Top Ten Tuesday #167

Hi guys! I hope you’ve all had a good week since my last one of these, my summer job started on Wednesday and I’m not gonna lie, I’m exhausted already! I had to do airport transfers on Sunday (I’m working at a summer school) and my feet still haven’t quite forgiven me yet.

Anyway, I’m taking the short window of time I have before I have to get to work, to give you guys another Top Ten Tuesday, thanks to Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl. Today we’re sharing our Best Books Of 2018 (so far) and this is gonna be a tricky one because aside from a few standouts, I’ve had a mostly middling reading year so far, so I might not make it to ten books, but I’m gonna try!:

1. Legendary-Stephanie Garber-Read June 2018-4.5 stars

AHHH! My far and away favourite of this year so far without a doubt. Legendary is even darker, even twistier, even more amazing than Caraval and I devoured it in like a week at the end of last month. I loved seeing things from Tella’s perspective and going even deeper into the world and the mystery of Scarlett and Tella’s missing mother. I cannot wait for the third book to come out next year.

2. The Exact Opposite of Okay-Laura Steven-Read February 2018-4 stars

I’ve kind of been on a feminist reading kick this year, three books and counting (I’m hoping to have more by the end of this year) have had feminist themes, and this was the start of it. I found Izzy O’Neill super relatable (we would seriously be best friends if she was real), I thought the subject matter was timely and that the book was just generally hilarious and I cannot wait for the sequel next year!

3. By A Charm and A Curse-Jaime Questell-Read January 2018-4 stars

This was such a creative, fun little book. It was a different take on the usual carnival/circus style YA, as a kind of mix of a Snow White/Pinocchio retelling. I can often find my fantasy books get quite samey, so it was nice to read something a little bit different!

4. The Language of Thorns-Leigh Bardugo-Read April 2018-4 stars

I’m basically devouring anything and everything Leigh Bardugo this year, first I read Shadow and Bone and then this. I loved this short story collection and coming from me, that’s pretty high praise because short stories aren’t usually my thing. I loved that Bardugo took quite recognisable stories and gave them a Grisha twist.

5. Everless-Sara Holland-Read January 2018-4 stars

This was one of the first books I read this year, and I know there’s been a lot of mixed reviews about it, but I really enjoyed it. I thought the time as currency thing was a really cool concept and although it was slow to start, it really picked up for me.

6. Daughter of The Burning City-Amanda Foody-Read May 2018-3.5 stars

I sped through this book in less than a week, it was nice to have a shorter, standalone fantasy to read for a change (although ironically, I actually thought the book needed to be a little longer to contain the sprawling world that Foody created) and I loved having a murder mystery within a fantasy, I thought that was really cool and the whole idea of the illusions is awesome. It was definitely a creative little fantasy book and whilst it works really well as a standalone, if Foody ever wanted to return to Gomorrah, I would be quite happy to go back there!

7. Ace of Shades-Amanda Foody-Read May/June 2018-3.5 stars

Yes, another Amanda Foody book, what can I say, the woman definitely has a flair for writing fun, unique YA fantasies, and I can definitely tell that she’s going to be someone whose books I look out for in the years to come. This book was a very slow starter, but I loved the kind of 1920s mobster world that Foody created, I thought the magic system was really cool and I loved Enne’s character development. I can’t wait to see what happens in the sequel!

8. Rose Under Fire-Elizabeth Wein-Read May 2018-3 stars

I probably should have picked one of my other 3.5 stars for my last book on this list (yup only 8 today) but when I looked back, my other choices didn’t quite sit right as favourites, because I liked Moxie but it was nowhere near as good as TEOOO and A Thousand Perfect Notes and Crooked Kingdom were both good, but they both kind of disappointed me, so it didn’t feel right to put them on a list of my favourites of the year. Rose on the other hand, I found super emotional, and absolutely loved the characters, especially the Rabbits. Actually writing this, I’m wondering whether I should have rated this 3.5 instead of 3……ah well.

That’s it from me, a shortened TTT today I’m afraid, hopefully the second half of 2018 will be better for me in terms of great books! Over to you! What have been your favourite books of 2018? Have you read any of the books on my list? What did you think of them? Let me know in the comments!

Next week we’re meant to be talking Favourite Novellas/Short Stories, but as I’ve already established in this post, I’m not really a massive novella/short story fan, so instead, I’m going to talk about my Favourite Standalone Books, since I know I flail about series near enough constantly and don’t really talk about my favourite standalones very much, so I am going to change that! In the meantime, I will have a review of my latest read Radio Silence up probably at the weekend, since I don’t have a day off work till Sunday and reviews take much longer to write than I have before I go into work in the afternoon, so stay tuned for that!