Top Ten Tuesday--Best 10 Books Read During the First 6 Months of 2012

Top 10 Tuesday (#6)

Top 10 Tuesday is a blog hop hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. They post a Top 10 topic & other blogs participate & link their blog post to their website. It is a way to get to know your follow bloggers & get more traffic on your own blog! If you have a book blog, you can definitely participate! If not, you can still post your answers below in the comments!

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is:

 Top Ten Tuesday Freebie (whatever topic you'd like!)

The topic I came up with is perfect because the first 6 months of 2012 just ended a few days ago. Here's the topic: 

Best 10 Books Read from January 2012-June 2012 (First 6 Months of 2012)

(This is kind of in order. It is very hard to categorize books that you love.)

1. Delirium

2. The Host (review)

3. Insurgent (review)

4. Shatter Me (review)

5. Inside Out

6. Outside In

7. Divergent

8. Crossed (review)

9. Matched (review)

10. Pandemonium

New York Time's Best Seller's List

A quick post to congratulate two of my favorite authors, Lauren Oliver & Veronica Roth on both making it to the NYT best seller's list this week!! Lauren Oliver's Pandemonium which came out at the end of February is #4 under chapter books. Her book Delirium is also #8 under paperbacks! Veronica Roth's Divergent is #1 under paperbacks!

Also, congratulations to the author of the current book that I'm reading, Ally Condie. Her book Matched is #7 under paperbacks!

Congratulations again to all three! Divergent, Delirium, & Pandemonium are all awesome books & Matched is pretty good so far! I'm about 260 pages into it.

-E

Love is a Disease in Delirium

What if love was a disease? What if you were forced to be cured from it once you turned 18 years old? What if you were assigned your spouse after taking a test? Well, that's what society is like in America in the dystopian novel Delirium. In 95 days, Lena will be cured of love forever & she cannot wait. That is until she falls in love....

In January, I got a Goodreads account. For those of you that don't know what Goodreads is, check it out! I highly recommend getting one especially if you love to read like I do. It gives book recommendations based on books that you have already read. So far, for me, those recommendations have yet to disappoint. One book recommendation was Delirium. It caught my attention right away and I requested it. It took me about a week to read but only because of schoolwork. It was truly hard to concentrate on that schoolwork because the book was so hard to put down! A day after I finished reading it, I entered to win the sequel, Pandemonium, on the Delirium Trilogy Facebook Page. A day after that, I received an e-mail notifying me that I was one of that week's five winners! (YAY!) I was so excited! I had been having a lousy week and receiving that e-mail made my week! Then, after a long, exhausting wait, my ARC (Advanced Reader's Copy) came in the mail. I was so pumped! (For those of you who don't know what an ARC is, check out Veronica Roth's blog post. She goes into full details of what they are.)

My Pandemonium ARC!

So, after finishing a really good book, a book that you feel in love with, one you just couldn't put down, one where you grow emotionally attached to the characters, do you tend to notice the names of characters everywhere you go? Well, that happened to me after finishing Delirium. After I finished it, I seemed to notice the main male character's name everywhere. Noticing it everywhere made me happy.

Anyways, I would highly recommend this trilogy if you:

Yup, it's an ARC & not for sale

a) Like dystopia
b) Wonder what life would be like without love
c) Like a forbidden romance
d) Like romance in general

Delrium Cover

If you selected any of the above, read these books! They are amazing. They are very hard to put down and the endings will leave you wanting more! I'm already looking forward to reading the third and final book Requiem to find out what happens! I definitely recommend this trilogy!

Like I said in my previous post, expect to see more posts about this awesome trilogy. I will probably write a post later this summer about what I predict will happen in Requiem.

-E

PS-Did all of you notice my awesome Insurgent countdown widget that's on the right?

My Hatred of Love Triangles

Oh, love triangles. Oh, how I loathe thee.
No really, I hate love triangles. They are overused immensely. I can think of many different series that use them. In fact, when I find out that a series has one, it upsets me immensely. Yes, they are definitely interesting to have, but how often do they really occur in real life? To have two attractive guys after me? Wow, that would be a dream!

For me, there are several different types of love triangles:

1. Those in which I do not care who the main character ends up with (has never happened)
2. Those in which I like both guys but I still prefer one over the other (has happened once so far)
3. Those in which I like one guy & the other one is just ok (Hunger Games)
4. Those in which I like one guy & hate the other (I don't think this has happened either)
5. Those in which I like the guy who I know the main character won't end up with (Twilight)

Regardless of what type of love triangle it is, I still hate them. It is especially disappointing when I think while reading the first book "Oh, yay! No love triangle" then bam! there's a love triangle in the sequel. So upsetting!


Okay, you are probably wondering why I hate love triangles so much. Well, let me explain.


First of all, they split up fans into 2 groups: those that support one guy & those that support the other. That alone bothers me. Us fans of a particular book/book series shouldn't be annoyed with one another for this purpose. We should all get along and agree that the book/book series is amazing. Nope, that's not the case. Fans fight. They get in arguments about which character is better. They split into teams. (*Cough*Team Edward*Cough*Team Jacob*Cough*) For example, with the Hunger Games, it annoys me when other Hunger Games fans tell me they prefer Gale over Peeta & I'm sure Gale fans get annoyed with Peeta fans for saying the opposite. I know we have our preferences but still, like I said earlier, us fans shouldn't be fighting over something so stupid. We should be happy that we have similar interests and discuss how great the book(s) is/are.


Second of all, there is no way that the main character can end up with both guys. Thus, a lot of fans end up upset with this. (Warning! There is a major  Hunger Games spoiler in this paragraph! Stop reading if you don't want to be spoiled.) I was thrilled when Katniss from the Hunger Games series ended up with Peeta, but of course all of Gale's supporters were probably highly disappointed with that. 


(End of Hunger Games spoilers)


With love triangles, there is no way that all fans of the book(s) will be pleased with the ending.

(Warning! Below are major Delirium/Pandemonium spoilers! Stop reading if you don't want to be spoiled.)

I was recently introduced to the the second type of love triangle in the Delirium trilogy. While reading the first book, I was having one of those "Yes! No love triangle" moments but then at the end of the first book, the guy (Alex) dies. (Or so we think..)  It was heartbreaking. It was the first time I cried after reading a book because of a sad ending. I absoutely loved Alex. Loved! In Pandemonium, the sequel, the main character, Lena, falls in love with another guy, Julian. At first I wasn't sure how I felt about Julian, sometimes I liked him & sometimes I didn't. I ended up liking him in the end. He is a nice, sweet guy.  Then at the end of the book, you find out that Alex is still alive. Bam! Love triangle. UGH!!! In this case, I like both guys, so I will be sad regardless of who Lena ends up with because I have attachments to both characters (okay, maybe not that sad if she picks Alex, but I'll still feel bad for Julian), but I'll be even sadder if she picks Julian over Alex. I love Alex! 


(End of Delirium/Pandemonium spoilers) 


On a side note, expect to hear me discuss Delirium a lot more in the future!


A third problem that I have with love triangles is that they almost always consist of two guys & one girl. It is never two girls & one guy. I'm sure there are some love triangles like this but none of which I have come across. And this annoys me.


A fourth problem that I have with love triangles is that they usually take attention away from the main plot. Take the Hunger Games for instance, most fans that I know of have been talking about the romance aspect of the movie/book. However, in the book, the romance is only a subplot of the book. It isn't the main part of the series. Yes, there are certain books in which love triangles are the main part but that isn't always the case.


Alright, that pretty much sums up why I hate love triangles so much. 
-E