Top Ten Books I'm Looking Forward To For The First Half Of 2017 - Top Ten Tuesday

Oh, make a book blog they said. it would be fun they said- and they were right. What they didn't say, of course was - ha, you think you have hundreds of books on your TBR list?  hahahahahaha try thousands, now! bahahaha - you'll never be able to read all of them! here's an existential crisis for you! weeeeeeee

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. Each week there is a new theme, and this week the theme is books that I'm looking forward to reading in the first half of 2017. I have so many books I want to read now because of you guys! I have book blogging for six months ( happy anniversary to me : ) and there have been countless books I have seen, read about, discussed and my TBR is out of CONTROL - so here are ten books that I hope to read at the beginning of 2017...

** Hi readers! I have updated this post since reading some of the books on the list. I've included video reviews as well as relevant blog posts under the title**

Salt to the Sea
Ruth Sepetys

World War II is drawing to a close in East Prussia and thousands of refugees are on a desperate trek toward freedom, many with something to hide. Among them are Joana, Emilia, and Florian, whose paths converge en route to the ship that promises salvation, the Wilhelm Gustloff. Forced by circumstance to unite, the three find their strength, courage, and trust in each other tested with each step closer to safety. Just when it seems freedom is within their grasp, tragedy strikes. Not country, nor culture, nor status matter as all ten thousand people—adults and children alike—aboard must fight for the same thing: survival.

I can not tell you how many times I have seen this book recommended on Top Ten lists or in reviews. " Salt to the Sea" sounds absolutely amazing, and I'm fairly certain a couple of bloggers ahve said that it was life changing - that's a pretty strong endorsement!

Juniper
Kelley And Thomas French

Juniper French was born four months early, at 23 weeks' gestation. She weighed 1 pound, 4 ounces, and her twiggy body was the length of a Barbie doll. Her head was smaller than a tennis ball, her skin was nearly translucent, and through her chest you could see her flickering heart. Babies like Juniper, born at the edge of viability, trigger the question: Which is the greater act of love -- to save her, or to let her go? Kelley and Thomas French chose to fight for Juniper's life, and this is their incredible tale. In one exquisite memoir, the authors explore the border between what is possible and what is right. They marvel at the science that conceived and sustained their daughter and the love that made the difference. They probe the bond between a mother and a baby, between a husband and a wife. They trace the journey of their family from its fragile beginning to the miraculous survival of their now thriving daughter.

I just picked this book up from the library - but #libraryproblems I am pretty sure I won't get a chance to read it before it is due. This book is at the top of my list for 2017 and I can't wait to read it. Both of the authors are amazing journalists and what I have heard of the story so far sounds equal parts inspirational and moving.

Landline
Rainbow Rowell

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble; it has been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems beside the point now. Maybe that was always beside the point. Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her — Neal is always a little upset with Georgie — but she doesn't expect him to pack up the kids and go home without her. When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything. That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts... Is that what she’s supposed to do? Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?

"Landline" is also a recent library pick up that proubably wont be read until 2017 - but I need to some more Rainbow Rowell in my life. I read "Fangirl" and "Eleanor and Park" in 2015 and absolutely loved them both. I have heard good things about "Landline" and I have a lot of faith in the author. I can't wait to see what she comes up with in 2017!

All The Bright Places
Jennifer Niven

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death. Every day he thinks of ways he might kill himself, but every day he also searches for—and manages to find—something to keep him here, and alive, and awake. Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her small Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death. When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school—six stories above the ground— it’s unclear who saves whom. Soon it’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

I see this book on Top Ten lists * all of the time*! I know it is great and I just haven't gotten a chance to read it yet. Come on 2017. I feel like next year I am just going to be catching up on all of the books I have learned about this past year of blogging- which sounds like a good year of reading material to me!



A Darker Shade of Magic
V.E. Schwab

Kell is one of the last Travelers-magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes, connected by one magical city. There's Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, and with one mad king-George III. Red London, where life and magic are revered-and where Kell was raised alongside Rhys Maresh, the rougish heir to a flourishing empire. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand. Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure. Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.

I read This Savage Song earlier in the year. I don't read YA very often, and YA fantasy obviously requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. While there were some things about the book that really bothered me, overall Victoria Schwabs writing definitely got my attention. " A Darker Shade of Magic" is all of the fantasy minus the YA- I've heard good things and can't wait to see what her adult fiction is like.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane 
Neil Gaiman

A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse where she once lived, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Neil Gaiman is one of those authors that I am embarrassed to say I have never read a book by. I don't know how it happened - but it is definitely time to correct it! "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" sounds like a great read, and how beautiful is that cover!?

The Bone Season
Samantha Shannon

It is the year 2059. Several major world cities are under the control of a security force called Scion. Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of Scion London, part of a secret cell known as the Seven Seals. The work she does is unusual: scouting for information by breaking into others’ minds. Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant, and in this world, the voyants commit treason simply by breathing. But when Paige is captured and arrested, she encounters a power more sinister even than Scion. The voyant prison is a separate city—Oxford, erased from the map two centuries ago and now controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. 

I want to read more fantasy series novels. I like that this is a book I can jump into fairly early in the release of the series. The reviews have also been great and a lot of bloggers really seem to enjoy the series as well!

The Nightingale
Kristin Hannah

In love we find out who we want to be. In war we find out who we are. FRANCE, 193 In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn't believe that the Nazis will invade France … but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne's home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

This book has over 30,000 reviews on Amazon and 5 freaking stars - 'nough said. This book has also been recommended to me by my grandma- which I feel like if my grandma has managed to read a bestseller that everyone loves before me, I'm slacking! This is definitely at the top of my TBR in 2017!

Station Eleven
Emily St. John Mandel

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end. Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.

I absolutely love a good post apocalypse novel. I'm not great at suspending disbelief for fantasy, but post apocalyptic settings are so common, it really doesn't feel like much of a stretch for me to imagine it. This book is frequently featured on Top Ten lists and I can't wait to check it out!

The Girl On The Train
Paula Hawkins

EVERY DAY THE SAME Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost. UNTIL TODAY And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

So this book was like *the* book to read in 2015...and I didn't get to it. And then all 2016 I was like yeah, yeah I'll read it - and now we are weeks away from 2017! This is the year though, I swear!


Have you read any of these books? Did you enjoy/dislike them? Which one do you think I should start with? Pile on the heap, and tell me some other books I should read/ you'll be reading in 2017!