It's not news to anyone that I have been incredibly patchy in my blog posting this past year. A pair of my favorite BookTubers, Trina @ Between Chapters and Kayla @ Kayla Rayne, run a monthly recommendations group over on Goodreads. This month is the one-year anniversary of this group, so for this month's topic, they decided to do a look back on all of their previous topics. So, it's almost like a tag.
Let's get started!
This is a book about a book who has OCD and joins a support group to help him learn how to try and live a normal life when everything around him feels abnormal and when he feels like he doesn't belong in this world.
The kids in the support group use superhero names (i.e. Batman, Robin, Aquaman) for themselves in order to help them deal with all of the different issues that they have in their lives.
I thought that this book dealt with OCD very realistically and very honestly, and I definitely think that you should pick it up.
(Also, the audiobook is great, if you want to listen to this book.)
This is one that I picked up way back when the movie with Daniel Radcliffe (and yes, I did go see the movie just because he was in it) came out, so it has been quite a while since I read this. However, it is still one of the creepiest books I've ever read. That may be because I don't really read creepy books or it could be because it's a fairly classic ghost story that's stood the test of time.
You read it and then tell me.
For me, I had a hard time sleeping for a solid week after reading this book.
This is a total cheat, but I've never followed the rules anyway so I don't know what y'all were expecting. This is a trilogy of comic volumes . . . so, I think that's as close as we're going to get.
This is a 15 issue run of Black Widow by Nathan Edmondson with art by Phil Noto. I think this is really good if you've watched the MCU movies and said, "Give me more Black Widow!" and then gotten curious about her backstory and have done a couple of scrolls through Wikipedia or the Marvel Wikia.
It keeps a lot of the air of mystery and questioning around Natasha and her motives and her sense of judgment; however, it also answers a lot of questions, and it gives you a lot of looks into the people--superheroes and not--who have played a big role in Natasha's life.
A lot of people pitch this as a traveling band of actors that make their way through a post-disease America by performing Shakespeare. And that's true, but there is so much more that pitch is leaving out. It explores the dynamics of groups of people. It explores the emotional needs of people and how people and parts of our past help us survive in tough times.
It's spectacular. Read it, now.
I feel as though pitching this to you as only a fantasy novel because it's almost a mix of fantasy, dystopian, and futuristic alien (??? - that's not a genre, but okay Monica, let's continue) novel. However, I absolutely love this book and needed to squeeze it into this recommendations post. I needed to, okay?This book is amazing, and the main character Paige is completely kick-ass and so strong-willed. It is an adult and it does have a very throw you into the world vibe to it. Just remember that there's a glossary in the back. It will be your best friend for the first 100 pages until you get a grasp on the world. There is also a chart at the front that shows all the different types of clairvoyants.
Again, I was going to find a way to put this into this recommendations post because it's one of my favorites and how have you not read this book yet?
It's college best friends gone wrong with superpowers, and it's all about the line between good and evil, hero and villain. The writing is fantastic, the characters are incredibly well crafted, and if that hasn't convinced you then the dynamic between Eli and Victor feels very Hamilton and Burr to me.
I could have put this in three other categories, but I decided to put it in this one.
Other categories this book could fit into:
Empowering Females
Favorite Bookish Friendship
Books You Need to Read By the End of the Year
This is another one that, if you haven't read it yet, I would highly recommend listening to the audiobook for. There are three voice actors for the three women's perspectives, and they do an incredible job with all of the voices. And if you've seen the movie, it is similar enough where it's the same story but different enough where you will get so much more meaning out of the book if you read it.
Wow. Another book I haven't shut up about. Is anyone surprised? No.
I have a whole review up for this book if you want to read all of my flailing thoughts about it. Basically, Mark Watney gets stuck on Mars after a set of circumstances and his crew believes him to be dead. Surprise! He's not dead. This is genuinely the only survival story that I have ever seen/read that I've ever enjoyed. As a rule, narrators in survival stories get really annoying and whiny because they're on the brink of death 90% of the time. Mark Watney's humor and intuitiveness is 100% what got me through this story.
It's inspiring, and it made me believe in humans again.
This is another one that I have a separate review for.
While the romance in Morgan Matson's newest contemporary is by far my favorite that she's written, the friendship is probably my favorite in all of YA. It's not a friendship without its issues and problems, and it's nowhere near perfect. However, I found it a really honest depiction of friendships, especially in high school.
Also, it's a friendship group which is something often absent in YA as well.
Not only does this book take place in Paris and Germany, it also features travel. We have two main characters in this book.
The first is Marie-Laure, who is a blind French girl living in Paris with her father in the time era of WWII. She loves reading when her father can afford her a new braille book and enjoys walking to the museum after memorizing the streets of Paris through a model that her father built for her. Eventually, they have to leave Paris and end up traveling to what they hope is safety through the country.
The second is Werner, who is a young German boy with an exceptional talent for fixing radios. The Nazis end up finding out about Werner and his talent through the talk of the people in the town, and he is recruited by the Nazis.
Doerr paves the path for two very different characters and slowly works them together throughout the story. It's absolutely amazing. Please please please read it if you haven't.
Carol Danvers, y'all. Carol Danvers. If you haven't been on the internet in the past month, you may have missed that Brie Larson got officially announced as Captain Marvel at SDCC '16. If you don't know, Captain Marvel is the Avenger's emissary in space. Yes, it's as awesome as it sounds. She lives in the Statue of Liberty, she's friends with Spider-Woman, she may or may not be dating Iron Patriot. Yet, she is willing to leave all of that behind to serve her world and be the best pilot in space. She maintains her relationships in space and she forms all kinds of new intergalactic relationships.
If you're a fan of MCU, definitely pick up this 15 issue run following Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel.
Have you done this? What is a book with little to no romance that you loved? Tell me down in the comments!
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