Books I Read and Loved in 2014, Part 1

Hello wonderful readers, I'm on the cusp of the second half of the year, and I realise I haven't posted in months (I am pretty active on Instagram if anyone wants to follow me in my day to day life. Lots of pictures of my fur babies). So, I thought I'd talk about the books that I've read and loved in the first half of 2014. Currently, I'm sitting at 77 books read, but quite a few of them didn't really move me all that much.

Books Read in December

Ah, December has come and gone. A whole year has finally passed. December has been fantastic in terms of reading. I mean, I got 28 books read. Truth be told, though, quite a few of those were short story/novella e-books, and it helped me bump up my book count.

December is the time of the year where I hide in my room and avoid all social interactions. The Christmas season is a difficult time for me, and the only way for me to deal with it is to hide and read. I suppose I can't complain when it made me complete my challenge.

1. The Spindlers - Lauren Oliver
2. The Sacrifice (The Enemy, #4) - Charlie Higson
3. The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking, #2) - Patrick Ness
4. Grimspace (Sirantha Jax, #1) - Ann Aguirre
5. The New World (Chaos Walking, #0.5) - Patrick Ness
6. Errant (Killer Unicorns, #0.5) - Diana Peterfreund
7. Turn Here - Jackson Pearce
8. Clockwork Chloe - Ian Thomas Healy
9. number9dream - David Mitchell *
10. Black Spring - Alison Croggon *
11. When God Was a Rabbit - Sarah Winman
12. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
13. 172 Hours on the Moon - Johan Harstad
14. The Neverending Story - Michael Ende
15. Never Knew Another (Dogsland, #1) - J. M. McDermott
16. Snow White Blood Red (The Grimm Diaries Prequels, #1) - Cameron Jace
17. Ashes to Ashes and Cinders to Cinders (The Grimm Diaries Prequels, #2) - Cameron Jace
18. Beauty Never Dies (The Grimm Diaries Prequels, #3) - Cameron Jace
19. Ladle Rat Rotten Hut (The Grimm Diaries Prequels, #4) - Cameron Jace
20. Mary Mary Quite Contrary (The Grimm Diaries Prequels, #5) - Cameron Jace
21.  Blood Apples (The Grimm Diaries Prequels, #6) - Cameron Jace
22. Dead Girl's Dance (The Morganville Vampires, #2) - Rachel Caine
23. Midnight Alley (The Morganville Vampires, #3) - Rachel Caine
24. The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien *
25. Snow White and the Huntsman - Lily Blake
26. Ransomwood - Sherryl Jordan
27. Mystic City (Mystic City, #1) - Theo Lawrence
28. The Crimson Thread - Suzanne Weyn

So, on that note, the last monthly recap of 2012 has been posted.
I wish all my followers and readers and people-who-randomly-stumbled-upon-my-blog a fantastic new year.

Books Read in November

November flew by so quickly, didn't it? I was so busy and overloaded with NaNo, but thankfully still managed to get a decent amount of reading done.

As always, an * indicates a favourite book.

1. Faerie Tale - Raymond E. Feist
2. God's War (Bel Dame Apocrypha, #1) - Kameron Hurley
3. There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill her Neighbour's Baby - Ludmilla Petushevskaya
4. The Amber Amulet - Craig Silvey
5. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell *
6. Blood Storm (Lharmell, #2) - Rhiannon Hart
7. Carnival of Souls - Melissa Marr
8. After the Quake - Haruki Murakami
9. The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking, #1) - Patrick Ness
10. Ghostwritten - David Mitchell *
11. Every Day - David Levithan
12. Enchanted - Alethea Kontis
13. Infidel (Bel Dame Apocrypha, #2) - Kameron Hurley

The most notable books are, of course, the two books by David Mitchell. He's fairly new to me; I only picked up his most famous novel, Cloud Atlas (soon to be a movie, which is why I was so intrigued in the first place) just last month. Immediately, I was a fan. I'm now going through the rest of his books. Two books on my to-read pile for December are the last two books of his that I haven't read, number9dream and Black Swan Green. To say I'm excited is an understatement. I have high hopes for these books.

Other books I'm planning to read in December include the second and third books in the Chaos Walking trilogy. I'm going to be doing a readalong with Glaiza and Emily from Goodreads when I get back from my vay-cay.

I've got a few more Murakami books to read--I've really fallen for his surrealism--and I want to start reading some more Virginia Woolf.

Sadly, I'm still 7 books behind on my goal of 200 books for this year. I need to read 25 books during December in order to make it. Oy vey. Wish me luck!

Can Adults Read Young Adult?

I was in the library today with my mother. We had an hour to kill before an appointment, so we were sitting in the Young Adult section: I was reading Adorkable, and my mum was flicking through some magazines. Then, a middle-aged woman, around my mother's age, walked into the section, and began browsing through the books.

As soon as the woman left, with a stack of YA books in tow, my mother started her rant:

"What is a woman her age doing reading books for teenagers? Has she no shame? Is she so dumb that she needs to read children's books?"
etc. etc. etc.

There's always a stigma towards books that aren't classics and/or literary. Genre books always get a lot of flack. But Young Adult seems to be getting the worst of it. People seem to think that because YA is aimed mainly at teens, that only teens should be able to read it. And, sometimes they go a step further, assuming that because it's aimed towards teens, it's somehow not as intellectual or as deep as adult novels. Basically, there's a lot of ageism going on.

It makes me wonder how people view me. I'm twenty years old. I haven't been in high school for three years. I'm definitely not a teen anymore, and I'm slowly ceasing to become a young adult. And, most importantly, I read practically nothing but young adult. I write only young adult.

Sure, there may be lots of YA books that are vapid and shallow, that are pale imitations of Twilight. But isn't that the same for books for adults? I don't mean to sound like a genre snob here, but a lot of smutty erotica novels are hardly deep (hurr hurr....). I've read a few books that are classed as literary (what is literature, anyway? But that's fodder for another post), that feel shallow, with stupid characters that are nothing more than Edward and Bella as adults.

But on the other hand, I've read some really deep YA, such as The Book Thief, Twenty Boy Summer, or Looking for Alaska, and they all deal with important topics. They are hardly vapid, and there's potential to teach a lot of people. Ditto with adult novels, whether they be literary or genre fiction.

I appologise for this ranty post. I realise it's not really going anywhere. I'm just trying to sort my thoughts into some semblance of sense, and I know it's not really working. Regardless of how much I'm failing at understanding this phenomena, I'd like to know what you guys think. Do you think that adults should be able to read books for teens, and vice versa? Is there something dumb about an adult reading below their age level? Why do you think this is?