Some Fine Day - Kat Ross Review

*Published: 1st July 2014
Publisher: Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry
Pages: 384
Thanks to Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry via Netgalley for this ARC.
Blurb: Sixteen-year-old Jansin Nordqvist is on the verge of graduating from the black ops factory known as the Academy. She's smart and deadly, and knows three things with absolute certainty:
1. When the world flooded and civilization retreated deep underground, there was no one left on the surface.
2. The only species to thrive there are the toads, a primate/amphibian hybrid with a serious mean streak.
3. There's no place on Earth where you can hide from the hypercanes, continent-sized storms that have raged for decades.
Jansin has been lied to. On all counts. 




NOTE: I've just heard that Strange Chemistry is shutting down, so the publication date listed above could be dodgy. My sympathy to all the authors left out in the cold and, oh man that is sad. I'm mourning an imprint now.

In short: Mixed feelings about some parts, but an enjoyable and mostly fast-paced read.

In not-so-short: Alright, so it took me way too long to read this book. I had a hard time getting into the first 20 (or so) pages. I just couldn't bring myself to care about the characters or events (oh wow, they're going on a holiday. Whoop-dee-doo) so I kept procrastinating. The day before yesterday I sat down and read it properly and - fortunately - enjoyed it a lot more. So stick with it, it's worth it. My Kindle app tells me I wrote 'It's growing on me' 15% through.

I get that the blurb is supposed to intrigue you, but I do feel it's a bit lacking in actually explaining what the book's about, so here's my run down. 

At the start of the book, Jansin Nordqvist's on the fast track to success in her home underground (where humanity was driven after a ton of global warming and the arrival of hypercanes rendering the planet's surface uninhabitable) as a military cadet. I'm not totally sure why, but job options are apparently limited to military, the sciences, mining and ... hard labour, or something. 

Her parents - a high-ranking army official and an important scientist - book a short trip to the surface as a special vacation. Unfortunately, Jansin is then kidnapped by - shocker - humans on the surface. Savages, or so we think. She's taken away with them, held captive etc etc ... and when she finally settles in and starts to like them (and finds lurve) her people track her down and rescue her, by storming the island with all her new-found friends and ... yeah. She's pretty pissed about this, so she starts digging around in the military's secrets and bam bam bam tada dystopian plot. 

So that's my plot summary. Here are my thoughts. 

I found the pacing/timeline majorly weird. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but it felt like the book started in the middle of a book and finished at the end of a sequel, if that makes any sense. You know the feeling you get for where a book's going to go, and when? You expect the moment of doom *here*, a big reveal *here*. It defied all that. Made me fairly uneasy, at times, and made the book seem a lot longer since the storyline was put together in a way that seemed like several 'plots'. That said, it was interesting: once it gets going, the book is a pretty stereotypical dystopian - but the timeline is certainly original, though again, it might rub some up the wrong way. 

Also, the book was slow in some places and then the ending was WHAT THE HELL FAST I CAN'T CATCH UP. So yeah.

Infodumping was pretty weird, too. I'm overusing that word, I know, but it was. The start of each chapter has a little paragraph that's just straight-up infodumping, doesn't even make any pretenses about it, and that was fairly annoying - at first. I mean, it would say things like: 

The spirit of cooperation that permitted the Consortium to complete its work amid global chaos soon disintegrated under the weight of political pressures and looming famine. Communication between the far-flung colonies was severed.

But towards the end I did grow to appreciate those, as the whole story came together. My Kindle App is full of notes like 'Trust your readers!' because narrator Jansin overexplained things quite a lot - and then other times she didn't explain them enough. For example, there's an important plot point (a chemical used in biowarfare) where she explains the symptoms, and then shows someone who's been injected with it with a completely different set of symptoms? I might just be reading it wrong, but it was confusing. Like the timeline, it felt unbalanced. Then again, I do like world-building, so I could look past that. Which leads me onto...

The research was great. Alright, I am not nor ever have been a military cadet, to my knowledge, nor have I used hydroponics or any of the other topics in the book.So I wasn't exactly scrutinizing the novel for 100% correct facts. But it is a novel, and the point of that is to make your words seem realistic to the general public reading. With Some Fine Day, this was definitely a success. I don't even know where to start, but I felt like I was in capable hands with the research. It seems like some spec-fic YA novels lately were written like 'Oh, it's fiction anyway, no need to research.' This wasn't. Alright, there were some mistakes (such as when someone uses a GPS and I mentally scream 'YOU'RE UNDERGROUND AND YOU JUST SAID THE SATELLITES WERE KNOCKED OUT'.) Pro tip: Satellites are needed for GPS. Mad, right? But overall, fab research. Related to that...

I'm a big fan of the science here. Okay, I love science, and I love science fiction. It saddens me that much of the YA science fiction I read doesn't really have the 'science' bit down. This one did (to my limited layperson knowledge. Don't shoot me with your plasma beams, real scientists). There was the explanation as to how the apocalypse-of-sorts happened, etc etc, but there were also some original features. For example, Jansin's mother is a scientist (an agronomist, if I'm not mistaken). We actually see a little of her work, and later in the book we see a lot of the scientific research facilities. As I'm personally working in a research lab this summer, that was interesting! So yeah, that's a highlight.

I noticed a lot of diversity here. I don't know if this was accidental or if it was an intentional effort to diversify the book, but this is a lot less white-teenage-straight-girl-centric than some other books. Which should be commended, I guess. I like how the author doesn't make a huge deal out of it, just throws the details in there. Like, instead of just leaving the details out so everyone can whitewash them, she has pretty clear-cut descriptors like 'ebony skin and cornrows', plus two happily married gay men and Jansin's mother's name (Tamiko)

I have mixed feelings about the writing. Again, this was unbalanced. Some of the lines, especially towards the start, are pretty clunky - that's partly why I had a hard time getting into it. But almost all the chapter endings are fantastic and keep you turning pages, and there are some fabulous turns of phrase.So, basically - hated chapter beginnings (see above), loved chapter endings. So it just depends on your tastes, really. I'm not supposed to quote an ARC (already have, whoops), but here are some examples:

'[...] she neatly sidesteps the hook punch and punches him in the side. No, stabs him in the side.'

'[he - I'm no spoiler] turns to me, his eyes full of love and pity. And then he shoots me in the face.' 

 By the way, nobody dies in those two examples. That would be spoiling.

Suspense
SOME FINE DAY is very good at building up suspense. This could be to do with the stellar chapter endings, but whatever it is, it works. I was afraid to look at the page sometimes! (You know like when you're watching a scary movie and you cover your eyes? Yeah, that. With a book).

The effectiveness of the POV varied, and sometimes left me wondering if this was actually YA. Jansin's a teenage girl, but (especially at the start of the book) she says a lot of things that a teenager just wouldn't say, and she looks at them with a kind of hindsight. It's not just that she's a *smart teenager*, and thus thinks differently. Like I said, it's  like she's reflecting on it from an adult perspective. Then again, as the book progresses it gets a lot more YA and that's good.

There were some very intriguing hints dropped and then never followed up on. The ending obviously leaves room for a sequel, so they might be covered there. Bit annoying, but it does leave me eager to read on.

The cover's a bit unoriginal. Here's my petty side coming out. The cover's grand, it's not horrible, but eyes are just so so so overdone. A picture of a hypercane could've made a really nice picture. I mean, eyes suit Stephenie Meyer's The Host, because they're quite important in the book. But Jansin's eyes really don't matter here.

All that said, I still enjoyed it. It just left me with a lot to say. So ... good concept, some very cool elements, with somewhat dodgy execution in places.

Geek Girl - Holly Smale Review

Hey guys! Like I said, I bought Geek Girl by Holly Smale over the weekend (along with Breathe by Sarah Crossan and Fractured by Teri Terry), so here's my review, as promised.

Geek Girl features Harriet Manners, a self-diagnosed geek (who happens to be named Manners. Manners.) She makes no secret of this fact, by the way - the book literally starts with something like. 'My name is Harriet Manners, and I am a geek.' Subtle. She then goes on to use the dictionary definition of the word geek, and into a scene where she's essentially being the biggest drama queen of all time.

And man, it was so much fun.

I've probably said this so many times on the blog by now that it's meaningless, but I consider my normal genres YA science fiction, dystopian, post-apocalyptic, fantasy - things like that. This is a YA contemporary, plain and simple, but I saw it on display in my local Waterstones and just had to pick it up because of three things.

(1) Derek Landy had mentioned Holly before on Twitter (and as you all know, I am in love with his Skulduggery books - take my reviews of some of them here and here  for example). So that was a pretty great recommendation.

(2) The cover. What a gorgeous cover.

(3) The first page. Starts straight in with Harriet's distinctive voice and keeps you turning pages.

Look, I just made a list! I'm a lot like Harriet in some ways. Some. Not all. I don't have a habit of hiding under tables when the going gets tough, although I have been known to lie on the floor ... or sit on the table ... or plonk myself down on a desk whenever the fancy strikes me. I'm not sure whether Harriet cares if people like her or not. She's very self-deprecating (to a fairly irritating fault) but then again she does geek out all the time. Can she just not help it?

Anyway, this is less of a review and more of a ramble at the moment, so I think some kind of plot summary is in order.

It's really very simple. Compared to a lot of dystopians, SF, fantasy, etc., there's actually very little plot. But it's okay.

Beginning: Harriet is going along as normal with her dad and stepmother Annabel, best friend Nat, stalker Toby (more on that in a minute) and bully Alexa. She's a total geek, and she seems happy enough like that - or at least, she doesn't know any other way.

Inciting Incident: Nat cajoles Harriet into coming to The Clothes Show, a fashion show a few hours away. There, she manages to knock down several racks of goods (amassing damages of £3,000) - oh, and she also gets scouted by a model agent for a famous agency.

Middle: Harriet accepts the invitation and goes off  to modelling land to do photoshoots and catwalk s for famous designers (approximately a day after she's scouted. Approximately.) She also lies to pretty much everyone (silly Harriet). By the way, none of this is really spoilers because, as I said, this book is most definitely not plot-based.

Ending: ... Okay, I won't tell you that. I do have limits.

The reason the lack of plot didn't matter to me was that the writing is bloody gorgeous. Seriously. Okay, maybe gorgeous isn't the right word - it's not fancy-pants literary fiction or anything. But it's exceedingly witty and observant and fun. 

You know what? I'm in a listy mood tonight.

What I liked: 
(1) The writing - see above.
(2) Annabel, Harriet's stepmother's characterisation. At first she comes across as standard evil stepmother, but as it turns out she's just human (and sharper than they took her for). Also, my favourite, very heartwarming scene is between her and Harriet.
(3) It doesn't take itself too seriously. Some reviewers have complained about Wilbur's abundance of names for Harriet (Petal, Sponge-finger, Chocolate-drops, Baby-baby Unicorn... but I thought they were impressively inventive, and must have been fun to write.
(4). Nick. Just Nick, in general.
(5) Nat's sassiness. For example:

Nat rolls her eyes, "I was never going to hate you FOREVER, Harriet. Just a couple of days.""But you said...""We were FIGHTING. What did you want me to say? I'll hate you for about thirty six hours until I've calmed down a bit?" 

(6) The author herself. Damn, she's hella cool and nice.
(7) The fact that Harriet doesn't consider herself conventionally pretty, but was chosen for her quirkiness. Also, Wilbur's endearing idea that everything she does is intentional.

What I didn't like:
(1) It requires that you suspend disbelief to an absurd degree. In the space of about three days Harriet goes from reluctantly attending a clothes show to headlining a major fashion show. Huh. It's alright though, because the story is so fluffy and enjoyable you can just let it pass as long as you don't think about it too hard.
(2) Toby, the stalker. Don't get me wrong - Toby's scenes were pretty funny. But there was something niggling at the back of my mind: stalking is Not Okay, and it was being used as comic relief. Seriously, Toby literally followed her everywhere and memorized her schedule. He's also an uber-nerd - supposed to reflect her, I guess? Which means one of two things:
(a) Harriet is about to start stalking someone.
(b) Toby is going to become a supermodel.

Also, Holly Smale and I had a lovely conversation on Twitter (AKA she replied to my tweets. Several times. Hell to the yeah!). She's awesome. (She's @HolSmale, if you want to follow her).

Currently reading Fractured, sequel to Slated by Teri Terry (my review here).

Last Stand of Dead Men - Derek Landy Review

Blurb: War has finally come. Not between good and evil, but between Sanctuaries, and if Skulduggery and Valkyrie are to stop it they must team up with the rest of the dead men.

At the same time, war rages within Valkyrie herself, as Darquesse is on the verge of rising.

Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #8. See my review of   #7, Kingdom of the Wicked, here. 

I waited SO long to buy this one (no, seriously - months after its release date) and while that meant I had to hide from spoilers for way too long, I'm glad. This way I only have four months to wait until Skulduggery Pleasant #9, The Dying of the Light, comes out! (There had better be a signing near me. The joys of living in the same country as the author). 

And before we get started, what a snarky little author he is. 

 Would you guess from that picture how much he likes to torture both his characters and his readers? 

(If not, you're about to find out). Probable spoilers for the early books, but none for Death Bringer or Kingdom of the Wicked (unless you're telepathic). 

The plotlines covered in LSODM are (1) Darquesse (2) War between the Sanctuaries (3) Fletcher (4) Scapegrace and Thrasher (5) the Warlocks (6) the Reflection (7) the Dead Men. That is a hell of a lot of plotlines, Derek. 

(1) As you may know, I love reading about Darquesse. She's just so much fun (especially against Lord Vile). It's like ... wish-fulfilment, in a twisted way. Vicariously being a nigh-indestructible, insanely powerful, teenage girl. (I am one of these things. Guess which one). Her plotline gets pretty dark here - we're constantly aware of Darquesse's presence in Val's mind - and it loses a lot of the Skulduggery-Valkyrie banter. But such is war.

(2) Basically, the Supreme Council (all the other sanctuaries) is at war with the Irish, African and Australian Sanctuaries (the Cradles of Magic stick together). In all the other books we tended to have Skul and Val fighting a single enemy/small group of people who want to, like, take over the world or something. It's manageable, you know? This time they're fighting against their own sorcerers ... and it's really harsh. Difficult to read, I mean. There are no holds barred, lots of casualties. AND TREACHERY GODDAMNIT. 

(3) Fletcher gets more screen time in this book (man, am I happy about that). He's put in plenty of danger and I'll say no more about that. But at least (minor spoiler) a certain Myra is out of the picture. God, I hated her. Val may be a horrible person, but FALKYRIE. 

(4) Scapegrace and Thrasher ... how I love these guys. I'm pretty sure they're immortal by now. They've been humans, an incompetent Killer Supreme, zombies, disembodied heads, gender-swapped and now the Dark and Stormy Knight and the Village Idiot. Derek just seems to keep riffing on the abundant comic relief they provide. Strangely enough, we also feel for them (when we're not laughing at Scapegrace). Well played, Mr. Landy.

(5) I can't say too much about the Warlocks without spoiling but they're really powerful, very angry and present a huge damn threat. (Which is awful for the good guys because come on, don't they have enough on their plates already?).

(6) The Reflection was involved  in the HUGE MASSIVE SHOCK ending of Kingdom of the Wicked, and now she's back with an even larger role. (Note I said 'she', not 'it'). She calls herself Stephanie and sees herself as a distinct person. While Valkyrie ... does some stuff... during the last part of the book, the story is told from her point of view. I didn't really like that, actually. It felt kind of discordant to be bonding with her. 

(7) The Dead Men thing completely broke my heart. I cried. Seriously. At one point, I genuinely cried. There's something that happens halfway through (hint: it involves treachery) and, while I was left in a state of shock by the actual event, what really got me was the other Dead Men's reactions to it. Also, what a twist. I can't decide whether I love or hate Derek right now. 

I think what struck me most in this was how much foreshadowing Derek has done. I re-read #3, the Faceless Ones, recently, and the Reflection stuff was hinted at there. (Also the golden eyes thing. You got us good there, Derek. How dare you.)

Off to cry. 

--

Just finished Geek Girl #1 by Holly Smale (not in my usual genre but I really enjoyed it), so that'll be reviewed soon enough. Also, I'm finishing my book's second draft today, woo! And I have an exciting Angry Robot book to start reading on Netgalley, so I'm looking forward to that. 

Ender's Shadow - Orson Scott Card Review

Heads up: I strongly advise reading Ender’s Game before reading this post, as it’ll make a lot more sense. Having read Ender’s Shadow would be a bonus but is not necessary for understanding it. This review is difficult to write without giving spoilers, but as I was so excited to read Ender’s Shadow, I’ll give it a go.

Here is my review of Ender's Game.

Ender’s Shadow (Orson Scott Card, 1999) describes mainly the events of Ender’s Game, but from Ender’s subordinate Bean’s perspective. Despite this, there is a huge amount of new material in it.

It begins with Bean near starvation as a street urchin, using his brilliant mind and cunning to keep himself alive and eventually get himself into Battle School – no small feat when he’s abandoned before he can walk and gets into Battle School around four.

On the surface, he tends to remind people of Ender – smart even for Battle School; small and young; intentionally isolated from his launch group by the adults; not fond of authority; promoted rapidly – but on the inside, he’s disconcertingly different.

Used to fighting for survival, Bean seems unscrupulous – he will do anything to stay alive. He scored even higher than Ender did on the entrance tests, getting the highest score in the history of Battle School by a wide margin (and at what age, 4?). To put it shortly, Bean is extremely intelligent. And he has few of Ender’s lofty moral ideals, and little to none of his compassion (arguably Ender’s greatest strength). He is eely analytical and excels at extrapolating the information he needs from what little he is told. You might have thought Ender was cautious, suspicious, but Bean blows him out of the water on that front. He won’t even play the fantasy game for fear that the adults will use it to psychoanalyse him (funny, that). I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s self-absorbed, but his survival instinct is incredibly strong.

While I praise Card for having the skill to create characters so seemingly alike and yet so different underneath, I didn’t always enjoy it. When I was reading Ender’s Game  I was quite fond of Bean and had a nice idea of him in my head. He seemed plucky, daring, adventurous, lovable. But here was a story told from his point of view and the author smashed my mental image of him from the last book (which I didn’t appreciate). He came across manipulative, calculating, cold – perfectly content to fade into the background at Battle School until he figures out the adults are expecting him to excel, only getting close to Ender because he thinks it’s his best bet of getting ahead.

Also, while Ender’s isolation leads to him becoming a leader, Bean doesn’t have that leadership quality. Perhaps it’s because he’s lacking in compassion, but whatever the reason, Bean gets ahead much more in his studies than in the Battles. (Although he’s such a genius that he does end up with his own army in the School).

Enough about Bean for the moment. The overarching plot is largely the same, but the timing feels off (which makes sense, as Bean reacts to and prioritizes things differently, but it’s disorientating). I sometimes think Ender may represent humanity’s sense of duty and Bean our self-preservation.

I thought we might see what happens to the other kids (excluding Ender) when they return to Earth, and was disappointed not to. Perhaps that’s in another book in the series – I hope so.

There was a certain subplot about Bean’s heritage that was just very underwhelming for me. I felt that (a) it didn’t really fit with the story (b) it’s not tied up at all in the end, in my opinion.

I was so uncomfortable with the sort of things Bean was doing and finding out towards the end of the book (and even in the middle, with the air ducts). The thing regarding Ender’s Game’s plot twist was manageable, but it seemed like things were shifted around a lot. Anyone who’s read the first book knows that Bean is seen as having a lot of potential and is slated as Ender’s Second for the Third Invasion, that role was really played up in Ender’s Shadow. I was also left confused by the fact that Bean, as far as I’m aware, never had a monitor, nor did any of the street urchins – how could Battle School accept him? The resolution of this book was messier than Ender’s Game, I felt.

I enjoyed reading it, but not as much as Ender’s Game. While the urchin background was interesting and really made me sympathise, I didn’t find it as compelling as Ender’s Game’s main plot or even its Demosthenes and Locke subplot.

All the books in the Ender’s Game series(es?) throw up incredibly interesting questions and themes, so hopefully I can explore some of those in the future. 

PS: I loved the movie, even though it left out so much - what did you think of it? I boycotted it in the cinema because of Card's homophobic behaviour, but I saw it on someone's DVD and really enjoyed it. Plus, Asa Butterfield is fantastic.

Little Children - Tom Perrotta Review

Published: January 2004

Rating: 3 stars

Reading Little Children was a fairly strange experience for me, because it’s definitely way out of my comfort zone. I’m used to YA, science fiction, dystopian, post-apocalyptic and some other things. I rarely read contemporaries but when I do they’re generally still YA. This one, not so much. It’s adult contemporary, and I’ll throw the word ‘comedy’ in there as well. But it’s disconcerting.

The thing about the books I read – let’s say science fiction and fantasy, for the moment – is that they’re escapist by nature. I mean, I’ve never experienced Earth in the 28^th century, but I still loved Earth Girl by Janet Edwards. I don’t go to Hogwarts, but thanks to J.K. Rowling I could while I was reading.

What I love are ‘what-ifs’ – when one thing about our world is changed and the author lets it play out. So these books have a readymade hook – ’24 teens fight to the death on reality TV’, for example, or ‘Boy enters world of wizardry and magic and fulfils prophecy’.

 But mainstream adult fiction ... just doesn’t have that. I mean, if I had to come up with a one-liner for Little Children, it’d be something like ‘Mothers gossip at the playground and marriages break up.’

And yet I can understand why it’s called things like ‘a fascinating look into married life today’ or ‘a dryly humorous view of life with kids’. It’s a different form of escapism, I think. One where you aren’t taken to a place you’ve never seen before – instead, you’re shown the same old world and helped look at it through different eyes. So all these young mothers and married people and even those who are neither (like me!) see their lives reflected in the characters.

I didn’t find it a gripping book; I’d say it’s definitely a summer beach read. But it was enjoyable to read. It didn’t make a huge impact on me or blow my mind like lots of my YA books, but it was pleasant while I turned the pages. The problem I had was motivating myself to finish the book after I’d put it down for a few days – it doesn’t have the kind of magnetism of some other books, where you just have to finish it now.

It was also a bit rude in places, so if you’re under 18 and/or squeamish about that kind of thing maybe don’t go there. Nothing too heavy, just enough to make me a bit uncomfortable – again, because the relationships it depicted were adult ones, which are very different to their teenage equivalents. In fairness, I did ‘borrow’ this book off my mother, so...

Everything above I can deal with, because they were just small things that bugged me. But I have to say this: I hate the ending. Hate it. It’s just ... pointless. I won’t spoil the ending but I’m used to there being some kind of climax, a confrontation at least. Even in the most badly-written dystopian something large-scale has to happen. This novel just tailed off. It's a pity, because the pacing was great until then.

Damn it made me mad then. But sure look, Little Children was a NYT bestseller, and although it didn’t blow me away, I did like it. To each their own. My favourite part was probably the humour - Perrotta is excellent at funny snide comments, I must admit. 

So there you go. Sorry this is more a diatribe on adult contemporary in general than a review of Little Children, it just kinda happened. I’ve just finished Soon I Will Be Invincible and Nineteen Minutes, so reviews of them are on the way. I’m almost finished The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau which I ADORE. I’ve just started Fuse, the sequel to Pure by Julianna Baggott, so I’ll see how that goes. 

TBR list (Top Ten Tuesday)

Hello! So, I was in Waterstones at the weekend (how I love that place) and I tortured myself by making a list of books I *need*.

1. The Testing - Joelle Charbonneau. Seriously, I might die if I don't get this one soon. I read 86 pages of it in Waterstones at the weekend (thanks to the staff for not kicking me out - I'll buy it when I can, I promise.) and I'm in love.

2. Death Cure -James Dashner.

3. Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult. Bought this for €3.99 on Saturday, enjoying it so far.

4. Breathe -Sarah Crossan. Intriguing blurb, sounds similar to Pure by Julianna Baggott.

5. You Against Me - Jenny Downham.

6. The Hit - Melvin Burgess.

7. Across the Universe - Beth Revis.

8. iBoy - Kevin Brooks.

9. Thumped - Megan McCafferty.

10. Fuse -Julianna Baggott. I actually got this one for Christmas but haven't got around to reading it yet.

11. The Knife of Never Letting Go - Patrick Ness.

12. A Gathering Light - Jennifer Donnelly.

13. Delirium - Lauren Oliver.

14. The Mad Scientist's Daughter - Cassandra Rose Clarke.

15. Dune - Frank Herbert.

16. Days of Blood and Starlight - Laini Taylor.

17. Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men - Derek Landy

*TBR = To Be Read. 

(This post was originally published on the 11th of March 2014, but I've rescheduled it for the 18th to coincide with The Broke and the Bookish theme for today).

TTT: Top Ten All Time Favourite Young Adult Books

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. This week's theme is 'Top Ten All Time Favourite Books in X Genre'.

1. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Duh.

2. Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Laini Taylor.

3. Earth  Girl - Janet Edwards.

4. Slated - Teri Terry

5. Partials, Fragments - Dan Wells

6. The Skulduggery Pleasant series - Derek Landy.

7. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

8. Divergent - Veronica Roth

9. The Artemis Fowl series - Eoin Colfer.

10. The Temeraire series - Naomi Novik.