As an avid reader of fiction (and an author who one day hopes to make the list) I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE checking out the New York Times Best Seller list. So, here it is… The independently ranked top 10 Young Adult selections for February 2020!
If you’ve read any of the TOP 10 selections and recommend them, please comment below and let me know. If you see something you like and plan to pick up a copy, you can do so by clicking on the cover image, the title or the [BUY IT HERE] button.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
#1 One of Use Is Next
by Karen M. McManus
In this sequel to “One of Us Is Lying,” a deadly game of truth or dare via text now plagues the students of Bayview High.
When you purchase a book using a link on this site, I earn an affiliate commission.All commission earnings go back into funding my books; editing, cover design, etc.
As an avid reader of fiction (and an author who one day hopes to make the list) I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE checking out the New York Times Best Seller list. So, here it is… The independently ranked top 10 Fiction selections for February 2020!
If you’ve read any of the TOP 10 selections and recommend them, please comment below and let me know. If you see something you like and plan to pick up a copy, you can do so by clicking on the [BUY IT HERE] button.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
#1 Little Fires Everywhere
by Celeste Ng
An artist with a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo upends a quiet town outside Cleveland.
Winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Nine people drawn to trees for different reasons fight for the last of the remaining acres of virgin forest.
When you purchase a book using a link on this site, I earn an affiliate commission.All commission earnings go back into funding my books; editing, cover design, etc.
THE INSTANT #1 BESTSELLER IS NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK!
FEATURED ON 60 MINUTES and FRESH AIR
“So surprising and moving and true that I became completely unstrung.” – The New York Times
Named a best book of the year by: TheNew York Times, NPR, TIME, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Southern Living, Publishers Weekly, BookPage,A.V. Club, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Vulture, and many more!
JOHN GREEN, the acclaimed author of Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, returns with a story of shattering, unflinching clarity in this brilliant novel of love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship.
Aza Holmes never intended to pursuethe disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett’s son Davis.
Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.
I knew nothing about this book, other than what was stated in the Amazon description, when I started reading it. It was a book club selection and probably one I wouldn’t have picked for myself otherwise. With that said, I am very glad I read it. I enjoyed it way more than I expected to.
STORY (★★★★★): In a nutshell, this story is about Aza Holmes, a young girl who suffers from a mental disorder that keeps her trapped in an inward spiral of her own thoughts, as she struggles to live a normal life. We get to see a glimpse into Aza’s life, watching/reading as she learns new things about herself and life, pushes her best friend away, finds love, looses love, and fights internally to decide what is right and what is wrong.
There is also a secondary storyline weaved throughout Aza’s story, that is of the missing billionaire. Ok, maybe it isn’t so much about him, but more about the two sons he has left behind; Davis and Noah. Davis, a long-lost friend of Aza’s and Noah, his little brother, are living in a mansion alone because their mother abandoned them when they were younger and their father has disappeared.
John Green is a wonderful storyteller. He knows his characters inside and out. The way he writes Aza is so detailed its as if he is literally in her head. Or, maybe it’s the other way around. The way he ties the two storylines together is seamless and beautiful. I think there could have been more about the missing dad, allowing us to relate to that family a bit more, but he gave the reader, and Aza, just enough to understand what the boys were going through and how to react.
WRITING (★★★★★): John Green’s writing style is fluid and easy. His chapters flow from one to the other with little, if any, breaks. Everything feels cohesive and complete. I think I read this one over a five-day period in about three sittings. I have no complaints about his style and would definitely pick up another book. In fact, I have my eyes on Paper Towns next.
CHARACTERS (★★★★): I loved the characters of Davis and Noah, honestly, I wanted to get to know them more. Aza, the lead character, was very well written, but I couldn’t relate to her in any way. Her anxieties and OCD behaviors were so realistic and well developed, but her constant negative self-talk and obsessions with her inner thoughts drove me a little crazy. Maybe that was the plan… maybe the author wanted the reader to feel a little trapped in Aza’s constant thought spiral, trapped so that we could experience what she feels. However, for me, her thought spirals were the reason I’d put the book and take a break. I needed a little time away from the negativity, second guessing, and often disturbing thoughts.
APPEARANCE (★★★★): I have the paperback, and it is a pretty simple cream-colored cover with large black lettering and an orange spiral. Again, I probably wouldn’t have picked this one up and read it, if it hadn’t been for book club, the cover just doesn’t really pull me in. The cover just doesn’t do justice to the story inside.
FAVORITE QUOTES:
“Your now is not your forever.”
“Anybody can look at you. It’s quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.”
“No one ever says good-bye unless they want to see you again.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
John Green (Photo from Author Amazon Page)
John Green is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with David Levithan), and The Fault in Our Stars.
His many accolades include the Printz Medal, a Printz Honor, and the Edgar Award. John has twice been a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and was selected by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
With his brother, Hank, John is one half of the Vlogbrothers (youtube.com/vlogbrothers) and co-created the online educational series CrashCourse (youtube.com/crashcourse). You can join the millions who follow him on Twitter @johngreen and Instagram @johngreenwritesbooks or visit him online at johngreenbooks.com.
John lives with his family in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Also by John Green
Click on the cover image to read the book’s description and purchase your copy!
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As an avid reader of fiction (and an author who one day hopes to make the list) I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE checking out the New York Times Best Seller list. So, here it is… The independently ranked top 10 Young Adult selections for January 2020!
If you’ve read any of the TOP 10 selections and recommend them, please comment below and let me know. If you see something you like and plan to pick up a copy, you can do so by clicking on the cover image, the title or the [BUY IT HERE] button.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
When you purchase a book using a link on this site, I earn an affiliate commission.All commission earnings go back into funding my books; editing, cover design, etc.
As an avid reader of fiction (and an author who one day hopes to make the list) I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE checking out the New York Times Best Seller list. So, here it is… The independently ranked top 10 Fiction selections for January 2020!
If you’ve read any of the TOP 10 selections and recommend them, please comment below and let me know. If you see something you like and plan to pick up a copy, you can do so by clicking on the cover image, the title or the [BUY IT HERE] button.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Nine people drawn to trees for different reasons fight for the last of the remaining acres of virgin forest.
When you purchase a book using a link on this site, I earn an affiliate commission.All commission earnings go back into funding my books; editing, cover design, etc.
As an avid reader of fiction (and an author who one day hopes to make the list) I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE checking out the New York Times Best Seller list. So, here it is… The independently ranked top 10 Fiction selections for December 2019!
If you’ve read any of the TOP 10 selections and recommend them, please comment below and let me know. If you see something you like and plan to pick up a copy, you can do so by clicking on the cover image, the title or the [BUY IT HERE] button.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
When you purchase a book using a link on this site, I earn an affiliate commission.All commission earnings go back into funding my books; editing, cover design, etc.
As an avid reader of fiction (and an author who one day hopes to make the list) I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE checking out the New York Times Best Seller list. So, here it is… The independently ranked top 10 Fiction selections for December 2019!
If you’ve read any of the TOP 10 selections and recommend them, please comment below and let me know. If you see something you like and plan to pick up a copy, you can do so by clicking on the cover image, the title or the [BUY IT HERE] button.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
In a follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Olive Kitteridge,” new relationships, including a second marriage, are encountered in a seaside town in Maine.
Children with special talents are abducted and sequestered in an institution where the sinister staff seeks to extract their gifts through harsh methods.
When you purchase a book using a link on this site, I earn an affiliate commission.All commission earnings go back into funding my books; editing, cover design, etc.
As an avid reader (and an author who one day hopes to make the list) I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE checking out the New York Times Best Seller list. So, here it is… The independently ranked top 10 Young Adult selections for November 2019!
If you’ve read any of the TOP 10 selections and recommend them, please comment below and let me know. If you see something you like and plan to pick up a copy, you can do so by clicking on the title, the cover image, or the [BUY IT HERE] button.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
…A gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge.
Justyce McAllister is a good kid, an honor student, and always there to help a friend—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. Despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can’t escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates.
Berlin, 1942: When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move to a new house far, far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people in the distance.
Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents’ house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.
Aza Holmes never intended to pursuethe disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate.
This fall, six new students are joining the junior class at the elite Darkwood Academy. But they aren’t your regular over-achieving teens. They’re DNA duplicates, and these “similars” are joining the class alongside their originals.
Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
When you purchase a book using a link on this site, I earn an affiliate commission.All commission earnings go back into funding my books; editing, cover design, etc.
In this New York Times bestselling thriller from the author of Lock Every Door and Final Girls, a young woman returns to her childhood summer camp to uncover the truth about a tragedy that happened there fifteen years ago.
Two Truths and a Lie. The girls played it all the time in their cabin at Camp Nightingale. Vivian, Natalie, Allison, and first-time camper Emma Davis, the youngest of the group. But the games ended the night Emma sleepily watched the others sneak out of the cabin into the darkness. The last she–or anyone–saw of them was Vivian closing the cabin door behind her, hushing Emma with a finger pressed to her lips.
Now a rising star in the New York art scene, Emma turns her past into paintings–massive canvases filled with dark leaves and gnarled branches that cover ghostly shapes in white dresses. When the paintings catch the attention of Francesca Harris-White, the wealthy owner of Camp Nightingale, she implores Emma to return to the newly reopened camp as a painting instructor. Seeing an opportunity to find out what really happened to her friends all those years ago, Emma agrees.
Familiar faces, unchanged cabins, and the same dark lake haunt Nightingale, even though the camp is opening its doors for the first time since the disappearances. Emma is even assigned to the same cabin she slept in as a teenager, but soon discovers a security camera–the only one on the property–pointed directly at its door. Then cryptic clues that Vivian left behind about the camp’s twisted origins begin surfacing. As she digs deeper, Emma finds herself sorting through lies from the past while facing mysterious threats in the present. And the closer she gets to the truth about Camp Nightingale and what really happened to those girls, the more she realizes that closure could come at a deadly price.
You probably
recognize the author’s name, Riley Sager. I recently reviewed his book Final
Girls, which I loved. It was the first book in a while that I actually gave a 5
out of 5-star review. Well, he did it again with The Last Time I Lied. It was
amazing.
STORY (★★★★★): This story follows Emma, who at the age
of 13 goes to summer camp at Camp Nightingale and bunks with three other girls
who end up going missing and the camp is shutdown. This book takes place 15
years after that event and Emma is now an accomplished artist in New York City who
secretly paints the three missing girls into all of her paintings, hidden under
layers of paint. Basically, she suffers
from anxiety because of this tragic event that happened during her childhood
and she uses her art as a form of therapy.
During
her art show, at the gallery, Franny the owner of the camp shows up and asks
her to return to camp for the camps re-opening. She wants her to come and be an
art instructor at the camp. Emma eventually decides to go hoping for closer,
and also hoping to maybe do a little investigating and find out what happened
to the three girls.
WRITING (★★★★★): The pace of this story is great.
It’s a very fast read, I think I finished it in just a few days.
The structure is
interesting, it jumps back
and forth between the past and present a lot. This allows us to not under
understand what Emma is going through today but also what she experienced 15
years prior and how that colored her world as she grew up.
This
book was so much fun to read. Sager is great at putting suspicion on so many of
the characters making it hard for the reader to trust anyone. Usually I can figure
out ‘who done it’, but with this one I didn’t know the end until the twist
happened and the answers are given.
I
really like how Riley Sager writes and I love his vivid settings and
descriptions. He uses a lot of similes in his comparisons that just paint a
wonderful picture for the reader. I love his plot twists and the big reveals –
like in Final Girls, the reveal in this one really surprised me.
I
love how Riley Sager is able to tie up all the loose endings by the end of the
book. It makes for a very clean story with no plot holes, which I like when it
comes to single story books as opposed to series. In a series, I want to be
left with a cliffhanger until the last book.
CHARACTERS (★★★★★): There are so many characters that I wanted
to trust, but couldn’t. You even find out things about the lead character,
Emma, that make you question whether or not she is the “good guy” or the “bad guy”.
Since this book is told from the perspective
of a female character, there are a number of scenes where the author, being a
man, could have really messed up. However, Sager is really good at writing from
the female perspective and capturing the emotions that come along with the
events that happen throughout the story both in the past as well as present day.
APPEARANCE (★★★★): The cover, designed
by Alex Merto with photograph by Aaron Smith, is beautiful and haunting,
although the photo doesn’t look like the character of Emma.
FAVORITE
QUOTES:
“Sometimes the only way out is through.”
“My future is quite literally a blank canvas,
waiting for me to fill it.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Riley Sager is the pseudonym of a former journalist, editor and graphic designer. Now a full-time author, Riley’s first thriller, FINAL GIRLS, became a national and international bestseller and was called “the first great thriller of 2017” by Stephen King. Translation rights have been sold in more than two dozen countries. His second book, THE LAST TIME I LIED, was a New York Times bestseller. His latest novel, LOCK EVERY DOOR, which is currently on my TO READ LIST, was an instant New York Times, Publishers Weekly and USA Today bestseller. A television adaptation is being developed by Paramount TV and Anonymous Content.
A native of Pennsylvania, Riley now lives in Princeton, New Jersey. When he’s not working on his next novel, he enjoys reading, cooking and going to the movies as much as possible. His favorite film is “Rear Window.” Or maybe “Jaws.” But probably, if he’s being honest, “Mary Poppins.”
Check out my YouTube channel and the video
review below… and make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss a video.
Disclosure: When you purchase a book using a link on this site, I earn an affiliate commission.All commission earnings go back into funding my books; editing, cover design, marketing, author events, etc.
As an avid reader of fiction (and an author who one day hopes to make the list) I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE checking out the New York Times Best Seller list. So, here it is… The independently ranked top 10 Fiction selections for November 2019!
row of books and a cup of coffee
If you’ve read any of the TOP 10 selections and recommend them, please comment below and let me know. If you see something you like and plan to pick up a copy, you can do so by clicking on the title, the cover image, or the [BUY IT HERE] button.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Years after the events of “Call Me by Your Name,” Elio has become a classically trained pianist in Paris while Oliver is a New England college professor with a family.
Children with special talents are abducted and sequestered in an institution where the sinister staff seeks to extract their gifts through harsh methods.
When you purchase a book using a link on this site, I earn an affiliate commission.All commission earnings go back into funding my books; editing, cover design, etc.
Nina Soden 