Review: Talking As Fast As I Can

I stumbled upon Gilmore Girls as a teenager and it became Our Show. The show my mom and I watched together, every day/week, through six seasons (my mom never quite made it through season 7). With the comeback of AYITL (:A Year in the Life) and my beloved Gilmore Guys podcast, I heard about Lauren Graham's memoir, read a couple pages while standing in Barnes & Noble, and had to have it.

My history of reading celebrity-penned memoirs is a bit hit-and-miss. They all seem entertaining enough, interesting enough to pass the time. Disappointing in proportion to how excited about the book I was, or how much I like the celebrity in question. I haven't read many, but the ones I have read are decent. And it's not that Lauren Graham's book was leaps and bounds ahead of the others but... parts of it was? Her collection of essays -- about acting, about her childhood, about her personal life, about writing -- are for the most part well-written (sometimes amazingly well-written). Some chapters were more interesting to me and some were less interesting.

It's hard to review this book. Lauren Graham is a good writer and an interesting person, and while I found her notes on the filming of Gilmore Girls mostly real boring, the parts about her boyfriend, about her pre-acting and beginning acting years, about her writing, ranged from oh, this is good to this is incredible!!!!

Wishlist

I recently took a fun Barnes & Noble trip, and since I'm currently/always super broke, not to mention the massive stack of to-be-read books I already have, I instead made a list of the books I want.

Abandoned Books: Bubble World

I'd been excited to read Carol Snow's Bubble World for quite a while (maybe since it came out). It sounded like the perfect-for-me mix of superficial and sciencey. Unfortunately, it was a lot more A LOT MORE superficial than science and I just couldn't put up with it past page 60. I did flip ahead and read some spoiler-y reviews to find out what happens, but nothing made me want to continue it.

Question to readers: Have you read this book? Have you finished this book? What did you think of it?

YA Things That Bother Me: A List

• The "best friends" who are so obviously in love with each other but, like, everyone knows but them. Ha. Hahaha. Please.
• Insta-love. Dear universe, this is as annoying in books as it is in real life. Probably if you're one of the people it's less annoying, but for every single onlooker it's the worst.
• The best friends who've known each other THEIR WHOLE ENTIRE LIVES. They took baths together! Their mothers are best friends! (Please, let me know if you've known your BFF your entire life. Is this a real thing? That really happens?)
• The best friends where one is an introverted bookworm and the other is the party girl who's prettier and more popular. 

Friends, what am I missing?

Review: Galgorithm / You Me Us

I have a fair amount of thoughts on this book, Galgorithm. Starting with An Abundance of Katherines I'm kind of a sucker for books where people discover (or try to discover) the formula for love, so the premise of this one - a high school boy who uses his advanced, mathematical understanding of How Girls Work to help his lovelorn compadres capture the girl of their dreams - was perfect for me. Very Hitch-esque.

The cover here is kind of goofy, as is the title, so I wasn't honestly expecting too much from this book. But it was funny! And it was sweet! And it had a few quotable lines! ("I'm feeling a lot of feelings right now, and it's weird.") It was a bit predictable and I never fully felt the core romance between Shane and his female BFF, Jak, but I went with it. Shane was a relatable, slightly-quirky main character, his friendship with Jak was always pretty great (I bought their friendship, it was just the requisite more-than-friends feelings that I had some trouble with), and the various romantic entanglements of his clients were entertaining. I won't lie; this book had me hooked. It's not one I'll return to again and again, but I had a hard time putting it down. And considering the luck I've had with books this year, that's a win.

Note that this book is published as an ebook under the (much better) title You Me Us, and I'm wondering if it might come out in paperback with that title also?

Not Quite A Review: Murder is Bad Manners

This year, for me, reading- and other-wise, has not been great. Is it time for us to light 2016 on fire and wave goodbye just yet? No? Okay. A few more weeks.

Well. In the midst of this year where I read a whole ten books, oh my god, try to hold back your applause for that ASTOUNDING NUMBER (yeah, sorry, the sarcasm is heavy tonight) -- anyway. In the midst of this year, I did discover a little beauty. A gem in the middle of all this madness.

Murder is Bad Manners, the first in a middle grade cosy mystery series by Robin Stevens. On a whim I found and bought this and the second book in the series earlier this year. Now, as with so many wonderful books, these seem to be originally published overseas, which means I don't know if I can actually find the remaining however-many in the series here in the United States. (If anyone knows, LET ME KNOW, although I'm sure finding out online shouldn't be too goshdarn difficult.)

Anyway, back to the book. It's cute. It's charming. It's slightly-creepy. It's murderous. It's lovable. Set in a British boarding school, I wish I could leap RIGHT INTO this book. Yes, even with that nasty business about the murder happening. The second in the series (Poison is Not Polite) is sitting on my shelf right now, just waiting for the perfect moment to be read. I'm thinking later in the winter, during a snowstorm hopefully.

missing you.

I miss blogging. It's been nearly a year and blogging takes time that honestly I don't really have. But I miss it. And as the end of the year draws nearer, I'm thinking about what I've read this year (not much, honestly) and wanting to make some lists for next year. Books I'm looking forward to. Books I didn't get to this year. Etc.

Review: The Husband's Secret

To start off with, the reason I read this book. It's due 100% completely to my intense love for What Alice Forgot and wanting to read every single Liane Moriarty book I can get my hands on. (Fun fact! Liane Moriarty is YA author Jaclyn Morarty's sister.)

So anyway. This book. I liked it. I was seriously invested in it. The epilogue was amazing. But as a whole the story wasn't as great as I was hoping for it to be. I don't quite know how to explain it -- partly I think that some of the characters who were really important to the story (most notably Cecilia's husband, John-Paul) didn't feel real to me. I just didn't care about them all that much; I wanted to know how the story itself ended, but I wasn't hugely invested in the characters. Which, after What Alice Forgot, was disappointing.

But let's get to the actual STORY, shall we? Cecilia Fitzpatrick, ultra-organized mother of three and wife to the golden John-Paul Fitzpatrick, finds a letter from her husband -- to be opened in the event of his death. Overcome with curiosity, Cecilia reads the letter (If she didn't, there would be no story, right?) and finds out the secret her husband is hiding. 

Meanwhile, Tess O'Leary has moved back in with her mother while dealing with the fallout from discovering that her husband and cousin/best friend have fallen in love with each other. And then there's Rachel, whose anger and grief over her daughter's death decades ago impacts every aspect of her life. Somehow, of course, you know that all three of these stories are going to come together in the end. I'm not a hundred percent on board with the way these three women's stories finally came together, but it was definitely interesting. 

Alright so. I don't know how to not be spoilery with this review. But I'm going to try! I'm going to succeed! 

The story itself is really something. I was impatient to find out what was going to happen, but I don't know how earned or true various events in the last third of the book felt. Weirdly, I wanted a lot more from Tess' weird love triangle with her husband and cousin, which was probably the least important part of the book. But I liked Tess; I wanted more from her. I also liked Cecilia. And I have to say this... I hate to say it, but I have to be honest... I did not like Rachel. She felt petty and angry and... I mean, her daughter was MURDERED and that murder was NEVER SOLVED. And I can't imagine that, I have no idea how to even begin to feel what that would feel like. So I hate that I didn't like her, but I didn't. Even pushing her decision at the end of the book aside, she was so oblivious to the feelings of those around her (her completely ignoring her son's grief, for instance) and so mean to her daughter-in-law. She just completely rubbed me the wrong way.

I know this is a crap review. It's hard to talk about this book without talking about the contents of John-Paul's letter, and the ending, and so many more really really interesting-but-spoilery things. I did love the idea that our lives can spiral out in so many different directions that we will never know, as was really brought home in the incredible epilogue, which I think I mentioned earlier.

Top Ten: 2014 Releases I Didn't Get To

Find Me A Trilogy!

One of the items on my 2015 reading challenge is to read a trilogy. Now, I could say that since I'm going to be finishing my Amish romance trilogy this year that technically counts, but I feel like that's half-cheating. I really want to read a complete trilogy this year and I need your help. 

Maze Runner is sort of on my radar, but I'd really like to find an awesome contemporary/realistic trilogy. IF YOU HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS???

Popsugar's Reading Challenge

Okay so when I did my 2014 reading survey I think I mentioned that I have a reading challenge for this year...? Maybe? Anyway.

I have a reading challenge for this year. It's Popsugar's reading challenge, and I'm going to create a page for it so I can cross off each item as I accomplish it. I never do the GR reading challenge because that feels like a lot of reading pressure, and I'm not into that. But this challenge, whether I totally 100% complete it or not, feels like a good way to add a bit of genre diversity to my reading life.

So yes. Join me?

Upcoming YA Books

I read this post today, by Kara Thomas, author of the Prep School Confidential series. To summarize, in case you don't feel like clicking over and reading the link, Kara says that, essentially, the books populating all the "most anticipated" lists at the start of the year aren't going to be the debut novels. They're going to be the big books, ones publishers are pushing and trying to create buzz for.

This is true. The two books at the top of my 2015 MUST LIST are both by very established authors. (Honestly, I want to say they're both bestselling, but I'm not sure.) The truth is, unless a reader at least knee-deep in the publishing world and YA buzz, readers often don't know about the smaller books coming out. The ones by debut authors, the ones that aren't lead titles. In the year or so that I've been "blogging" over on tumblr, I've lost touch so much with what's happening in YA. Granted, I'm still better informed than nearly everyone else I know, but compared to how knowledgeable and "in the know" I was a couple years ago? Um, nope. And though I'm trying to get back into it, at least somewhat, the truth is that I might never be as crazy-informed as I used to be about what's happening in YA, what new books are coming out, who has a book deal and for how many books.

And you know what? I'm kind of more than okay with that. I'm excited for 2015, and excited to discover new books and authors that I haven't known about a year before their books debuted. There's a certain thrill in finding a flat-out amazing read that you just pull off a shelf, that you haven't read twenty thousand reviews of. That hasn't been on your TBR list for months. This is the way we find new favorite books and new favorite authors, ones whose future books we'll always be on the lookout for.

But, that all said -- I do like knowing what's coming up. So I have to ask: what lesser-known YA titles should I be on the lookout for this year?

review: popular

I hate to start reviews off with this sentence, but I just have to. Cue valley-girl squealing here: This book is so cute! At the start of her eighth grade year, social outcast Maya Van Wagenen decides to use a 1950s guide to style and popularity. Yes, it's a quirky social experiment (Maya is unabashedly a nerd), but it's also an honest attempt to rise in the ranks of popularity. Each month Maya puts into practice a new chapter of Betty Cornell's old-school popularity guide. She starts with "Figure Problems" (read: weight) and "Hair" and works her way to "It's a Date" and "Be a Hostess," making daily notes on her successes, failures, and the reactions of those around her. (Pilgrim-style shoes: might make people think you're homeless. Pearls: actually kind of cool.)

Maya is now fifteen years old, which means she wrote this book as a 13/14 year old. I don't like to talk about authors' ages typically, because whether you're a teenager or a fifty-year old, all I want is a good story. Good writing. That said (and trust me, Popular is a good story full of good writing), Popular reminds me so much of my own eighth-grade journals -- quirky social experiment aside -- if my journals were well-written, with dialogue and scenes. That is to say that Van Wagenen's unique view of the world and her place in it rings true; as with any teenager's diary there's the trivial mixed with the big-picture. Dieting and makeup mixed with neighborhood drug dealers and school lockdowns. And amid all of this are the kind of smart teenage insights that many of us sadly tend to forget about as we grow up and disavow our younger days. This book is a reminder that teenagers can be just as stupid, and just as insightful, as grown-ups. 

I loved this book. Yes, there are cheesy parts -- one scene in particular made me think of High School Musical's level of all-in-this-together cheese. But, you know, cliches are cliche for a reason. Maya's gung-ho, fighting attitude is something to aspire to, and her growing confidence over the course of her experiment is a good reminder that yes, we can change our situation. Yes, we can change ourselves. Yes, it is possible.

I know, I know. I'm getting sentimental just talking about this book. But it's good! So good! So wonderful! Maya Van Wagenen, you are incredible and your book is awesome.

review: 17 & gone

Note: It's really hard to talk about this book sans spoilers. I've written a more spoilery review that you can read on Goodreads, but have tried to keep this spoiler-free.

It started with one girl -- Abigail Sinclair. First, Lauren saw the MISSING poster tacked up on a light pole, and then she saw her. Abby, whispering in her ear, riding beside her in her van, asking for help. After Abby there was Fiona, then Natalie, then other girls, so many of them Lauren stopped counting. All of them gone (missing or runaway), all of them 17, all of them -- except Abby -- dead. Abby's the one still out there, still alive, the one Lauren has to save. If she saves Abby maybe she can save all of them, maybe she can save herself. Because Lauren is 17 also, and she knows it's only a matter of time before she, too, disappears. 

I have conflicting feelings about this book and it's hard to talk about without spoiling the "twist," but I'll try to talk first about the things I CAN talk about. 

For starters, this book sort of dragged on. It was, dare I say... boring. Girl after girl appears to Lauren and we hear their stories -- what their lives were like, when they disappeared, what they were wearing when it happened. On and on. It quickly gets repetitive and slows the book down as I waited for something to happen. I had heard this book was creepy, which it was. I'd also heard it had a twist, which... I'll just say it: to me, that wasn't a twist. That was obvious. That was inevitable. And it was unsettling.

Summer's descriptions of the girls, of their interactions with Lauren, are so good. For some readers, probably too good. Because right from the start there's a distance between Lauren (the narrator) and the reader. There's a thick fog, an inscrutableness. Lauren is not a protagonist you fall into step beside; she's one you can't quite figure out, one you might be a little scared of. Lauren's world is peopled by ghosts and half-truths and it's hard to grab onto anything solid. Her personality is buried somewhere deep, deep under her experiences and throughout the whole book we never quite reach that far to really see who she is. I've read reviews from readers who didn't like this, but for me it hit as incredibly, startlingly truthful. I didn't always love it, but I'm still glad I read it.

end-of-year book survey for 2014

1. Best book read in 2014?
It's always so hard to choose one book above all others, but choose I must. I think I have to go with Kiera Cass' The One, the ending of the Selection trilogy (who else is crazy excited for The Heir, though?). It was all-in-all such a perfect ending for that series, and for America and Maxon's love story. I adored pretty much every page of it.

2. Book you were excited about and thought you'd love more, but didn't?
Isla and the Happily Ever After fits the bill for me. Despite being lukewarm about Lola, I absolutely adored Anna (along with every other blogger in the known universe) and was hyped up to get back Paris, and St. Clair's friend Josh. But the book fell totally flat for me and I'm impressed that I finished it, honestly.

3. Most pleasantly surprising book of the year?
Princess Academy, by Shannon Hale. One of my friends loaned it to me after I liked The Goose Girl, and I wasn't expecting much from it, honestly. But it was such a feel-good read, so wonderful and warm. I really thoroughly enjoyed it.

4. Book you recommended the most in 2014?
Definitely We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart. I'm not sure how many people I actually got to read it, but I mention it quite enough I think.

5. Best series you discovered in 2014?
Ahahaha. *manic laughter* My amish romance trilogy, for sure. The Temptation series by Karen Ann Hopkins. I only have the last book left to read and it's so addictive and entertaining. The characters are all a bit of a mess, as is the central (entirely problematic, but whatever) relationship, but I just. Love. It. I don't believe in "guilty pleasure" reads, but if I did this would totally fit.

6. Favorite new authors discovered in 2014?
I'm gonna be real honest, guys. Jon Klassen, author of those horrible/wonderful picture books where the animal murders the other animal for stealing his hat (sorry, spoilers!) rocked my world this year. I absolutely LOVE his stories. Another wonderful writer I discovered is Lang Leav, whose love poetry collections speak to my heart. Oh, and Katie Cotugno, of course!

7. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you?
I actually read a lot of various genres this year, but one book that was definitely out of my comfort zone was Jane Austen's Emma. Now, I like the classics. I like Jane Austen. But it's always a bit of trial to make it through one of her books and reading Emma this past December felt especially difficult for me.

8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2014?
Confessions of a Sociopath, by M.E. Thomas. And that's really saying something considering I read Gone Girl this year. But that book was just flat-out fascinating.

9. Book you read in 2014 that you are most likely to reread next year?
How to Love, by Katie Cotugno. Honestly I wanted to reread that book the second I finished it; it's just so good.

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2014?
There are so many amazing covers to choose from! But I'm going to go with We Were Liars because not only is it beautiful and haunting, but it also fits the story really well (which is unlike the equally pretty cover for Don't Call Me Baby). (The cover for How to Love is also wonderful. Choosing is hard.) Hey, how about I include all three and you can decide FOR YOUR OWN SELVES?

 

11. Most memorable character from 2014?

Josie from Love and Other Foreign Words immediately came to mind for me. Smart, caring, and a bit off-kilter and awkward. I loved her.

12. Most beautifully written book you read in 2014?

Choices, choices! But really I think I have to go with Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. With honorable mention to We Were Liars, The Goats, The Infinite Sea, Panic, and Love & Misadventure.

13. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2014?

Erm. Ah. Usually there are quite a selection of books that just felt personal to me, but 2014 was a bit of a barren year for that. I think probably Flora & Ulysses though, just because of when I read it and how warm-hearted it was and all of the really great quotes that pulled me out of the sucky mood I was in. The line, "So many miracles have not yet happened," has really stuck with me this past year.

14. Book you can't believe you waited until 2014 to finally read?

Princess Academy. I passed by that book so many times, in so many libraries, and I don't understand how I didn't read it until now.

15. Favorite passage or quote from a book you read in 2014?

Well, I already mentioned the line from Flora & Ulysses, and to be honest I did a crap job of keeping up with quotes this year, but I will share one from We Were Liars.

The four of us Liars, we have always been.
We will always be.
No matter what happens as we go to college, grow old, build lives for ourselves; no matter if Gat and I are together or not. No matter where we go, we will always be able to line up on the roof of Cuddletown and gaze at the sea. This island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever.

16. Shortest and longest books you read in 2014?
Alright, I'm going to not include picture books here if I can help it.
Longest - Gone Girl, at 560 pages.
Shortest - Love & Misadventure, at 176 pages.

17. Book that had a scene in it that had you reeling, dying to talk to somebody about it? (This can be an epic revelation, a shocking twist, whatever...)
Ugh, so many! I mentioned reading Gone Girl this year, right? Okay okay I'm going to go with that book. I'm going to go with the end of that book. Because !!!!!! I mean, right? !!!!!

18. Favorite relationship from a book you read in 2014?
There are always so many good book relationships. But I really fell for Kathy and Tommy's relationship in Never Let Me Go; it's beautiful and heartbreaking and awkward all at once, and it's never as easy as you think it should be.

19. Favorite book you read in 2014 from an author you'd read previously?
I'll go with Summerland, by Elin Hilderbrand. This was the first book of hers I flat-out ADORED. (And, okay, We Were Liars. But, like, obviously.)

20. Best book that you read based solely on a recommendation from someone else?
Princess Academy, by Shannon Hale.

--LOOKING AHEAD--

21. Book you didn't get to in 2014 but is a high priority for serious now in 2015?

Landline, by Rainbow Rowell. Definitely.

22. Book you are most anticipating for 2015?

The Heir, by Kiera Cass. Ahhhhh!!!! I mean, you know it's serious when SARAH DESSEN has a novel coming out and I'm still looking more forward to another book.

23. One thing you want to do/accomplish in your reading/blogging life in 2015?

Well, I want to blog regularly again. And I have a reading challenge (that I'll blog about later, probably) that I'm excited for.

The Supreme Disappointment of Being Disappointed

So I just read this book. Well, most of this book at least. I gave up around the 2/3 mark and skipped ahead to find out how it ended. It was a book I'd been looking forward to for ages, one I was so excited about, one by an awesome author. It hit so many of my must-haves.

But I didn't finish the book. I didn't like the book. I was disappointed. I thought there must be more; I thought, really? The dialogue felt stilted. The characters flat. The relationships unformed. It wasn't what I had expected and though I really, really wanted to finish, I also had other books waiting for me.

I hate when that happens. When a book I'm excited about, one I've even been looking forward to, disappoints so wholly. When I don't finish something I was hoping would become a favorite.

You know what I mean, right?

All the Books (August 24, 2013)

WHAT I'VE READ

The much-anticipated You Look Different In Real Life, by Jennifer Castle. You can find my review here; unfortunately, though I liked the book, I didn't like it as much as I wanted to. Hopefully at some point this next month I'll get to where I'm actually reading more than <1 book a week, but right now it just doesn't seem to be happening.

BOOKS ON THE LIST

Somewhat surprisingly, neither of these interesting-sounding books are contemporaries. A Matter of Days is a post-apocalyptic, disease-has-killed-everyone story of survival with a crazy simple premise. And Anna Jarzab's Tandem is sci-fi dealing with alternate universes. ALTERNATE UNIVERSES. Sign me up.

review: you look different in real life

You Look Different in Real Life was definitely one of my most anticipated books this year. I had high hopes, high expectations for this incredibly interesting story of a girl (along with four of her classmates) whose life has been, every five years, the subject of a documentary along the lines of the British Up docu-series. (As a side note, I love this series and highly recommend it; many of the films are on Netflix and well worth watching.)

Justine, who has always been the viewers' favorite, is sixteen and facing the third film (Five at Sixteen), but this time she's dreading the camera's intrusion in her life. She's not who she thought she'd be by now, and although she professes to hate the movies and cameras, she also doesn't want to disappoint. This idea of not being who she wanted to be by sixteen is oner that I wish had been explored more in-depth, instead of given only a few lines of space, because it's a really interesting idea to me. Who we are and who we want to be. And, when the whole thing is captured on film for the world to see, how much harder is it? I wanted more of that, which ended up being my big problem with the book; it's full of so much stuff that the really interesting bits ended up buried with the more dramatic plots were what took center stage.

Despite the fact that Justine is the narrator and main character, there are four other important characters in this book, and each of them has their own stories and journeys that the book follows. Unfortunately, many of these stories seemed superflous and not every character shone the way I think they were probably supposed to. Kiera especially seems to be the fifth wheel here; although the big thrust of the main plot comes from her actions, her character is never clearly defined and her storyline seems both too dramatic and too convenient to really have an impact. A few of the events and storylines felt a bit shoehorned in to me: Kiera's story, Felix's (incredibly obvious) twist, Justine's sudden need to film everything when just pages ago she'd hated the cameras. Like I said, there was a lot here, and much of it didn't seem to work.

Which isn't to say the book as a whole didn't work, or that I didn't like it. Because I did. Despite how convenient many of the plot points felt to me, the characters' commitment to each other, even though they didn't all get along day-to-day and even though there had been some pretty big rifts in their friendships, shone through. From the moment the camera crew is back in their lives there's a sort of under-the-surface solidarity between the five docu-stars, almost an us versus them attitude that went far in establishing these characters' lives and relationships. It's Rory (Justine's ex-best friend, who has been diagnosed with Autism since the last film) in particular that brings this unity to the forefront; she sticks with the other four even when it would be so much easier, for so many reasons, to just not. Her matter-of-fact way of stating things is incredibly refreshing in a story where there's so much that goes unsaid.

This is a solid contemporary YA, though not without its faults. To be perfectly honest I think that my issues with it may stem from the fact that it was just a bit more plot-driven than I wanted or was expecting, which is probably going to work for a lot of readers.

All The Books (August 17, 2013)

WHAT I'M READING

Alright, it's sad, but I haven't finished any books this week.

BOOKS ON THE LIST

I absolutely loved Diana Peterfruend's first classic reimagining in a sci-fi setting, and I'm really super excited for this one as well. It's a reimagining of The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I haven't read -- but I hadn't read Persuasion either, so that's fine -- and if it's anything like For Darkness Shows the Stars I know it's going to be incredible.

NEW BOOKS

This week the library was having an insane book sale and I managed to get all three of these for under $2, which is most excellent. They aren't books I felt like I needed to buy (although you can probably tell I'm in a bit of a Elin Hilderbrand phase lately), so I'm fully okay with setting them on my shelf where they'll sit until I have nothing else to read.

MORE BOOK STUFF

The title and cover for the third book in the Shatter Me trilogy was revealed -- yay, Ignite Me looks so gorgeous! To be honest I still haven't read Unravel Me (and am not sure if I will, honestly -- when I reread the first book I was surprised by how dark it was and how much I hadn't noticed on my first read). But I loved Shatter Me so so so so much the first time I read it that I'm thinking I may wait until all three are out and then read some reviews and see if I want to read the entire series. I'm super conflicted about these books, to be honest.

Tuesday Ten: Books Set Outside of the USA

This week's theme from The Broke and Bookish is "Ten Books With X Setting," and I'm choosing to showcase ten awesome books set outside of the United States. In cases where the books were originally published in another country (hello, Austrailia, land of incredible writers!), I tried to include the foreign title and cover.

1. What Alice Forgot

Liane Moriarty

This Aussie-published novel about a woman who gets a bump on the head and forgets the last decade of her life isn't setting-heavy, but it is set in Australia and it is absolutely wonderful. It's amazing. One of those rare books that I stayed up all night long reading. (Honestly I think I finally forced myself to go to sleep around four in the morning, then woke up at 7-ish and finished the book.)

2. Jellicoe Road (On The Jellicoe Road)

Melina Marchetta

Another Aussie book (you'll notice a definite trend in this post), Jellicoe Road was published originally as On the Jellicoe Road in Australia and unlike What Alice Forgot, the setting plays a huge role. It's another amazing, incredible, I-love-it-so-much book. There must be something in the water down under.

3. Tiger Lily

Jodi Lynn Anderson

Set in Neverland, Tiger Lily is a truly original, awesome take on the tale of Peter Pan. A love story, it tells us, but not like any you've heard. True, that. 

4. Love and Other Perishable Items (Good Oil)

Laura Buzo

Here's Australian book number three. The tagline on this Australian cover says, "A Novel of First Love and Second Thoughts," and that sums up Love and Other Perishable Items/Good Oil so well. The tale of a teenage girl who falls in love with her older coworker isn't nearly as tawdry as it sounds; instead it's well-written, angsty, and impossible. Though I had some conflicted feelings on this one (in spite of how amazing it is, it also has the one thing I really, really hate in YA novels), in the end I can't leave it off this list.

5. Mothership

Isla Neal & Martin Leicht

Set in space. Space! And, oh, it's everything you ever wanted a space-set YA novel to be.

6. Anna and the French Kiss

Stephanie Perkins

Sigh. Paris, Etienne, Anna. You knew this one was coming up, right? In related news: I need that paperback edition in my life.

7. serafina67 *urgently requires life* (Big Woo: My Not-so-secret Teenage Blog)

Susie Day

A UK-set book! Woo! This, my favorite YA novel of them all, is pure pure pure awesome and so wonderfully non-American. *huggles*

8. How I Live Now

Meg Rosoff

Okay so I think this is the original cover for the UK-set (yep, a second one!) How I Live Now. A weird, uneasy, hilarious novel.

9. Bloomability

Sharon Creech

Switzerland! Boarding school! If this list were ranked according to my love for these books, Bloomability would be way up near the top instead of down here at the bottom.

10. Code Name Verity

Elizabeth Wein

Various parts of Europe. Come on, we all love Code Name Verity.