Number of books read in 2013: 58. Unless I can finish re-reading Bryson's In A Sunburned Country before the end of year.
1. Best Book You Read In 2013? There were a lot of amazing books I read this year. I re-read Lamb by Christopher Moore and that's a favorite of mine so always good. But for new-to-me books of 2013 it would have to be Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple and I'm thinking even though I just read it a couple months ago, I need to read it again.
2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t? This is a toss up between Michael Cunningham's The Hours and Neil Gaiman's American Gods. I thought they'd be books that were right up my alley (haha, pun) and they didn't do it for me.
3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2013? Where'd You Go, Bernadette? because I didn't think I'd love it like I did. I don't know why I got it in my head this was going to be some pretentious book and instead it was SO GOOD
4. Book you read in 2013 that you recommended to people most in 2013? I know I've tried to shove World War Z by Max Brooks down a lot of people's throats, but I first read that a few years ago so that isn't anything new. Bernadette was another one I kept telling people about, except most people already knew about it so breath wasted.
5. Best series you discovered in 2013? Other than Harry Potter I don't think I read any series this year. And I had discovered HP awhile before. I guess Bridget Jones's Diary and Confessions of a Shopaholic are both the first in their respective series, but while I enjoyed those books "eh" to the series as a whole. Pre-emptive "eh" at least, since I haven't read them.
6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2013? This is a tough one. Joe Hill? I read his book Horns and the book he wrote with his dad In the Tall Grass and those were awesome so I'm looking forward to reading more of his stuff. I don't know if he's a favorite author, but one I'm excited to read more of.
7. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you? I liked Breakfast at Tiffany's more than I was anticipating, although I was not a fan of the other short stories. Maybe True Grit as another book I enjoyed that is outside of my normal genres.
8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2013? The Harry Potter books kept me enthralled. Of course, that's to be expected. Otherwise Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson had some good thrills in it.
9. Book You Read In 2013 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year? Where'd You Go, Bernadette? since I already said I want to re-read it. I expect I'll probably re-read some more HP and perhaps Eleanor & Park.
10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2013? Chuck Wendig's Blackbirds. I LOVE this cover. The book is very good as well.
11. Most memorable character in 2013? Coraline from Coraline by Neil Gaiman. Or maybe Bernadette (I know, I'm talking a lot about it. Only because it's so great.)
12. Most beautifully written book read in 2013? I think I'll have to go with The Kings and Queens of Roam by Daniel Wallace. That book had some beautiful imagery in it.
13. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2013? Possibly We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, and not necessarily in a good way. The book is very good and well-written and gave me stress headaches while I was reading it because it's very upsetting. So yeah, impactful.
14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2013 to finally read? Bridget Jones's Diary because it seems like one a lot of people had already read. Or Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett which I'm sure teenage me would have loved.
15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2013? [so, I have a lot of great passages highlighted in my Kindle. Which is not with me at the moment. So I'll fill this in later. Or more likely I'll forget, but know that I had intentions to fix this.]
16.Shortest and Longest Book You Read In 2013?
Shortest: In The Tall Grass by Joe Hill and Stephen King at 62 pages.
Longest: Under the Dome by Stephen King at 1,062 pages. Surprisingly Rowling was second longest, beating out George R.R. Martin. I also appreciate that King is both the shortest and longest book I read.
17. Book That Had A Scene In It That Had You Reeling And Dying To Talk To Somebody About It? I'm thinking mostly the HP books, except since we did our SUPER EPIC READALONG I did get to talk to people about all the scenes. So that was sweet.
18. Favorite Relationship From A Book You Read In 2013 (be it romantic, friendship, etc). I love Joshua & Biff's bromance from Lamb. Also Cath and Reagan from Fangirl (yeah yeah or Cath and Levi but whatever, I heart Reagan)
19. Favorite Book You Read in 2013 From An Author You’ve Read Previously Not counting re-reading books I had read before I guess I'll have to go with both Eleanor & Park and Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, because I can never decide which Rowell I like best. (All of them. The answer is all of them.)
20. Best Book You Read In 2013 That You Read Based SOLELY on a Recommendation From Somebody Else: Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt. Once I get at least three recommendations from this group, I must read the book and they have excellent taste so this works out. Next is that time travel River something book that I'm sure I will fall in love with.
21. Genre You Read The Most From in 2013? Umm. I dunno. I don't categorize my stuff into genres because it's too easy for something to fall into a bunch of genres and then I don't know what to do with it. So let's say the genre was "excellent books" and in which case, I read a lot of that.
22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2013? None? Or Sirius still? I still love him.
23. Best debut book you read? Is Bernadette the debut novel? Cos if so, that one.
24. Most vivid world/imagery in a book you read in 2013? HP. Rowling wins at creating this world, even if she didn't quite figure out the details of wizarding plumbing.
25. Book That Was the Most Fun To Read in 2013? Most of them. HP for the readalong. WWZ I loved listening to. Bernadette was hilarious.
26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2013? I swear, I cry so much more easily now and I cried a lot. HP, Eleanor & Park, Tell The Wolves I'm Home. So amazing, even if it's a little soul destroying. But in a good way.
27. Book You Read in 2013 That You Think Got Overlooked This Year Or When It Came Out? I read a lot of big name books so I'm not sure. Maybe Fledgling because Octavia Butler is in general overlooked
28. Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year? I don't set concrete challenges or goals because when I do that I fail. I am no good at forcing myself to read something. I guess a goal for the last few years has been to read The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen and with the help of a readalong I finally got that done. So hooray! Take that, Franzeeeeehhh.
29. Bookish Events on your blog in 2013? The HP and Corrections readalongs. Those were pretty great. I'd include the readathong but I'm pretty sure I managed like 20 pages so that didn't go so well.
30. One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2013 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2014? That River book I mentioned above as one that I'm sure I'll like, even if I can't remember the name right now.
31. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2014 (non-debut)? Rowell has a new book, Landline coming out, and I think 2014. So that will be fun.
32. One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading/Blogging In 2014? Get more consistent with my blogging. I've fallen behind a bit and I want to fix that. Of course my old laptop was a pain to use (overheated very easily, took about 20 min to start up, froze a lot) and Boyfriend+ got me a new computer because HE IS THE BEST EVERRRRR so I'm hoping this will help me blog some more.
(P.S. I keep having on-and-off issues with the comments showing up. Not sure why, but there you go. They came back before and were around this morning so I'm hoping they'll just come back again.)
