Category Archives: Blogger Beloved

This Year in Blogging

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So this year marked my first full year blogging and it has been awesome (superawesome, awesomesauce, wondrous). I’ve met some really wonderful people and make bookish friends who include: Wendy, Alissa, Kay, Aleeza, Rida, Eden, Reut, Cindy, Krystle, Jessica, Glaiza, Bee amongst many others whom I don’t remember off the top of my head. Thanks ladies for making my blogging experience a fun one and let’s hope that 2012 brings us more books, good or bad.

As for the actual posts, I bring to you a number of posts that I particularly enjoyed writing and hope (if you have missed it) enjoy reading:

I am a Feminist. So?
Interview with Tabitha Suzuma
Discussing the Mean Girls
On the Eve of Ramadan
A Question of Romance aka How Not to Write Romance in YA Novels
Fairytale Illustrations with a Korean flavor by Obsidian
Things in YA novels that make me O.O and not in a good way
If They Could Talk (where several YA heroes get together for a party and share secrets, hur.)
A Recipe for Insta-Love (my favourite)

In the coming year, I hope to read less but more substantial novels. Some adult fiction because I feel like I’m reading too much YA. A change of pace will be welcome. Anyway, thanks dear Readers, for accompanying me through this year. I enjoyed the comments, thoughts and book suggestions coming my way. Let’s make 2012 into an awesome book year as well. Have a happy new year’s day.

Aleeza’s Guest Post: Top Ten Underappreciated Books of 2011

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Entertaining you today will be the brilliant Aleeza from Aleeza Reads and Writes. Enjoy her perceptiveness and amazing observations about books that really should have gotten more attention.

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All right, so first of all, I’m so excited to be blogging for Bibliophilic Monologues! Nafiza was the first bookish friend I made on Goodreads, and I’ve been following her lovely, deliciously bookish blog for ages now. But before this turns into a quasi-love letter, I’ll get on with the topic at hand.

You see, I’ve read lots of books this year. Lots as in, ‘more than the combined number of books I’ve read in the last five years.’ Some of them were hyped releases, some of them I just happened to stumble upon—and some of the latter I ended up REALLY liking. So I’m going to highlight the ones I read this year, which also released this year, that I feel should’ve gotten more buzz.

1—Split by Swati Avasthi: Reading about physical abuse is hard. Excruciating, actually, because I live in a place where it happens every day, all around me, even if I don’t see it happen—like my housemaid, for example, gets beaten by her husband even though she’s almost fifty, only because sometimes she gets home a few minutes late, whereas her husband sits home all days and lazes around doing nothing. This book, however, is about two brothers who’ve been broken apart because of their abusive father, and how they have to learn to live through the consequences. It made me cry my eyes out and made me want to hug every single person in this world who’s gone through similar experiences. And I am not a hugger by any stretch of the word, so you know I liked this book a LOT.

2—Ordinary Beauty by Laura Wiess: So like Split, this book also centers around how a girl’s life has been affected by a Horrible Parent ™. In this case, her mum’s a major druggie—by major I mean SHE’S NEVER, EVER, EVER SOBER—and reading about how she finally fights her way out of all that crap was tough but oh so worth it.

3—The Lost Crown by Sarah Miller: In the vein of tough but beautiful books, this one DEFINITELY deserves a mention. I mean, yeah, so maybe the first half is boring enough to make you almost cry, but once you get through that, you realize just how much of a gem this book, especially if you know of the horrible fate of the last Tsar and his family. (I didn’t. Hey, I never claimed to know much—or anything—about world history.)

4—Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez: Violins, cut-throat musical competitions, hot English competitors you’re not supposed to be attracted to but end up being so anyway, realistic and absorbing mother-daughter relationships…this book’s got it all. It’s short but GRIPPING and just…really grips you. Okay, okay, sorry about the lameness, but this book does just that—grabs you until you get totally sucked into it. Can’t believe it’s the author’s debut!

5—Kat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis: How can you a resist a book that has an amazeballs combination of the following: Spunky heroine, hilarious dialogue, lovable characters, a wonderfully well-executed plot AND set in Victorian England? Exactly—you can’t! I had no idea I would like this one so much and, can’t wait to reread it before the sequel comes out.

6) How to Save a Life: I don’t know a SINGLE person who’s read this book and not loved it. So I really wish more people would read it and fall in love with it. It’s about so many different things I can’t even begin to try to encapsulate it in a couple of lines—all I can say is that it’s heartbreaking and real and just so very lovely.

7—Ashfall by Mike Mullins: So yeah, a lot of people do in fact know about this book, but I’m including it anyway because LOADS more people should. As far as survival stories, this one’s top-notch.

8—Ultraviolet by R. J. Anderson: Let me just tell you right away: THIS BOOK WILL BLOW YOUR MIND AWAY. You probably have heard of it, but here’s me recommending anyway to go out and get a copy ASAP. It’s that brilliant.

9—Variant by Robinson Wells: So this may not be the best book I’ve ever read, but it’s just so intriguing and suspenseful and well-executed I’d never hesitate to recommend it. Believe me when I say that the twist in this book will leave you BREATHLESS.

10—Okay For Now by Gary D. Schmidt: So I’m including this book last because it was actually a NYT Bestseller. Despite that it seems to me that most people in the YA blogosphere haven’t really heard much of it. I can’t really even explain how much I love this book—it’s heartbreaking and just so goddarned beautiful. It’s a historical MG contemporary—I know I just majorly contradicted myself, but I hope you get what I mean—and it’s a must read for EVERYONE. I don’t even read much MG but this one made me realize how awesome it can be if it’s well done.

And because I can’t help it, here’s some other books I also liked that I felt should’ve received more attention:

Dreams of Significant Girls by Cristina Garcia: Three girls who meet in a Swiss boarding school, all from different cultures, and how their lives intertwine with each others.

Other Words for Love by Lorraine Zago Rosenthal: A simple yet gorgeous story about a girl falling in love for the first time, and the devastation she goes through when it goes awry.

Past Perfect by Leila Sales: Cute, unique and full of heart.

Clean by Amy Reed: Teens in rehab and their painful pasts and how they learn to live with them.

Dark Inside by Jeyn Roberts: Post-apocalyptic fiction at it’s best. Will most likely result in you hiding under a rock for the rest of your life in fear of earthquakes. Or not.

Always a Witch by Carolyn McCullough: Sequel to Once a Witch, which it improves upon by approximately 17 gajillion notches.

Witchlanders by Lena Coakley: An atmospheric and absorbing high fantasy with rich imagery and heartfelt characters—including one really hot one. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself, heh.)

Guest Post by Rida the Raindrop: Books of 2011 that Surprised Me

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Today’s post is brought to you by Rida, a new blogger friend of mine whose blog will yield the full force of her enthusiasm and unquenchable thirst for life and books. Okay, Rida, take it away:

When Nafiza asked me to guest post, I was a little nervous, because have you seen this girl’s writing? (Thanks Rida, you are way too nice.)  And the vast amount of books she’s read? And me: I only started reading YA this year. But considering the fact that we’ve had some of the best books EVER come out (I’m looking at you, Chime) and, lucky me, the Twilight style tortured-rude-boy-meets-supposedly-plain-girl-forever-love-ensues-OMG type books are receding and there are actual, good paranormals coming out- I couldn’t be happier.

So I told myself I could do it. Nafiza is one of my favourite bloggers, and I really wanted to do this for her. Anyways, I managed to narrow my choices down to a top 5, from Surprising to, er, Most Surprising. I cheated a teeny tiny little bit, as in, there is ONE book that was released in 2010 but I HAD to include it, because dude, this post wouldn’t be a post without including that one book. (Have I created enough suspense? No?)

Okay. *clears throat* Here goes.

5. Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard

I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is I like about this book. The writing, lush and descriptive and engaging? The setting? The characters? Heck, the characters’ names? (I mean, come on. I’d name myself Mandarin if I wasn’t afraid I’d get an identity crisis.) But I can tell you exactly what surprised me: just how much I liked the book.

Like Mandarin is different. It’s unexpected. And it’s unlike anything I’ve read before (and after). I hadn’t expected so much from it.

4. Divergent by Veronica Roth

Yes, there are major plot holes in this one, but there was something about this book. The writing was clean and spare; the action was well-executed, and although I can see Nafiza shaking her head right now, I liked Four. Although I don’t like either of his names.

What surprised me? The honesty. Something about Veronica Roth’s writing voice is so honest that I felt that I just had to keep reading. I may be weird (for more proof, see my tweets. You’ll have enough weirdness to last a lifetime) but that’s the feeling I get whenever I think about Divergent. I didn’t LOVE LOVE LOVE it, but I didn’t hate it, either. I just really liked it, plot holes, weird names and all.

3. The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter

See, I love Greek mythology. The gods are so twisted and not-innocent and the myths are so interesting that I was hoping that a YA book would have more room to talk about those grown-up things in a candid way. But what did I get from this book? A chicken-ified, CHASTE Hades named Henry. Hades is NOT innocent and nice, peeps. I mean, HELLO, he’s the god of the effing Underworld.

It wasn’t just Hades Henry that became an I-want-to-talk-about-my-feelings type guy, which I can tell you write now is not something Hades would ever be. ALL the other gods were like that. Thus, I didn’t get what I was looking for in The Goddess Test. Not at all. And well, that’s a surprise, no? I expected so much, and then we’re introduced to this Henry person I can’t even recognize, and my expectations deflate like a balloon. Dang.

2. Chime by Franny Billingsley

I was SO happy when Nafiza named this one the book of the year. Because honestly? It is. I truly believe it’s probably the best book of the year. The writing was so beautiful that I’d look up and be surprised to find myself sitting in my bed, in my world, instead of the one Franny Billinsgley so masterfully created. This is the book I’d push into people’s hands to show them the power of words.

And this is the book that surprised me the most this year, because I thought I was reading some book about witches or… something paranormal. Uh, no. That cover and that summary combined don’t do it justice. I doubt any book and any summary can, actually. Yes, it’s just that awesome.

1. Plain Kate by Erin Bow

You may have noticed that I already told you which book of 2011 surprised me most of all. And you might just be thinking: this Rida girl obviously doesn’t know how to count, because uh, the book that surprised her most of all has already been revealed. So why does this one get the #1 spot? Well, hold on to your horses (or keyboards, rather) you lovely people, because guess what? *jazz hands* This book was released in 2010! Gotcha!

Technically it doesn’t count then, but WHATEVER! Who needs technicalities? Not me! Nuh-uh! Moving on…

I loved everything about this book. Taggle the talking cat, the writing, the setting, the Roamers, the cover, Linay… just, everything. And what surprised me is that I, being ridiculously silly (that is, even sillier than usual) didn’t think I’d love this book. I went into it thinking, MEH. And then I got blown away.

Serves me right for judging a book by the title. Because peeps, this book is NOT plain at all.

So there you have it. A list! Now, please do run off and do some reading and then tell me what you think of these books!