Books Read in 2011

I just finished reading the "Mortal Instruments" for the second time, so I think it's safe to assume that I have now completed 40 books this year.  I set a challenge for myself to read 75 books in 2011. I made it through 40 books, which is not so bad.  I was on a real World of Warcraft streak for a while, so that was about 2 months of this year.

40 books in a year means.... 
40 books =3.333 books/month (or 3 books + a third of a different book.)
40 books=.76 books/week (or almost finishing a book every week.)
40 books=.1095books/day (or I read about 10% every day.)

There were good books, bad books, tedious books and some that were completely awesome.  I didn't make notes on every book; I'm terrible with reliability.  So, I guess....

if you are what you READ, this is me :)

1. Where She Went by Gayle Forman (ARC from LibraryThing Early Reviewers program) 5 stars
2. Last Sacrifice (Vampire Academy, Book 6) by Richelle Mead 5 stars--so ridiculously amazing and perfect, and if you read just one YA paranormal series, it should be Vampire Academy!
3. Secret Society by Tom Dolby 3 stars
4. Matched by Ally Condie 3 stars
5. Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda 5 stars--unlike anything else on the YA market, very "girl-power," and if you don't want your daughter to read the Twilight books, let her read this.
6. Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood by Eileen Cook 3 stars
7. Virals by Kathy Reichs 3 stars
8. Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon 4.5 stars
9. Department 19 by Will Hill (ARC from LibraryThing Early Reviewers program) 5 stars
10. Extraordinary by Nancy Werlin (ARC from LibraryThing Early Reviewers program) 1 star
11. Hunger (Riders of the Apocalypse) by Jackie Morse Kessler 4.5 stars
12. On the Edge (The Edge, Book 1) by Ilona Andrews 4.5 stars
13. Just Between You and Me: A Novel of Losing Fear and Finding God by Jenny B. Jones 4 stars
14. Night Myst (Indigo Court, Book 1) by Yasmine Galenorn 4 stars
15. Kiss Me Deadly: 13 Tales of Paranormal Love 4 stars overall
16. Blood Heat (Blood Lines, Book 4) by Maria Lima 5 stars, I love this series and it deserves a lot more attention than it has.
17. I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies) 4 stars, and I'm not listing "Pitticus Lore" as the author because he isn't, he's a character in the series.
18. The Sight by Judy Blundell 4 stars
19.The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman 2 stars--I really had to struggle to stick with this one. Also, I received it as an ARC from the LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.
20. I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power 5 stars--If you've ever struggled with Perfectionism, READ THIS!
21. Paranormalcy by Kiersten White 5 stars, and one of the best I've read in a long time!
22. Rise of the Wolf: Book 1 (Wereworld) by Curtis Jobling 2 stars--I just couldn't get into the setting/world at all. Younger male readers may really enjoy this one though. I'm having to compare it to 5 star books like Nightshade and Linger, so it's not fair. (ARC from LibraryThing Early Reviewers program)
23. Dead Beautiful by Yvonne Woon 3.5 stars
24. Blood Sacrifice by Maria Lima 5 stars! Superb ending, though I hope to see more of Keira and Adam one day.
25. Bloodlines by Richelle Mead 3.5 stars, and a slow start to a new series set in the same world as Vampire Academy. I'm enough of a fan to be sure the storyline will pick-up in future books.
26.Wolfsbane (Nightshade, Book 2) by Andrea Cremer (I much prefer the previous cover art, but oh well.) WOW!! One of the best books this year!! 5 stars
27. Dark Descendant by Jenna Black 4 stars, an excellent Urban Paranormal
28.Firelight by Sophie Jordan 2.5 stars..not my cup of tea. maybe for a younger audience?
29. The Iron King by Julie Kagawa Wow! I can see why everyone is excited about this series--it's very good! 5 stars for making the "generic" faery tale new again!
30.The Fallen 1: The Fallen and Leviathan by Thomas E. Sniegoski 3.5 stars
31. Hounded (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book One) by Kevin Hearne 5 stars, seriously, I'm so in love with Atticus...or Oberon--and you will not read a funnier paranormal novel like this one
32. Hexed (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Two) by Kevin Hearne 5 stars, same feeling as with book 1--freaking awesome, don't miss this one!
33.The Magnolia League by Katie Crouch totally dropped the ball at the end 3 stars at most
34. As an ARC from the Early Readers group on LibraryThing: Tempest: A Novel (Tempest - Trilogy) by Julie Cross Finished and loved! read my review :)
35. Split by Swati Avasthi loved! read my review :)
36.Cast in Shadow (The Chronicles of Elantra, Book 1) by Michelle Sagara Not too bad, a solid 3.5 stars and now I'm on to book 2!
37. Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves This got a little "out there," even for me... If you're living in a strange, seriously messed-up town, why don't you simply MOVE? I couldn't really believe in the story because I kept wondering why people still lived in that town. 2.5 stars :(
38. AGAIN and still loving every second of it!City of Bones (Mortal Instruments book 1) by Cassandra Clare
39. AGAIN and still loving every second of it! City of Ashes (Mortal Instruments book 2) by Cassandra Clare
40. AGAIN and still loving every second of it! City of Glass (Mortal Instruments book 3) by Cassandra Clare

Safe and Sound--on the web :)

Ever get one of those OCD projects, where you realize halfway into it that you didn't need to do all this, but by then you've put time and effort into it so darnit, better to just keep on....  Add in that it's also one of those times where you know you created something on your computer but it insists that you didn't? 

Yup.  All night long.

So now I'm going to make use of this amazing electronic world and "store" my beautiful OCD list of World of Warcraft books in mostly chronological order here on my blog, where I'll probably never look at it again.....  Not very interesting to most, I know, but here it is so I never have to do this again!  I've also emailed it to myself. :)  But maybe someone else can find this list if they need it one day.

I'm also working on a general list of all the series books I read.  I plan to print this sucker out and tape it on a shelf where each series books are stored.  Another part of my OCD is that I cannot start a book or series unless I've read the previous books.  Even if I'm loving the book, I'll put it aside until I get caught up with the one I'd started.

I'm a sick, sick person sometimes....

I did manage to find two excellent chronological lists, and without them, well, it wouldn't have been pretty this morning at all!
So thank you:

Eric J. Weldon for his "Warcraft Books In Order" list on Amazon.com, 

and since I can't find a name to honor, I'll just say that the WoWWiki is so incredibly helpful, especially this completely awesome "Novel Guide" which helped me along my way.  It's an  extremely helpful resource for a game as complex as World of Warcraft., no matter how long you've played.  

I also for the sake of my family decided not to try to hunt down some of the stray short stories; I'm not really into "short stories" on their own, and I also made a choice to stop when I did, although I've been sitting here playing around with the colors, etc, and I am seriously stopping this now!

World of Warcraft fiction

The War of the Ancients Trilogy by Richard A. Knaak:

The Well of Eternity

The Demon Soul”

The Sundering”  And using the info from the WoWWiki, "ancient" is seriously ancient, being set a whopping 10,000 years ago and yet still being somehow relevant to the present.......

*Day of the Dragon by Richard A Knaak

*Lord of the Clans by Christie Golden

*The Last Guardian by Jeff Grubb

*Of Blood and Honor by Chris Metzen

=The Warcraft Archive Omnibus

Cycle of Hatred by Keith R. A. DeCandido **this book begins exactly one year before (“vanilla”) WoW**

***Rise of the Horde by Christie Golden

***Tides of Darkness by Aaron Rosenberg

***Beyond the Dark Portal by Christie Golden and Aaron Rosenberg

+”*The Last Guardian” by Jeff Grubb

***=Chronicles of War Omnibus

Night of the Dragon by Richard A. Knaak

Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by Christie Golden (this prologue and epilogue take place just before WotLK)

Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak

The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm by Christie Golden

Wolfheart by Richard A. Knaak

Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects by Christie Golden

Speaking of Book Reviews....

This is technically my 4th blog.  I abandoned my others for various reasons.  But I saved the book reviews, and thought I'd post them as I'm looking back to where I've come from in order to see where I'm going.  At the time, I was writing a book review blog only, so this is a different format than usual on Thyme For Courage.  Please remember that these links go to Amazon.com, and if you purchase them, I'll get a commission on it.

In the spirit of Christmas, I will give you a gift idea for any reader:  The Vampire Academy books are, in my honest opinion, surpassed only by the Harry Potter series.  I have yet to meet anyone, online or in real life, that has a bad thing to say about this series.

It's considered to be a sub-group of children's books known as Young Adult, which I've learned means the story is about teens, as opposed to "adult" books that do not revolve around "school life."  Even the last book in the Harry Potter series is classified as a children's book and recommended for ages 9 and up--but is not something I'd feel comfortable letting my son read on his own.

I think it's funny that I was sooo excited to finish the third book of the Vampire Academy books, not knowing that it ends on a HUGE cliffhanger and it was PURE TORTURE to wait for Blood Promise to come out.  Seriously, Richelle Mead is an amazing author, she had three and even FOUR different series she is writing at the same time to very different audiences.  However, she is also an absolute SADIST considering the ending of Shadow Kiss!!

This review compares Twilight to Vampire Academy, which is as fair a comparison as Twilight can ever get.  However, when I wrote this review, I had yet to see the Twilight movie, nor was I aware of the pure hatefulness that is directed at Twilight these days.  I loved the Twilight books then, and I still do now--but they cannot stand up the awesomeness of Vamp Academy.

Also please excuse my writing style--I've learned to write much better reviews in the last 2 and a half years!  It's hard for me to publish this without correcting it, but that would defeat its purpose.

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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

I've read 2 books in the last 2 days, and now I'm on the 3rd of the series. I am totally in love with this series! They are Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, Book 1), Frostbite (Vampire Academy, Book 2) now I'm on Shadow Kiss (Vampire Academy, Book 3)by Richelle Mead. 

I'm going to just come out and say it: they're better than the Twilight books! Twilight was very...well, the characters were a little naive and immature. Twilight's author Stephenie Meyer, I'm sure, felt this was fine since the characters in Twilight ARE naive and immature, since they're only 17. But the Vampire Academy characters are not that way, even though they're about characters in the same age group. Both Twilight and Vampire Academy are Young Adult books too, so I'm comparing apples to apples here all the way down the line. 

I highly recommend both series, and both are keepers for sure, but of the two series, it's Mead's Vampire Academy books that I'm really looking forward to continuing. It's been a long time since I've been this excited about a new series, and I'm savoring each moment of this 3rd book :) Blood Promise (Vampire Academy, Book 4) is coming out in September. Yet another reason for me to look forward to the fall!
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To be thorough, here's the books in order:

1. Vampire Academy
2. Frostbite
3. Shadow Kiss
4. Blood Promise
5. Spirit Bound
6. Last Sacrifice


And the spinoff series that begins only a month or so after Last Sacrifice is Bloodlines.  The 2nd book in this series is out in June 2012: The Golden Lily: A Bloodlines Novel.