Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Want to Read Before the End of the Year

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week there is a new topic for bloggers to choose and list their top ten. This week’s theme is Top Ten Books I’ve Added To My TBR List Lately.

Instead, however, mainly because my to-read list is a mess, I decided to feature the books I want to read before the end of the year. With less than two months left I’m not sure I’ll get around to all of these but I can at least make a decent start. Besides if I don’t manage to get through all of them before the end of 2016 then they’ll be the very first books on my TBR list for 2017.

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Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley

I tried reading this book last year but I was in the middle of a reading slump and didn’t get past the first page. Since then I’ve heard some interesting things about it and want to give Magonia another try. Hopefully second time will be the charm.

Maria Dahvana Headley’s soaring YA debut is a fiercely intelligent, multilayered fantasy where Neil Gaiman’s Stardust meets John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars in a story about a girl caught between two worlds…two races…and two destinies.

Aza Ray Boyle is drowning in thin air. Since she was a baby, Aza has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live. So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn’t think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name.

Only her best friend, Jason, listens. Jason, who’s always been there. Jason, for whom she might have more-than-friendly feelings. But before Aza can consider that thrilling idea, something goes terribly wrong. Aza is lost to our world—and found, by another. Magonia.

Above the clouds, in a land of trading ships, Aza is not the weak and dying thing she was. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. Better, she has immense power—but as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war between Magonia and Earth is coming. In Aza’s hands lies fate of the whole of humanity—including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie?

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Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Everything I’ve heard about this book has been a glowing recommendation or a rave review. I haven’t read anything by Seanan McGuire before but this book sounds amazing so I really can’t wait to get started on it.

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations
No Visitors
No Guests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere…else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced…they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

No matter the cost.

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Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven

Holding Up the Universe is a book I’ve seen all around WordPress recently, and what I’ve read has been more than enough to convince me I need to pick it up myself. Hopefully it’ll be one I enjoy as much as everyone else seems to.

Everyone thinks they know Libby Strout, the girl once dubbed “America’s Fattest Teen.” But no one’s taken the time to look past her weight to get to know who she really is. Following her mom’s death, she’s been picking up the pieces in the privacy of her home, dealing with her heartbroken father and her own grief. Now, Libby’s ready: for high school, for new friends, for love, and for every possibility life has to offer. In that moment, I know the part I want to play here at MVB High. I want to be the girl who can do anything. 

Everyone thinks they know Jack Masselin, too. Yes, he’s got swagger, but he’s also mastered the impossible art of giving people what they want, of fitting in. What no one knows is that Jack has a newly acquired secret: he can’t recognize faces. Even his own brothers are strangers to him. He’s the guy who can re-engineer and rebuild anything, but he can’t understand what’s going on with the inner workings of his brain. So he tells himself to play it cool: Be charming. Be hilarious. Don’t get too close to anyone.

Until he meets Libby. When the two get tangled up in a cruel high school game – which lands them in group counselling and community service – Libby and Jack are both pissed, and then surprised. Because the more time they spend together, the less alone they feel. Because sometimes when you meet someone, it changes the world, theirs and yours.

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The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

I loved the first, and to date only, Morgan Matson book I read and if The Unexpected Everything is anything like Since You’ve Been Gone I know it will be a favourite of mine. Also who knows, Morgan Matson could become a new favourite YA contemporary author of mine.

Andie had it all planned out. When you are a politician’s daughter who’s pretty much raised yourself, you learn everything can be planned or spun, or both. Especially your future. Important internship? Check. Amazing friends? Check. Guys? Check (as long as we’re talking no more than three weeks).

But that was before the scandal. Before having to be in the same house with her dad. Before walking an insane number of dogs. That was before Clark and those few months that might change her whole life. Because here’s the thing—if everything’s planned out, you can never find the unexpected. And where’s the fun in that?

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The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson

I added this book to my to-read list after seeing a review for the third in the series by Stephanie at Teacher of YA’s Book Blog. It sounds like the kind of story I normally love, and I trust Stephanie’s opinion when it comes to books so I’m more than willing to give this series a go.

A princess must find her place in a reborn world.

She flees on her wedding day.

She steals ancient documents from the Chancellor’s secret collection.

She is pursued by bounty hunters sent by her own father.

She is Princess Lia, seventeen, First Daughter of the House of Morrighan.

The Kingdom of Morrighan is steeped in tradition and the stories of a bygone world, but some traditions Lia can’t abide. Like having to marry someone she’s never met to secure a political alliance.

Fed up and ready for a new life, Lia flees to a distant village on the morning of her wedding. She settles in among the common folk, intrigued when two mysterious and handsome strangers arrive—and unaware that one is the jilted prince and the other an assassin sent to kill her. Deceptions swirl and Lia finds herself on the brink of unlocking perilous secrets – secrets that may unravel her world – even as she feels herself falling in love.

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Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake

This was a book I was really excited for, however since its release I’ve seen a few mixed reviews which have kind of damped my enthusiasm. Still I’m hoping going in with lowered expectations will mean I end up being pleasantly surprised.

Three sisters. One crown. A fight to the death.

In every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born: three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions.

But becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins.

The last queen standing gets the crown.

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Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig

Normally this isn’t the kind of genre I read, I tend to stick to fantasy and lately contemporary books, but I’ve seen some reviews for Last Seen Leaving which have really captured my attention and made me determined to get around to this book as soon as I have an opportunity to.

Flynn’s girlfriend has disappeared. How can he uncover her secrets without revealing his own?

Flynn’s girlfriend, January, is missing. The cops are asking questions he can’t answer, and her friends are telling stories that don’t add up. All eyes are on Flynn—as January’s boyfriend, he must know something.

But Flynn has a secret of his own. And as he struggles to uncover the truth about January’s disappearance, he must also face the truth about himself.

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The Next Together by Lauren James

I am a massive fan of time travel stories so when I read the blurb for The Next Together I immediately added it to my to-read list. Since then I have met the author at YALC and even brought the second book in the series but I still haven’t picked up The Next Together.

How many times can you lose the person you love? 

Katherine and Matthew are destined to be born again and again, century after century. Each time, their presence changes history for the better, and each time, they fall hopelessly in love, only to be tragically separated. 

Spanning the Crimean War, the Siege of Carlisle and the near-future of 2019 and 2039 they find themselves sacrificing their lives to save the world. But why do they keep coming back? What else must they achieve before they can be left to live and love in peace? 

Maybe the next together will be different…

A powerful and epic debut novel for teenagers about time-travel, fate and the timelessness of first love. The Next Together is told through a mixture of regular prose, diary entries, letters, “original” historical documents, news reports and internet articles.

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Half Bad by Sally Green

I don’t know much about this book, past what the blurb tells me of course, but I see it every time I go into Waterstones and after seeing an amazing review for one of the later books in the series on WordPress I finally caved and brought a copy of Half Bad.

Wanted by no one.
Hunted by everyone.

Sixteen-year-old Nathan lives in a cage: beaten, shackled, trained to kill. In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans, Nathan is an abomination, the illegitimate son of the world’s most terrifying and violent witch, Marcus. Nathan’s only hope for survival is to escape his captors, track down Marcus, and receive the three gifts that will bring him into his own magical powers—before it’s too late. But how can Nathan find his father when there is no one safe to trust, not even family, not even the girl he loves?

Half Bad is an international sensation and the start of a brilliant trilogy: a gripping tale of alienation and the indomitable will to survive.

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Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke

This is a book that has been on my to-read list for ages, and I’ll admit a large part of the reason I added it was because of the cover. There are a few mixed reviews out there for Wink Poppy Midnight but I’ve yet to read a magical realism book I haven’t loved.

Every story needs a hero.
Every story needs a villain.
Every story needs a secret.

Wink is the odd, mysterious neighbour girl, wild red hair and freckles. Poppy is the blond bully and the beautiful, manipulative high school queen bee. Midnight is the sweet, uncertain boy caught between them. Wink. Poppy. Midnight. Two girls. One boy. Three voices that burst onto the page in short, sharp, bewitching chapters, and spiral swiftly and inexorably toward something terrible or tricky or tremendous.

What really happened?
Someone knows.
Someone is lying.

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So what do you think? Did you take part in this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, if so let me know what some of the books you want to read before the end of the year are.