Best Books of 2014

Hello friends! Can you believe that 2015 is right around the corner, ready to knock on our door and demand a cold lemonade? Nor can I. Anyways, to celebrate and farewell dear old 2014, I shall today discuss the best books I read this year. Thanks to the wonderful site goodreads, I was able to review every book I rated 5-stars this year (I promise I'm not being sponsored I just genuinely love goodreads). So here we go!

I rated 34 books out of a total 90 5 stars this year. That's almost 38%!

These are a selection of the books I rated 5 stars that I would rate 6 or more if I could.

City Of Heavenly Fire, by Cassandra Clare

If you didn't guess I'd put COHF in here, you don't know me. The conclusion to the fantastic The Mortal Instruments series was definitely not a let down. It was beautiful and heartwarming and I loved it. It was also the longest book I read this year, coming in at 725 pages. Woah. You can check out my review for COHF here; if you haven't read TMI, go get yourself City Of Bones right now. Don't even finish reading this sentence. Go.

My Life Next Door, Huntley Fitzpatrick

This cutesy, heartwarming love story has to make the top books of 2014. It follows the story of two next door neighbors, the reserved, neat family of three and the wild, rambunctious family of who-knows-how-many. It's a sstory of family, love, friendship and there's also a mystery and a secret in there, too. It's beautiful and hilarious and everything about it is gorgeous. Highly, highly recommend.

The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

This was something that's been on my TBR list for a very, very long time. I am a huge fan of Oscar Wilde's poetry and The Importance Of Being Ernest, and so I was desperate to read this. And it has now turned into one of my favourite books of all time. It's a classical novel about a beautiful, beautiful boy named Dorian. His vanity drives him to do something horrible... you'll just have to read to find out. Oscar Wilde's writing is hilarious and wonderful, and if you want a funny, classical novel with a good story, I highly recommend The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Throne Of Glass, Sarah J Maas

Throne Of Glass was the fantasy series I wanted. Awesome female lead, amazingly developed characters, royalty, magic, a brilliant storyline and a half-love triangle that was important but not too important. It is slowly becoming one of my most favourite fantasy series of all time. The main character is an assassin, and her adventures and the storyline are too difficult to explain in just one paragraph. Amazing world-building, character developing and storyline.

Wildlife, Fiona Wood

As a part of the book club I'm in, this year I tried to read all the novels in the Australian shortlist this year. Wildlife definitely deserved to top the shortlist. This story is about a school that sends its year ten students on a term-long wildlife adventure camp. You get to see these characters interacting and dealing with the issues of this camp. The thing that is beautiful and perfect about this book is the writing. The writing was amazing; some of my favourite quotes of this year come from that book. Definitely give it a go if you like fabulous writing and Stephanie Perkins-style writing.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Maggie Stiefvater

You guys know that I love the Raven Boys series, as shown by my reviews of the first book, The Raven Boys, here, and my review of the second book, The Dream Thieves, here. This book is the third book in the series, and I'm pretty sure there's one more coming. The series is about this weird town, psychics, and a group of gorgeous characters. It's a really interesting and beautiful read, and so I highly recommend it to anyone who loves mysterious, supernatural stories.

Fairytales For Wilde Girls, Allyse Near

This book is odd. Really odd. It's almost like a psychological thriller mixed with fantasy and supernatural. It's really weird and intriguing, and you really can't put it down. I wouldn't say anything about it, but it's really, really fantastic and I highly recommend it.

Anna And The French Kiss and Lola And The Boy Next Door, Stephanie Perkins

You guys know how much I love Stephanie Perkins. I've talked about them so many times, because they're some of my very favourites. If you're into extremely cutesy and beautiful contemporaries, then click this link for my review of Anna And The French Kiss and this one for Lola And The Boy Next Door.

Gale Hawthorne - A Reflection

Okay so as some of you may know, I'm not a huge fan of The Hunger Games book series. I do like it, but I don't love it.

But there are three things I love about the series.

1. Katniss Everdeen's character development
2. Finnick Odair
3. Gale Hawthorne

And today, I would like to discuss the third of those things I love. Gale Hawthorne is, in my opinion, possibly the best character in The Hunger Games and I will happily fight whoever disagrees to the death. Just kidding. Sort of. But I am always up for a friendly debate.

So with the recent release of Mockingjay Part 1, I went to go see it with some of my friends. And throughout the whole movie, all I heard was "I want Gale to die", "I hate Gale", "ugh, it's Gale again" and variations of the above. And I was so angry I spent hours afterwards ranting about how much I love Gale to my very disinterested family. So here are the reasons why Gale is the best character in The Hunger Games.

1. He deeply cares about Katniss, his family, her family and just everyone in general.

Gale does, unarguably, care deeply about Katniss. He loves her, as a friend and more, but instead of being fixated on convincing her to love him back, he simply cares for her and her family. He takes care of her mother and Prim whilst she's in the games, and he rescues half of District 12. He is selfless and always ready to help not only Katniss, but everyone he cares for.

2. He's a respectful and wonderful (boy)friend to Katniss.

Gale, despite being in love with Katniss, never pressures her into anything. He never tries to convince her to love him. He respects her and her decision to love Peeta and not him. He even supports her in this decision, by going to rescue Peeta. He loves her enough to not only respect her decision to not be with him, but to also actively work to peruse her happiness, even if it won't make him directly happy, because her happiness and well being comes first to him. He loves her enough to let her go, and to respect her choices. He doesn't ever accuse her of "friendzoning" him.

3. HE DID NOT KILL PRIM SO STOP SAYING IT

Okay. This is what really gets me riled up. Gale DID NOT KILL PRIM. Half the internet seems to believe Gale held a gun to Prim's head and laughed manically, followed by, "I am killing Prim!". Just because he built the bomb that did eventually end up killing Prim doesn't mean he meant to or even did kill her. That's like blaming the company that makes ink for a mean letter used to bully someone else. Ridiculous.

4. The Mockingjay epilogue was extremely out of character, and so it really shouldn't count, anyways.

Let's be real, everyone should be able to agree the Mockingjay epilogue was very, very out of character. Katniss didn't even sound like herself, not to mention the fact that she had children when she directly and repeatedly said she did not ever want children (which could mean Peeta pressured her into having children maybe but that's an issue for another post). And that quote in the epilogue about Gale, that tiny little explanation of what happened to him really didn't do him justice. People often combat my pro-Gale argument by saying, "he left Katniss at the end of Mockingjay!". And I guess in some ways, that's right. But she'd also made her decision to be with Peeta in District 12, and is it so unreasonable that Gale would move somewhere else, create a new life for himself? He had no real obligation to stay with Katniss, although it would've been nice. And that quote about him kissing another pair of lips- what the heck? Even if he did move on, which is pretty unbelievable knowing Gale's character, how would that be his fault? Katniss made her decision pretty clearly towards the end of Mockingjay. She wanted to be with Peeta, which was fine, but blaming Gale for then moving on? Not only is this very un-Gale and un-Katniss, it's a sloppy end to Gale's part of the story. I feel like the explanation was an easy way out, a quick, we-don't-really-care-about-this-character approach. Which is ridiculous because I can't be the only person on earth who loves Gale and was very put out by the end to his story (I like to imagine he ends up with Johanna somewhere, an idea my dear friend Lian convinced me on). Conclusion- the epilogue was really out of character, and if you want me to flesh this out more, I would be more than happy to, just let me know.

If I haven't managed to convince you that Gale is an valuable and precious character in this series, then you should at least take this home- it is not fair to hate on a character just because they get in the way of your ship, or because it is easier to. Don't hate on a perfectly fine character, particularly one that is as innocent and blameless as Gale is.

Please don't think I'm hating on Peeta or Peeta/Katniss, I'm really not. Would I prefer Gatniss was endgame? Yes, but it really doesn't bother me that much.

Feel free to express your opinion in the comments below, my twitter @lilypherondale.

Thank you for listening, please let me know if you're a fellow Gale-lover and agree!

Lily xoxo

Christmas Special Post!

Well, since it's Christmas (well, it was yesterday for me, but it might still be Christmas where you are??) I was going to do something really special I hadn't done before on this blog. A book photo shoot!

I was going to take beautiful Christmassy/wintery photos with my Christmas book for this year, My True Love Gave To Me, which is an anthology of different holiday love stories. The edition I ordered is beautiful; here's a picture:

But thanks to Dymocks Australia and their unpredictable shipping methods (although the site did assure me it would arrive before Christmas... >:( not very happy at all...) my book did not arrive and I therefore cannot do the photo shoot. 

However, do not fret! The photo shoot is coming. I promise it is. As soon as the book arrives, I will do it just for you guys. I'm leaving my Christmas decorations up just so I can.

To make up for this tragedy, I will instead talk briefly about each story and rate each one, with no spoilers because the book was published fairly recently, and there's a fair chance many of you mightn't have read it. 

Midnights by Rainbow Rowell

Midnights is quite adorable. It's a quick insight to two friends every year on New Year's Eve, from the time they met. This one has to be up there in my favourite stories from the book; it's so cute and it was a really good start to the book. 5/5 stars.

The Lady And The Fox by Kelly Link

This story is about a girl who goes every year to her godmother's house for Christmas. And every year, there is a mysterious man outside in an exquisite coat. This was mysterious and intriguing. I really liked the whole story and all the characters, and everything about it made me want to keep reading, however the end was quite confusing. I was left wanting a lot more. It is also one of my favourites in the book. 5/5 stars.

Angels in the Snow by Matt de la Peña

This story was cute and interesting, but not as fun to read as Midnights. It's about a boy who's cat sitting in the apartment below a pretty girl whose shower isn't working. I liked reading it quite a bit, but it just didn't have the specialness other stories did, and I didn't really connect with the main characters. 4/5 stars.

Polaris Is Where You'll Find Me by Jenny Han

The is probably towards the end of my favourites list. I didn't really love the main character; I found her to be rather annoying. I also didn't really connect with the story or the characters. This story is the only story set in the North Pole, with elves and Santa's human daughter. I found it quite dry, and not really a love story... 2.5/5 stars.

Your Temporary Santa by David Levithian
This was cute but there were some bits I wasn't sure whether I liked it or not. It's about the main character dressing up as Santa for his love interest's little sister. I won't explain the bits I didn't like, because it will spoil the story, but all in all, it was rather cute. 3.5/5 stars

It's A Yuletide Miracle, Charlie Brown by Stephanie Perkins
This was for sure one of my favourites. It's definitely up there with Midnights and The Lady And The Fox, which is to be expected from a Stephanie Perkins story. It's about a girl who doesn't really need a Christmas tree, but she keeps going back to the shop, because there's something else there she needs. It was so, so cute and everything about it left me wanting more. I want a whole novel about these two. Please. Now. 5/5 stars.

Krampuslauf by Holly Black

Krampuslauf  is about three best friends getting revenge on a boyfriend with a vintage cocktail party... and... magic? This story was at times hard to follow, to be perfectly honest, but it was pretty great. I did love the mystery, but I felt like it could've been fleshed out more. 4/5 stars.

What The Hell Have You Done, Sophie Roth? by Gayle Forman
This one wasn't up in my favourites, but I definitely loved it. I disliked the main character; I', not quite sure why. She was just a bit annoying. But the relationship was very cute and adorable and I quite enjoyed the story. It's about a girl whose counting the "what the hell have you done?" moments from her year, and as she thinks she's creating another one, she learns she's doing quite the opposite. 3.5/5 stars

Beer Buckets And Baby Jesus by Myra McEntire
Wow. This is one of the more memorable stories from the book. This story is about the boy who blew up the church storeroom and the pastor's daughter. The characters were all really fun and interesting and the main character's point of view was brilliant. I loved this story. 5/5 stars

Welcome To Christmas, CA by Kiersten White
This one is definitely close to being my favourite, if it isn't already. It's about a small not-even-a-towm called Christmas, and the people living there. The characters in this were all spectacularly developed for a short story, and the main character went through serious development during the story. The main relationship was absolutely perfect and I loved the whole thing. 5/5 stars.

Star Of Bethlehem by Ally Carter
I didn't expect to love this story, because I'm not a huge fan of Ally Carter's previous books. But this story about two girls who switch places was fantastic, and I loved the element of mystery in it. The characters were all beautiful and I really really liked it. 5/5 stars

The Girl Who Woke The Dreamer by Laini Taylor
This was so interesting and mysterious, but it was very info-dumpy for a short story. There were large chunks of text explaining the mythology of the book and so it just wasn't as fun to read as the others, even though it was spectacularly crafted. It's about this mythological land where on each day of advent, admirers leave tokens of love on the girl they admire's doorstep. 4/5 stars

So those are my reviews of the stories, and I think it has come time to rank them from favourite to least favourite. Are you ready?

1. Welcome To Christmas, CA
2. It's A Yuletide Miracle, Charlie Brown
3. The Lady And The Fox
4. Beer Buckets And Baby Jesus
5. Midnights
6. Angels In The Snow
7. Star Of Bethlehem
8. The Girl Who Woke The Dreamer
9. Krampuslauf
10. Your Temporary Santa
11. What The Hell Have You Done, Sophie Roth?
12. Polaris Is Where You'll Find Me

Let's be clear on the fact that I loved all these stories and it was so hard to choose my favourite ones you have no idea!

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and I will see you tomorrow with another post!

Lily xoxo

We Were Liars Review

So if you haven't heard of We Were Liars you clearly don't spend enough time in the book blogosphere. This book has been circulating like wildfire through book blogs, booktube and goodreads. And for some unknown reason, I'd been putting it off and off and off, until I saw it on sale in K-Mart the other day and bought it. I'm glad it was only $9, because I read it in a few hours.

We Were Liars is about a brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy; a boy who is bounce, effort and snark and a girl who is sugar, curiosity and rain.

In some ways, it is about a family. In some ways, it is about a mystery. In some ways, it's a story of friendship, and of love.

I don't want to say too much, because it's really the sort of book you want to go into knowing very little. But I definitely recommend it; I'll give it 4/5 stars.

So go read it if you haven't, then come back here to read my review and discuss!

***SPOILERS***

Woah. Just woah. I'm typing this approximately fifteen minutes after reading the very end of the book, and I'm still dumbfounded. My brain is ticking and whirring, trying to piece everything together and just understand everything I'd missed.

First of all, however, I'm going to talk about the characters. There are some books where the main focus of the novel is the world it's set in, or the actual storyline and events. However, there are some books, and I'd argue that We Were Liars is one of them, that focus on the characters, and their interactions and the way they deal with certain events.

The characters in We Were Liars were an essential part of the story. In fact, they were half the story. And so I was so thankful that they were so interesting and fleshed out, that they were all very different despite being cousins. I loved the way they interacted with one another, the way they accommodated each other and were all so close. 

If you've forgotten, there are four main characters, the "Liars". There's Cadence, our narrator, who went through some mysterious accident and cannot remember the entirety of her fifteenth summer on her family's island; there's Johnny, the snarky, energizer bunny of the group, the outdoorsy, show-off type; there's Mirren, the calm, collected and rational peace-maker; and then there's Gat, not part of the family, very different but still very much a Liar.

I found Cadence to be rather annoying throughout the majority of the book. I don't quite know why; maybe I found her whinny and frustrating, or maybe it was because she couldn't remember things I wanted her to. One thing that really annoyed me about her was that she was giving all her things away for "charity". It was clear to see that she was giving those things away not because she was charitable, but because she was using it as a coping method, a symbol of rebellion from her wealthy, worldly family. However annoying I found her, however, I eventually managed to adapt to her narration. Despite finding her annoying, I was easily able to slip in and out of her narration style. It was clear and neat, but still beautiful and a bit poetic at times, yet still managing not to be pretentious and hard to understand. She was also very mopey, and after finishing it, you understand why, but during the book, her mopey-ness was a tad frustrating.

I really liked all four of the Liars. I love best friends and family, and I love watching their relationships strain and evolve following a disaster or something of the like. Hence why I just wrote a book about that sort of thing for NaNoWriMo 2014! (shameless plug for my novel which should be available for download sometime next year, before June... I'll let you know when). But despite loving them all, I often found Johnny and Mirren to be like the rest of their family, where Cadence and Gat definitely weren't. Johnny's love for expensive things, Mirren telling Gat to stop talking, were just two events that showed they were still very attached to the Sinclair family, whereas Cadence was already on her way to leaving and rebelling.

However, all the Liars were wonderful, and I think my favourite would be Johnny, surprisingly enough. He was not annoying like Cadence and Gat, but not as faint and pale as Mirren. Mirren, due to her "being sick", was rarely around, and she just didn't make hilarious jokes or say things that made you want to keep reading. She was kind of wishy-washy, but I did love her relationship with Cadence, and I would've loved more scenes of them together. I don't have a female cousin my age, and so it was interesting to see the dynamic and they way they interacted.

I found Gat to be a little vague at times. Overall, I did love him, and I thought Cadence and him were very cute, but he was always standing in between Cady and the accident. Of all the characters, now I look back on the story, he would've been the one to give it away (had I had any idea of how the book would end). It annoyed me that he never discussed why he left, or what had happened to him and Raquel, which I understand now, but during the book, I didn't. Throughout the book he was just very distant, more distant than I would've liked him to be. But don't think I don't like him, because I definitely, definitely do.

The whole Sinclair family were puppets controlled by Harris, or as we know him during the book, "Granddad". Snr Sinclair, as I shall call him for convenience, was just not a very nice person. Blackmail in general is not cool, but blackmailing your family is something that just made me sad. The fairytale parallels throughout the book were perfect, just perfect, and they worked brilliantly. It was easy to compare Snr Sinclair to the father figure in them all, the King, or the merchant. And the three aunts were easily compared to the three daughters. Everything about the family was sort of fairytale-like, and so these parallels, and the fact that Cadence was slowly using the fairytale stories to piece together her memory again, was just brilliant.

I just wished the aunts would move off that island, get their own places, their own jobs and stop being spoon-fed by their father, and on that note, I could relate to Cadence's frustration. Like, they needed to grow a backbone if they ever wanted to leave the emotional and stressful life of being tormented by their father.

Now the ending, what you've all been waiting for. No, I did not, in any way, see that ending coming. I genuinely had no idea what would happen, but whatever whacked out conspiracies I was coming up with, they were certainly not that.

I did not think Gat would die. Nor did I think Mirren and Johnny would. And so when I found out that not only were they going to end up dead, but they were already dead, I kind of died a little myself. In fact, I'm pretty sure my heart stopped beating. I didn't even believe it. I thought she must be lying to herself now, haven't Mirren, Gat and Johnny been a critical part of the story? Of the family? I couldn't even believe it. When I realised that this was, in fact, the truth and the dreaded, infamous end to We Were Liars, I knew I'd have to read it again. Read through the whole thing again, realising that three of the main characters were figments of the narrator's imagination. And I will do that, at some point probably next year.

I don't know how I feel about the ending, not that it makes me sad, but that it was just that I sort of felt they'd died for shock factor, but all in all, this novel was amazing and spectacularly crafted, and definitely a story I am cranky for not writing myself. There you go kids, the take-home message from today's review.

Thank you for reading my review! I hope you enjoyed it. I apologize for being so absent lately, I've just been so busy and I've fallen into a bit of a slump. Hopefully as I read more in the break, I'll have some more reviews for you!

Leave your thoughts and ideas about We Were Liars and also any books you think I should read over the holidays and I will read them. Also, if you want to contact me to talk about anything or recommend a book, you can send me a tweet/dm @lilypherondale, leave me a tumblr ask, sherlockcrumpets.tumblr.com, or leave a comment below ^.^

Since it is once again the end of the year, you can look forward to some Best Books of the Year posts and a summary of every book I've read this year (so far, I've read just under ninety, I was aiming for 100, but you know, work and etc really get in the way), and also a holiday reads post. So look forward to that, and I'll see you very soon!

Lily xoxo