I usually have a seasonal reading list with at least 10 books that I MUST read. With spring coming up, it's time for a new list, so I decided to pick books that will count towards some of the reading challenges I'm participating in.
10 Books On My Reading List for Spring 2012
Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi. Winner of The Michael L. Printz Award.
In America's Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota--and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it's worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life.
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, Danielle Evans. 2011 winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for outstanding contributions to literature by African American writers.
In each of her stories, Danielle Evans explores the lives of young black people in contemporary America.
The Devotion of Suspect X, Keigo Higashino. Takes place in Japan.
Yasuko Hanaoka is a divorced, single mother who thought she had finally escaped her abusive ex-husband Togashi. But he shows up one day to extort money from her and ends up dead on her apartment floor. Overhearing the commotion, Yasuko's next door neighbor, middle-aged high school mathematics teacher Ishigami, offers his help, disposing not only of the body but plotting the cover-up step-by-step.
Graffiti Moon, Cath Crowley. Takes place in Australia.
It's the end of Year 12. Lucy's looking for Shadow, the graffiti artist everyone talks about. His work is all over the city, but he is nowhere. Ed, the last guy she wants to see at the moment, says he knows where to find him. He takes Lucy on an all-night search to places where Shadow's thoughts about heartbreak and escape echo around the city walls. But the one thing Lucy can't see is the one thing that's right before her eyes.
The Kingdom of Gods, N. K. Jemisin. A type of house in the title.
For two thousand years the Arameri family has ruled the world by enslaving the very gods that created mortalkind. Now the gods are free, and the Arameri's ruthless grip is slipping. Yet they are all that stands between peace and world-spanning, unending war.
Everybody Sees the Ants, A.S. King. A creepy crawly in the title.
ucky Linderman didn't ask for his life. He didn't ask his grandfather not to come home from the Vietnam War. He didn't ask for a father who never got over it. He didn't ask for a mother who keeps pretending their dysfunctional family is fine. And he didn't ask to be the target of Nader McMillan's relentless bullying, which has finally gone too far.
The Night Strangers, Chris Bohjalian. Read a Thriller/ Suspense novel.
In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts. The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline pilot, has to ditch his 70-seat regional jet in Lake Champlain after double engine failure. Unlike the Miracle on the Hudson, however, most of the passengers aboard Flight 1611 die on impact or drown. The body count? Thirty-nine - a coincidence not lost on Chip when he discovers the number of bolts in that basement door.
Fire, Kristin Cashore. Read a novel from your favorite genre.
It is not a peaceful time in the Dells. This is where Fire lives. With a wild, irresistible appearance and hair the color of flame, Fire is the last remaining human monster. Equally hated and adored, she has the unique ability to control minds, but she guards her power, unwilling to steal the secrets of innocent people. Especially when she has so many of her own.
Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Laini Taylor.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.
Jellicoe Road, Melinda Marchetta. Abandoned by her mother on Jellicoe Road when she was eleven, Taylor Markham, now seventeen, is finally being confronted with her past. But as the reluctant leader of her boarding school dorm, there isn't a lot of time for introspection. Hannah, the closest adult Taylor has to family, has disappeared, so Taylor is trying work out the connection between her mother dumping her, Hannah finding her then and her sudden departure now, a mysterious stranger who once whispered something in her ear, a boy in her dreams, five kids who lived on Jellicoe Road eighteen years ago, and the maddening and magnetic Jonah Griggs, who knows her better than she thinks he does.
- Inspired by Spring Reading Thing 2012 and Top 10 Tuesday @ The Broke and The Bookish. Have you read any of these books or are you doing any of these reading challenges?
(Photo Credit: col&tasha)
See more -> Book Lists, Seasonal Reading
I loved Daughter of Smoke & Bone -- Laini Taylor is an amazing writer. I hope you like it too!
Here's my Top Ten Tuesday: http://writergrrlreads.blogspot.ca/2012/03/top-ten-books-on-my-spring-tbr-list.html