything, this story is about survival, even in the harshest situations and that comes across in every chapter. Samuel’s story specifically, rings of suffering and pain, while being so honest that it’s painful, because he’s gone through so many things in his life, that real people experienced.

I really love how we, as readers, are spoon-fed bits of history, memory and information, as and when it is appropriate. They often made me cry. I saw a few of the big plot spoilers coming, though I always hoped that I was wrong. It only made it more heartbreaking when it came true later. The absolute worst part of the story, that had me crying for nearly ten minutes and as many pages, was Moses’ big story arc.

I loved all the characters. The bad ones were brilliantly bad, the good ones were amazingly good and the innocent souls were angelic. I liked Timothy the moment David said that he brought Jules books home for her, when she was suffering her hazy memory loss. I think he was the only one who ever noticed her depression and that was when I hoped that he was the one who would love and heal Jules the way she needed him to. I also thought, at this point, that he might have been the dark haired boy she saw when she was in the tree, tripping on acid, thanks to her mother. To me, he is the perfect angel boy, that she thought was Moses.
“I feel like after this, Timothy has become a person who’ll be a part of my story whether he stays involved in my life later or not. He lives in my skin now.
Something else happened to me because of this too.
A hole in my chest opened, and all the tiny silver daggers spilled out.”
The loss that Jules experiences and suffers through her childhood, all before the age of seventeen, is gut-wrenching. Somehow she manages to wade her way through the muck and keeps her emotional hurricane inside her, until she can’t cope any longer. I can well understand just why she ends up making the decisions she makes near the end of the book.
“I understand why all the descriptions of lost loved ones are physically descriptive. Lovesick, heart-broken, grief-stricken. I can feel the loss of Moses in my marrow, my joints, my tissues. It aches inside-out when I think of him. I miss him every day. Sometimes it’s all I can think about. It’s a good thing I miss him, though, because it means I’m feeling things, and I think feeling things is a good way to stay present.”
I think the story has the perfect ending. It’s absolutely perfect to have an uncertain ending for all characters, to avoid the red ribbon tying up every aspect of everyone’s lives. I also think it’s right that the story ends with Samuel’s story, as there will be a second book focusing on his story.

Overall:

I love that Samuel, Wendy and Jules are all shaped by everything they have suffered and survived. It’s true for Samuel, more than anyone else, who has become the man his experiences have shaped him into. His own story is so much stronger and more haunting than anyone else’s life story. I think it’s well thought out and well planned, that Samuel’s story is dripped into the novel throughout time, when it relates to Jules and Wendy’s story. He’s explored carefully, having his secrets slowly discovered and told, only to the extent of any other war survivor. Most army men and war survivors never speak of their experiences again, especially when their past involved murder, loss and death camps. Samuel’s admission of all that had happened to him, in writing, to Jules, is fitting, since many survivors never want to tell their story, and certainly not openly or in detail.

My favourite quote? It’s between these two:
“I remembered Hemingway and said, “You expect to be sad in the fall. But the cold rain has kept on and killed the spring and a young person has died for no reason.”
and
“Every action, every word, every day since his death has been tarred with this truth.
Inside of me are tiny silver daggers that cut me with this knowledge every time I draw a breath.
I start to cry, and I can’t stop.”
This story is more literature than general fiction. It is an experience to live, suffer and survive along with the characters, rather than just a novel to read. If you’re looking for something light, fluffy and cheerful then this isn’t the book for you. But if you want honesty, a gut-wrenching experience and a good cry, then pick up this book now. It’s a story that will never leave you, and will relate to every person out there, who has had something to fight against, fight for, and suffered loss.

Book – The Belief in Angels
Author – J. Dylan Yates
Star rating – ★★★★★
Plot – excellently told, enjoyable, touching
Characters – very diverse, well explored and relatable
Movie Potential – ★★★★★
Ease of reading – very easy to read
Cover – ✔
Suitable Title – ✔
Would I read it again – ✔

** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK, BY THE AUTHOR, IN RETURN FOR AN HONEST REVIEW **

I loved and agreed with every word of the author’s note. As a science geek myself, this really captured my attention and intrigued me. I knew after I read this, that if the whole book was written in the same style, with the same attention, then I was going to love it. And I did.
The whole story is profound, captivating and touching. I loved everything, even the parts that were difficult to read, sad and emotional. I completely lost track of time, while reading.
“What I understand now about survival is that something in you dies. You don’t become a survivor intact. Survival’s cost is always loss. This is my mourning book.” As a survivor myself, of cancer, I feel this sentence very deeply. Either the author know this from personal experience for herself, or from another, close to her. I don’t think anyone would/could know or feel this, unless for themselves.
I planned to only read the first chapter, when I started reading this book, because it was late when I started. Then I got swept into the story, from page one, and I was unable to put it down. Little Jules was adorable and her story was heartbreaking, almost from the get go. I love how her coping mechanism is to think of her life like a movie, with a narrator that limits the damage of the serious stuff that happens to her. I love how strong she is, despite all the bad things that happen in her life, and how she’s determined to survive and take care of her brothers, even though she’s so young.
I love Samuel, as a character, and I could see from the beginning that Moses and David were either going to turn out like Jules or like their mother. I couldn’t wait to find out which way they would go.
I found it so sad that Jules spent so long having her home life ignored. Unfortunately, it’s a sign of the times, that it was ignored in those days and tolerated. It’s such a shame that she few up calling her parents by their first names, in a disassociation of sorts that helps her cope with what happens.
“We became less like children and more like neglected pets. […] We developed independence beyond out years. Within our own pet universe we found hierarchy and function.”
I absolutely love the inclusion of grandpa Samuel/Szaja’s story and the Jewish element. The author really researched or knew about this era and the personal experiences of the Jewish at this time. The emotion, the trauma and the history was so well explored and delicately handled. I felt like I lived the experience with Samuel, rather than being an outside observer. I also love the way that Jewish words were dropped into the story in appropriate places and never completely explained. They weren’t singled out, as words that needed to be explained, but their meaning was clear through the sentence and their usage.
This part really killed me, and had me welling up, knowing why it took so long and yet, without the author telling me:
“My foter had no way of knowing that my escape from Eastern Europe would take another twenty-five years.
That life, my boyhood life, is the sweetest time. The winters are long and harsh and the work tiring, but the reward of my family, together and laughing, is all I ever needed. I knew this, even then.

But my foter is excited and happy, and it is hard not to be happy with him. Standing there in the orchard with him, the late summer sunrise lighting everything golden as the sun began its slow climb into the day, I inhaled the scent of the ripe apple trees and the damp earth.
“I stood there with a smile on my face, knowing with a dreadful certainty that I would never experience that kind of happiness again.”
I also really love how Jules was very similar to Samuel in many ways; she was spunky, independent, guilty for no reason and feisty. Jules is definitely my kind of girl:
“Kind of in general. Like Jo in Little Women, “I am angry nearly every day of my life.” When anyone makes me mad, I slug them, which gets me in lots of trouble.”
I really love Jules so much. She’s so amazing.
“What did he do to make Paulina cry? Whatever it is, it’s time for him to pay for all the bad things he’s done to Wendy and to us, and I am going to be the person that brings him down. Like Vito Corleone.
You, Jules Finn, will bring Howard Finn to justice, gangster-style.”

This is by far a happy story, but I’m hooked and addicted. I can’t wait to see how it turns out. You can’t just read one chapter at a time. I get so sucked in, when I read it, that I barely see the chapter headings go by. I can’t help but be fascinated to see where the story goes. Samuel’s story is even more heartbreaking than Jules’s story. More than anything, this story is about survival, even in the harshest situations and that comes across in every chapter. Samuel’s story specifically, rings of suffering and pain, while being so honest that it’s painful, because he’s gone through so many things in his life, that real people experienced.

I really love how we, as readers, are spoon-fed bits of history, memory and information, as and when it is appropriate. They often made me cry. I saw a few of the big plot spoilers coming, though I always hoped that I was wrong. It only made it more heartbreaking when it came true later. The absolute worst part of the story, that had me crying for nearly ten minutes and as many pages, was Moses’ big story arc.

I loved all the characters. The bad ones were brilliantly bad, the good ones were amazingly good and the innocent souls were angelic. I liked Timothy the moment David said that he brought Jules books home for her, when she was suffering her hazy memory loss. I think he was the only one who ever noticed her depression and that was when I hoped that he was the one who would love and heal Jules the way she needed him to. I also thought, at this point, that he might have been the dark haired boy she saw when she was in the tree, tripping on acid, thanks to her mother. To me, he is the perfect angel boy, that she thought was Moses.
“I feel like after this, Timothy has become a person who’ll be a part of my story whether he stays involved in my life later or not. He lives in my skin now.
Something else happened to me because of this too.
A hole in my chest opened, and all the tiny silver daggers spilled out.”
The loss that Jules experiences and suffers through her childhood, all before the age of seventeen, is gut-wrenching. Somehow she manages to wade her way through the muck and keeps her emotional hurricane inside her, until she can’t cope any longer. I can well understand just why she ends up making the decisions she makes near the end of the book.
“I understand why all the descriptions of lost loved ones are physically descriptive. Lovesick, heart-broken, grief-stricken. I can feel the loss of Moses in my marrow, my joints, my tissues. It aches inside-out when I think of him. I miss him every day. Sometimes it’s all I can think about. It’s a good thing I miss him, though, because it means I’m feeling things, and I think feeling things is a good way to stay present.”
I think the story has the perfect ending. It’s absolutely perfect to have an uncertain ending for all characters, to avoid the red ribbon tying up every aspect of everyone’s lives. I also think it’s right that the story ends with Samuel’s story, as there will be a second book focusing on his story.

Overall:

I love that Samuel, Wendy and Jules are all shaped by everything they have suffered and survived. It’s true for Samuel, more than anyone else, who has become the man his experiences have shaped him into. His own story is so much stronger and more haunting than anyone else’s life story. I think it’s well thought out and well planned, that Samuel’s story is dripped into the novel throughout time, when it relates to Jules and Wendy’s story. He’s explored carefully, having his secrets slowly discovered and told, only to the extent of any other war survivor. Most army men and war survivors never speak of their experiences again, especially when their past involved murder, loss and death camps. Samuel’s admission of all that had happened to him, in writing, to Jules, is fitting, since many survivors never want to tell their story, and certainly not openly or in detail.

My favourite quote? It’s between these two:
“I remembered Hemingway and said, “You expect to be sad in the fall. But the cold rain has kept on and killed the spring and a young person has died for no reason.”
and
“Every action, every word, every day since his death has been tarred with this truth.
Inside of me are tiny silver daggers that cut me with this knowledge every time I draw a breath.
I start to cry, and I can’t stop.”
This story is more literature than general fiction. It is an experience to live, suffer and survive along with the characters, rather than just a novel to read. If you’re looking for something light, fluffy and cheerful then this isn’t the book for you. But if you want honesty, a gut-wrenching experience and a good cry, then pick up this book now. It’s a story that will never leave you, and will relate to every person out there, who has had something to fight against, fight for, and suffered loss.

Initial reaction: This book took me through the emotional gauntlet and back again. Very well written and presented. Probably my chief complaint for the work was that sometimes the pacing slowed it down, but it was beautifully written. The characters aren't always easy to like, but the motivations and development here? Awesome. Hopefully I can expand upon this in the full review.

Full review:

Oh my word, this was the best book I've read in a while. Seriously, I don't say that lightly. I think I had a book hangover just from finishing this one, it gutted me so much. Probably also considering there's a major event in this that pulled a punch I wasn't expecting at all, and it came at an emotional time for me (the loss of one of my relatives).

To sum up my reaction to J. Dylan Yates's "The Belief in Angels" - this is the kind of book in New Adult I can get behind. It's really, from what the description had it on NetGalley - Literary and New Adult. I could tell the literary tag because it's very intimate in terms of the writing and the level of detail that was taken to each perspective, and I admired the fact that it had both historical leanings and period specific details that helped shape the narrative. I wanted to hug both Jules and Samuel - the narrative trades between their two perspectives in a generational gap that has them facing unbelievable challenges and odds that shape them along in their lives. They are not perfect characters; they have spaces where they fall out given their own distinct experiences and biases. But I felt like I was right there in terms of following their experiences, from Jules suffering under the hands of her abrasive parents and struggling to find a place to fit within her large family, to Samuel surviving the Holocaust and coming to America to find his own family, and make his place in the world with his respective relationships and carving out dreams he was never able to attain himself.

This narrative may take some getting used to in orientation, because there are time jumps in events for the narrative. Also, while Jules is the primary narrator here, Samuel (Szaja) is an intermediary narrator for key turns in the story - because you realize he's the grandfather that Jules talks about and whom takes care of their family in some spells, even when he's reluctant to do so. But he doesn't come without a heavy hand and hard prejudgments that he adheres to. You see where it comes from though, as well as Jules own ideals and how her experiences with her hard-handed family comes from. I'll admit it gutted me, especially hearing about Wendy and Nathan and how the two of them raised (or rather didn't raise) their children. Wendy's character I came to understand her failings and reasons for her behavior (which were palpable.

The only flaw I can say that I saw in this narrative was the pacing, and that might've been with some of the spells for the time jumps and the structure of the narrative itself. It's a slow burner, but rightly so, as it takes the time to explore each of the character's experiences and delve into that with a competency that just blew me away, quite frankly. Those that are into a blend of contemporary/period/historical setting books with a strong eye towards character will likely enjoy this book, and while it's strong and heavy on dramatic elements, it's beautifully portrayed, and I anticipate reading more from Yates in the future.

Overall score: 4/5 stars

Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher.