BOOKS I READ IN 2013

I read 50 books last year! That's the largest amount of books I've read in a single year, and I never stopped; I mean, I started reading from January and kept reading until December. I even read entire series in half a week depending on the amount of books. 

My Good Reads Awards

Best Series: Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan

Best Romance: Ten Tiny Breaths by K.A. Tucker

Best Fiction: Matched by Allie Condie

Worst Ending: Allegiant by Veronica Roth

Most Addictive: Avoiding Series by K.A. Linde

Best Trilogy: Summer Trilogy by Jenny Han

Most Unexpected Twist: Ten Tiny Breaths by K.A. Tucker

Most Commonly Read: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Characters I Grew Fond of: Percy Jackson Series by Rick Riordan

Best Plot: Ruby Red Series by Kerstin Gier

Most Read Author: Rick Riordan

List of books I read (in descending order of date read):

Insurgent - Veronica Roth 

Free Four: Tobias Tells the Story - Veronica Roth

An Abundance of Katherines - John Green

The Summer I Turned Pretty - Jenny Han

It's Not Summer Without You - Jenny Han

We'll Always Have Summer - Jenny Han

Matched - Ally Condie

I Am Number Four - Pittacus Lore

The Power of Six - Pittacus Lore

The Rise of Nine - Pittacus Lore

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

Wait for You - J. Lynn

Crossed - Ally Condie

Reached - Ally Condie

Tales of the Madman Underground - John Barnes

Avoiding Commitment - K.A. Linde

Avoiding Responsibility - K.A. Linde

The Last Days of Lorien - Pittacus Lore

Avoiding Intimacy - K.A. Linde

Jesus is: Find a New Way to be Human - Judah Smith

Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 - Richard Paul Evans

It's Kind of a Funny Story - Ned Vizzini

Ruby Red - Kerstin Gier

Saphire Blue - Kerstin Gier

Michael Vey: Rise of Elgen - Richard Paul Evans

Torn - K.A. Robinson

Twisted - K.A. Robinson

Ten Tiny Breaths - K.A. Tucker

Falling Into You - Jasinda Wilder

Beautiful Disaster - Jamie McGuire

One Tiny Lie - K.A. Tucker

Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson: The Sea of Monsters - Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson: The Titan's Curse - Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson: The Battle of the Labyrinth - Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson: The Last Olympian - Rick Riordan

The Lost Hero - Rick Riordan

The Son of Neptune - Rick Riordan

The Mark of Athena - Rick Riordan

45 Pounds: K.A. Barson

This is Where I Leave You - Jonathan Tropper

The Fall of Five - Pittacus Lore

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling

The Battle of the Ampere - Richard Paul Evans

The House of Hades - Rick Riordan

Allegian - Veronica Roth

Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization - John Wooden

Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell

Emerald Green - Kerstin Gier

The Accidental Hero - Matt Myklusch

Downside on Book Series

I just finished reading "The Mark of Athena", book #3 of the "Heroes of Olympus" series which is a sequel to the series of "Percy Jackson and the Olympian Gods" by Rick Riordan. Over the past 8 months I've been reading like a maniac, and lots of the books I've read are not done yet. I hate to start reading a series and have to wait half a year or more to the sequel.

Among the books I'm waiting for are:

• "The Fall of Five" of the "I am Number Four" series by Pittacus Lore - August 27th, 2013
• The third book of the "Michael Vey" trilogy by Richard Paul Evans - September 17th, 2013
• "Emerald Green", the third book of the "Ruby Red" trilogy by Kerstin Gier - October 8th, 2013
• "House of Hades", the last book (I think, hope not) of the "Heroes of Olympus" series by Rick Riordan - October 8th, 2013
• "Allegiant", the third book of the "Divergent" series by Veronica Roth - October 22nd, 2013
• "The Edge of Always", the sequel of "The Edge of Never" by J.A. Redmerski - November 5th, 2013
• "Be With Me", the sequel of "Wait for You" by J. Lynn - February 4th, 2014
• The third book of the "Avoiding" series by K.A. Linde - unknown release date

These are all the books I'm impatiently waiting for. The Downside about having to wait until these books are released is that one can forget details, passion, and even the trance you are when you are reading a series. What I hate the most is to lose my passion and affection for the characters. I just hope that by the time these books get published I'll still have the need to know what the hell happened. 

Book Review: Percy Jackson and The Olympians Series

Last week I started reading the first book: "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief". Before reading these series all I knew about them was a blurry memory of the movie. The book is totally different from the movie and I made a comment about that in this POST. I finished the whole series (five books) in two weeks, and I consider that fast because I usually take half a week to a whole week to read one book, specially these ones because they are over 300 pages. All five books had the perfect amount of action and mystery, maybe the one thing that lacked over the first four books was romance, however it's acceptable because at the beginning Percy was only 12. The last book had a lot of action and the battle took about 80% of the book! Every quest was well written and planned, the characters were hilarious (specially Tyson), and the ending was perfect. 

When I was reading the first book I thought Hades was the bad guy (SPOILER) however, Hades turned out to be one of the good guys. The problem that led all of this to happen began with the god's ignorance towards the importance of their children. Dyonisious turned out to be a really good guy too. The ending was very surprising, I would never have thought that Luke could become good. He was just driven by his hate until he must have realized he was wrong. 

These series would've become a lot more popular if the movie had stuck to the book's plot, and if they had filmed the sequel right away rather than 3 years later. 

This series have been really good, and I would totally recommend it. Next stop: The Heroes of Olympus Series. I thought these series had other characters, but I read the description of "House of Hades" (book 4) and it mentioned Percy. So now I'm really excited to read them, just because of Percy and Annabeth. I really fell in love with those too. 

I can't get over the fact that I laughed A LOT with these book, primarily thanks to Tyson and his childish personality. Pony! he called Chiron, Chicken Pony! he called Blackjack and Fish Pony! he called Rainbow. That's what cracked me up the most. 

Books:
"Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief" 
"Percy Jackson and The Sea Monsters"
"Percy Jackson and The Titan's Curse"
"Percy Jackson and The Battle of the Labyrinth"
"Percy Jackson and The Last Olympian"

Good Reads #2

For most of you is summer time! How exciting? Well not for me, I enrolled in summer term. Nevertheless, I still read quite a lot. And here are some readings I would like to share with you:

This name will sound totally bizarre  and it's not one of those, let's call them cliche book, those who become famous and have a movie and so on. This book was written in 2009 and it's called "Tales of the Madman Underground" by John Barnes. It took me more than  my average time to finish this book, besides that is over 500 pages, I had a really rough week that week. So back to the book, is about a group of teenagers who call themselves the Madmen Underground, this group was created in school to help children that had problems or act abnormal in class. The truth is, they do have problems at home, but the group never changed a thing because the instructors where, well... incompetent. This book narrates the story of Karl Shoemaker and peeks into everybody in the group's troubles. I learned a lot of humble from this book. It reminded me a little bit of "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", they don't have as much similarities but still. 

Book #2 I recommend is called "The Edge of Never" by J. A. Redmerski (btw. just dicovered that it has a second part, I'll be giving you feedback of this one later when it's published). This book is not the normal romantic novels in which the boy meets the girl in school and they both have superpowers or whatever and they fall in love and more BS. I liked this book because the place they met was unusual, the activities they did were too. I mean they were on the road. I think a story is more exciting if it's on the road rather than a specific place. This book was one of the first ones I read after my three year long reading break, and I totally fell in love with it. The end was super shocking (in an amazing way) and I'm super excited to read the sequel. In conclusion, this book is very different from those you've read, and it'd worth a shot. 

And finally, book #3, for the fans of superpowers and heroes, is the Lorien Legacies. The Lorien Legacies consist of four books so far: "I Am Number Four", "The Power of Six, " The Rise of Nine" and soon to come out "The Fall of Five" by Pittacus Lore. I actually watched the movie several years ago, but as every reader tells you: the books are so much better than the actual movie. In this case the movie changed a lot of things. One thing I don't like about movies based on books is that most of the time they skip the very beginning of the book; usually the beginning of the book is the principal telling you his story, how he or she got there or just a peek of their personal thoughts. 
I actually discovered the book after I saw a movie, and I was in no intention to read the series. But one day at Target, I was searching for the Divergent series in hardcover so I could have it in my bookshelf additionally to the kindle version I have. And as I was walking through the aisle an old lady saw me taking a book: "Free Four", which was a little extension of Divergent; and asked me if that was part of the Lorien Legacies. I politely said no, and recommended the Divergent series, because the old lady was looking for something to read. As I recommended her my favorite book at the time she did the same, and I ended up purchasing "I Am Number Four".This book is about a group of alien kids than come from a just-destructed-planet, and their mission is to stay alive and develop their powers. They are distributed all over the world (initially only 9 kids), and their enemies are on the hunt for them. The thing is: they can only kill them in order, that is 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. This book was very very good, and for fiction fans this would be like the next Harry Potter (but not as great OBVIOUSLY). 

Good Reads

Here are some books I recommend for this month of May: 

"Wait For You" by J. Lynn is about a freshman who decided to leave her hometown in Texas and go to an out of state college. She decided to leave due to reasons of her past (boy problems), and she had no intend to have a relationship in her new life. However, she met Cam. Cam is so so so so sweet! I fell in love with him. Their love story is amazing. I give this book 4.8 stars.

"Avoiding Commitment" by K. A. Linde is somehow like "Wait For You", somehow in the sense that their present lives are affected by their past actions. However, I liked better "Avoiding Commitment". This story was so much original, and captivating. "Avoiding Commitment" as a sequel: "Avoiding Resposibility", which if you read the first book I'm sure you won't resist reading the sequel. I give this book 5.5 stars out of 5! I won't tell you who I fell in love with, because that would spoil you so bad. 

And if you are tired of silly romances and want some goddamn action on your readings, here is: "Divergent" by Veronica Roth. I read "Divergent" on December 2012, and every time someone asks me for a recommendation I recommend this book. Personally I didn't like "The Hunger Games" that much, and I would definitely choose "Divergent" over "The Hunger Games". Divergent is about a society divided into different sections depending on your personality. Amity (friendly), Erudite (knowledge), Dauntless (brave), Candor (honesty) and Abnegation (selfless). A war develops because the bad guys are trying to eradicate those who can qualify in more than one section (divergent).  I'm into romances a bit more than action novels, but this was definitely a 5 star.