Class of 2013 YA Superlative Blogfest: Day 3 & Giveaway Details

Welcome to the final day of the 2013 YA Superlative Blogfest. If you’re keeping up, here are our picks (click for a link to everyone’s blogs) to our Head of the Class, Popularity Contest, and Elements of Fiction categories.

We’ve saved the best for last: Best In Show.

FAVORITE COVER

It’s an eight-way tie. (Click the covers for the Goodreads description of each.)

CUTEST COUPLE

My first reaction was to say Reena and Sawyer from How to Love, but while their love is complicated and satisfying and really, really great, it’s not what I would call cute. That is how I’d describe Leah and Chris from Leap of Faith, though. The love she has for her sister, who she’s passing off as her own baby, and the love Chris has for her and her “child” is beautiful.

MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED (OR, PICK A PRINTZ WINNER.)

Not sure if this is Printz worthy, but it’s definitely one of the best books I read in 2013.

MOST LIKELY TO MAKE YOU MISS YOUR BEDTIME (BOOK YOU JUST COULDN’T PUT DOWN!)

The book is quickly paced with a twisty plot that had me up way, way past my bedtime. And that’s saying something considering I’m practically nocturnal.

BEST REPEAT PERFORMANCE (YOUR FAVORITE SEQUEL OR FOLLOW-UP.)

I didn’t think it’d be possible to love this book more than the first, Under the Never Sky, but I did. I really, really did.

FAVORITE FINALE OR END OF SERIES NOVEL

Thankfully I read the first two books the same week the third came out so I wasn’t waiting endlessly for the last book in the series. Which would have felt like forever after the first two stellar novels. I reviewed the first, Ruby Red, here. What I didn’t blog about: The fact that the following two books, including Emerald Green, which came out this year, were equally as great. A series you definitely want to pick up.

ROMANCE MOST WORTHY OF AN ICE BATH

These two opposites find love with one another and, well, they love each other. A lot.

BREAKOUT NOVEL (YOUR FAVORITE BOOK BY A DEBUT AUTHOR.)

As if I needed to put this book into one more category.

BEST OLD-TIMER (YOUR FAVORITE READ OF THE YEAR, PUBLISHED BEFORE 2013.)

Told through letters and alternating among three girls and their guy pen pals, this story is hilarious and smart with well-written and distinct teen voices for all of the characters. (My fullreview is here.)

BOOK MOST LIKELY TO MAKE A GROWN MAN CRY

Whether you loved or hated the ending, you can’t say it wasn’t emotional. I was a complete mess, single-handedly keeping Kleenex in business.

MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE (BEST BOOK YOU DIDN’T THINK YOU’D LIKE, BUT TOTALLY DID.)

This was my first Rainbow Rowell book, and while I thought it would be fun, I didn’t expect to love it like I did. Rowell is a master of creating amazing characters and writing hilarious dialog.

MOST CREATIVE USE OF A LOVE TRIANGLE

She loves him. She loves him not. She wants to spill about her love. She wants to kill him. Best use of a love triangle ever.

SLEEPER HIT (BOOK YOU FOUND SO AWESOME YOU WISH IT HAD BEEN HYPED MORE.)

I don’t know why there’s been so little fanfare about Leap of Faith, which was a strong YA contemporary about a girl who saves her baby sister by stealing her and passing her off as her own child. The romance was strong, the main character’s conflicting feelings were great, and the ending (while I wished it had gone on for another chapter or two) was hopeful.

FAVORITE OUTLIER (YOUR FAVORITE MIDDLE GRADE OR ADULT 2013 BOOK)

After reading Fangirl I immediately picked up Rowell’s first book, an adult novel called Attachments. (I knew Eleanor and Park was getting rave reviews, but I felt like something a little less serious.) Told from the POV of a twentysomething guy and including e-mail correspondences between his two female co-workers, this book was laugh-out-loud funny and filled with the same well-rounded characters Rowell is known for.

MY CATEGORY: FAVORITE SELF-PUBBED NOVEL

(LEAVE YOUR FAVORITE IN THE COMMENTS!)

I expected Secret Life to be a light, breezy read, but Bria Quinlan hits readers hard with protagonist Rachel’s body dysmorphic disorder. I’ve never read a book from the POV of a character with this disease, and the struggle was sometimes difficult to read, but so worth it.

And that’s it, guys! A giant THANK YOU to everyone who participated. It’s been a blast reading your picks (and adding to my already mile-long TBR list). Stay tuned when we’ll pick four winners from the group of people who participated every day of the blogfest. Each will win one of our favorite 2013 books!

Class of 2013 YA Superlative Blogfest: Day 3

If you’re just tuning in, we’re on day three of the Class of 2013 YA Superlative Blogfest, a summing up of sorts of our favorite books published in 2013. (Click here for Day 1 and Day 2 picks.) Today’s category: Elements of Fiction.

MOST ENVY-INDUCING PLOT

(THE PLOT YOU WISH YOU’D THOUGHT OF YOURSELF.)

I would love to hang out with Marissa Meyer’s imagination for a day. And I really wish I’d come up with this sci-fi retelling of Little Red Riding Hood just as I wish I’d had the idea for Cinder.

MOST FORMIDABLE WORLD

(THE SETTING YOU DEFINITELY WOULD NOT WANT TO VISIT.)

No way is this on my list of the top 100 places to see before I die.

WANDERLUST INDUCING

(THE SETTING YOU’D HAPPILY TRAVEL TO.)

I’ve read some books with really amazing world-building but would I want to visit? No. Absolutely not. But the small lakeside town in Fifteenth Summer is adorable and the perfect vacation spot.

LOVELIEST PROSE

Maggie Stiefvater’s prose is the kind that makes me feel like a failure as a writer. It’s that beautiful. (My full review is here.)

BEST FIRST LINE

This was a tie:

“You stop fearing the Devil when you’re holding his hand.”

I’ve been looking for Sawyer for half a lifetime when I find him standing in front of the Slurpee machine at the 7-Eleven on Federal Highway, gazing through the window at the frozen, neon-bright churning like he’s expecting the mysteries of the universe to be revealed to him from inside.

MOST DYNAMIC MAIN CHARACTER

 

What I love so much about Dante Walker is that he’s a bad boy, but he owns it. It’s not a good guy dressed in black. And the way he sees the world? Absolutely hilarious. He’s full of life and bold, and his transformation over the novels (both published in 2013) is so well done we get the same bad boy vibe with a little more conscience.

MOST JAW-DROPPING ENDING

There’s nothing I can say about this ending without ruining it. How about: WOW.

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Blue’s entire family—her mother and the zany women who live with her—are hilarious and multi-layered, smart, strong, and sometimes creepy. They’re also impossible to forget. (My full review is here.)

BEST USE OF THEME

I was thoroughly impressed with the way Miranda Kenneally handled faith and guilt and friendship in this book.

And that’s it for today. Tomorrow we’ll be ending the blogfest with the Best in Show group (find a full list of categories here) and a giveaway of books published in 2013!

Class of 2013 YA Superlative Blogfest: Day 2

Welcome to day two of the 2013 YA Superlative Blogfest. If you missed yesterday, we rated our favorite books by genre. (You can read mylist and click to everyone else’s here.)

And now for my picks for the Popularity Contest category (book images link to a description on Goodreads):

CLASS CLOWN

Take the typical class clown, add a dollop of evil, and you have River West, whose idea of a prank is to terrify kids with visions of the devil and cause innocent teen girls to imagine long-dead men with furry teeth.

MOST LIKELY TO BECOME A ROCK STAR

Graham Larkin is already a movie star, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the kid would sell an album or two. He could be Jared Leto 2.0.

MOST LIKELY TO START A RIOT

  

  

Let’s be honest: Pretty much every protagonist in a dystopian novel is likely to or has already started a riot. Add a plenty of sci-fi main characters and a handful of unhappy paranormal teens and, yeah, this was a tough choice. This time around, I really couldn’t decide among all the great rebels and revolutionaries. (My full review of Allegiant is here; my full review of Taken is here.)

BIGGEST FLIRT

Crash is way too much of a womanizer for me to like him in the least, but he wins this title fair and square. If his treatment of girls can ever be called fair. (My full review is here.)

FASHION KING AND/OR QUEEN

Morpheus, the dark and dangerous love interest in this book isn’t concerned about fashion in the way a Fashion King or Queen in high school might be—he lives in Wonderland, after all. But I have a distinct memory of the way he dresses and looks that makes me think that, were he to enroll in high school, he’d take this title without trying.

GIRL YOU’D MOST WANT FOR YOUR BFF

I want the best friend who will let me solve mysteries with her. Together we’d be like Thelma and Louise with murder and sneaking around but minus the suicide thing.

BOY YOU WISH YOU’D DATED IN HIGH SCHOOL

 

Is it possible to answer “All of them?” Actually, that’s a lie. If I met a guy like Crash from Crash and Burn in high school I might have punched him in the face. (See above.) But Gansey from The Dream Thieves? Perry from Through the Ever Night? Teen me would have had a hard time focusing on school work. Let’s leave it at that. (My full review of The Dream Thieves is here.)

 

A couple honorable mentions: Chris from Leap of Faith, a book I really loved and plan to review at some point. And then there’s Trevor from Pivot Point, another 2013 read I thoroughly enjoyed. (My full review of Pivot Point is here.)

MOST LIKELY TO BECOME PRESIDENT

Wren has practically spent her life being perfect for her parents. With those grades and that dedication, it’s not hard to imagine her in the oval office. (Of course, that’s before the novel really kicks into gear.)

QUIRKIEST CHARACTER

This book is packed with quirky characters, but the protagonist, Violet, wins for dressing in her dead grandmother’s clothes.

VILLAIN YOU LOVE TO HATE

Warner is still the villain, right? And we’re supposed to hate him, right? Maybe this is the wrong pick. He’s definitely the villain I love to love.

FAVORITE PARENTAL FIGURE

If you want a YA story with an awesome parental figure, pick up this book. The dad is one of my favorite YA parents ever. (My full review is here.)

COOLEST NERD

Popular chick hiding her comic book–loving side comes out of the nerd closet. She and the geeky love interest are so nerdy they’re cool. (The book is also adorable and funny—a light read worth picking up.)

Tomorrow, we’ll be tackling the elements of fiction. (You can find a full list of categories here.) And remember, to be eligible for the giveaway, you need to participate every day. But to have fun, you can drop in as you like!