Top 10 Favorite Reads of 2015 (So Far)

So I follow a lot of bloggers on Twitter (surprise! not) and I learned very quickly that yesterday was Top Ten Tuesday, a meme created by The Broke and Bookish. Yesterday's theme was top ten reads of the year, and that looked like a ton of fun, so I thought I'd join in a day late.

As it so happens, I've rated exactly ten books 4.5 or 5 stars, so choosing my top reads of the year so far was pretty easy. Yay!

So without further ado, here are the top ten books I've read in 2015 (which may or may not have actually been released this year) so far in no particular order:

Photo credit: Goodreads

1. I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson—This book actually jumped onto my favorites list, because wow, it was just so emotional, and beautifully written, and it really, truly made me feel so many things while I was reading. Also, bonus points for showcasing some diversity (one POV character is gay). (Full review)





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2. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin—I know I'm way late to the party with this one, but I finally got around to reading it and whoa. It was so eerie and twisty, and totally left me wondering what the hell I just read in the best way possible. (Full review)







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3. OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu—So this one was recommended to me by Dahlia Adler, and I'm so, so glad a very smart person picked it off my Christmas book list and gifted it to me. This is the first book I've read with explicit OCD representation, and I thought it was really respectfully done. So much so that I wrote a post about why books like this are so important to me.





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4. Made You Up by Francesca Zappia—Kind of similar to Mara Dyer, but not nearly as creepy, Made You Up really makes you stop and think about what's real and what's not. This is the first book I've read featuring a protagonist with paranoid schizophrenia, and not only does it have a brilliantly unreliable narrator, but the whole book was completely fascinating and a really, really unique read. (Full review)





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5. Unteachable by Leah Raeder—So this was my first glimpse at Leah Raeder's work, and now I'm 100% a fan because her work is everything I love about the sexier side of New Adult. Unteachable is swoony, very steamy and really explores the depths of a forbidden student/teacher relationship, punctuated with Raeder's really gorgeous prose.





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6. Black Iris by Leah Raeder—Another (really friggin' amazing) Leah Raeder book! Unlike Unteachable, Black Iris is a NA Thriller, and it is super, super dark (as well as sexy because, c'mon, this is a Raeder book). Once again I was really impressed by Raeder's prose, but more than that I loved seeing how she combined this super dark plot with incredibly layered, twisted characters and a hell of a lot of diversity. (Full review)





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7. Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli—This book was so cute. SO. CUTE. Unlike many on this list, Simon vs. is a really happy, adorable book with a super cutesy m/m romance and actually had me giggling and saying "aww" out loud while reading. (Full review)





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8. Half Wild by Sally Green—So Half Bad jumped onto my favorites list when I read it, which meant I had super high expectations for Half Wild, and boy, those expectations were 150% met. Half Wild is super dark and exciting and the series has my favorite depiction of witches since Harry Potter and as a bonus? The MC is bi and there is angst and stuff between boys. My heart. (Full review) 





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9. Trust the Focus by Megan Erickson—So this is one of my favorite NA romances, and I keep recommending it because it gave me all the warm fuzzies and a full spectrum of emotion while reading. Justin and Landry's journey together was a memorable one that I still think about, and the next book in the series, Focus on Me, comes out this month and I seriously can't wait. (Full review)





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10. Last Will and Testament by Dahlia Adler—This was another really great NA read; very swoony and sexy, and I loved the awkward flirting, and the student/TA relationship was A+. Furthermore, Last Will and Testament presented a situation rarely seen in NA—a college student who loses her parents in an accident and becomes the guardian of her two younger brothers.

What are some of your favorite reads of 2015 so far?

Twitter-sized bite: 

.@Ava_Jae shares her top 10 reads of 2015 so far. What books are on your list? (Click to tweet)

Book Review: THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER by Michelle Hodkin

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Welp, it’s another day of everyone telling me I need to read something, and I say I will, and then I don’t forever, and then I finally do, and everyone was right. So. 

I finally read The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin, you guys, and you haven’t read it, you should probably do so.

Here’s the Goodreads summary:

“Mara Dyer believes life can't get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. 

It can.  

She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed.  

There is. 

She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love.  

She's wrong.”

I actually don’t think the summary does it justice, to be honest, because while there is romance (and Noah is a fantastic book boyfriend), that isn’t what did it for me with this book.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a total sucker for unreliable narrators—Unbecoming absolutely takes full advantage of Mara’s extremely unreliable narration (and I’m not spoiling anything to say so). I was quoting Mockingjay’s “real or not real?” throughout the book, there are twists galore, and the paranormal/supernatural aspect was so perfectly creepy. And I was totally impressed with all of that, and then I reached the end, and now I seriously need the sequels, which I will be buying together. And as an added bonus, I appreciated the incidental diversity integrated into the cast.

My one peeve was more of a writing quirk than anything else: there are a ton of filter phrases, which honestly is something I see all over the place, but I noticed it more than usual for some reason while reading Unbecoming. That said, it in no way ruined the reading experience for me, and it’s a super minor flaw that most people probably won’t even notice. So.

Unbecoming is twisty, eerie, unintentionally takes advantage of my fear of swamps, and I absolutely enjoyed it. Definitely recommended for those of you who like creepy book with trippy plots that leave you wondering what the hell just happened.

Have you read this fabulous book?

Twitter-sized bites: 

.@Ava_Jae gives 4.5/5 stars to THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER by @MichelleHodkin. Have you read this creepy YA Para? (Click to tweet)   

Looking for a twisty & eerie YA read? Check out THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER by Michelle Hodkin. (Click to tweet)

Vlog: Top 5 TBR Books

I've been doing a lot of reading lately, and so I thought I'd share the top five books in my (already-owned) TBR list.

THE BOOKS:

• I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
• The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
• The Body Electric by Beth Revis
• The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey
• Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

What are the top five books in your TBR list?

Twitter-sized bite:

.@Ava_Jae vlogs about 5 books at the top of her TBR list. What books are at the top of yours? (Click to tweet)