Book Girls Don't Cry - Top 5's of 2013

Hello loveys!

This week's BGDC post is all about great (and great looking) books.  We wanted to do a sort of top 5 list of our reading year so far and of what we are anxiously awaiting.  So first I am going to start off with my top 5 books of the year so far.  Here are the titles that made the cut:

Eleanor & Park
by Rainbow Rowell

This book was so good! I absolutely loved the slow burning romance and how it dealt with so much more than just their love for one another.  There was some great family dynamics and both Eleanor & Park had inner struggles with getting used to their own skin.  High school is a tough time to be yourself and I think this one showcased that really well. Rowell used split POV perfectly & everything felt expertly placed.

Click here to read my review of Eleanor & Park

Golden

by Jessi Kirby

This was one that I could not put down. There were great relationships and also a touch of mystery that had me devouring it until late in the night. Golden featured a best friend that became someone I would love to have in my real life and a love interst that I warmed up to incredibly fast. I had worried about this one because In Honor didn't blow me away but rest assured, the hype for this one is completely warranted.

Click here to read my review of Golden 

17 & Gone
by Nova Ren Suma

Suma's writing is absolutely gorgeous. After reading Imaginary Girls last year I had high hopes for this one and it completely blew those expectations out of the water. 17 & Gone had a haunting yet beautiful tone to it that leaves the reader not truly knowing what is real and what isn't. All of the threads came together perfectly in the end (the conclusiveness was something I longed for with Imaginary Girls) which leaves the reader feeling completely satisfied.

Click here to read my review of 17 & Gone 

If You Find Me

by Emily Murdoch

I couldn't even put my thoughts together coherently for this one. My heart completely broke for Carey and Nessa as their story wreaked havoc on my emotions. The bond that these two girls had was amazing and their ability to weather the storm and find beauty in the most unlikely places was so touching. This is one that I still find myself thinking about to this day and getting a little teary eyed.

Click here to read my review of If You Find Me 

Just One Day (Just One Day #1)
by Gayle Forman

I don't feel like I should even need to write anything for this one other than GAYLE FREAKING FORMAN. But I will. I am not a traveller, I am a home body, but this book had me loving the foreign beauty of it and I wanted to walk the same streets as Alyson and experience all that she did. I loved getting to watch her climb back to herself over time and face harsh realities head on. I adore Forman's writing and this is one that definitely lives up to all of its hype as well!

Click here to read my review of Just One Day 

So, there you have it folks, my top 5 reads of this year so far.  Do you notice a running theme here? I do! Contemporaries! That theme will continue in my top 5 most anticipated reads of this year. So without further ado:

Reality Boy
by A.S. King
to be published October 22, 2013 by Little Brown

Gerald Faust knows exactly when he started feeling angry: the day his mother invited a reality television crew into his five-year-old life. Twelve years later, he’s still haunted by his rage-filled youth—which the entire world got to watch from every imaginable angle—and his anger issues have resulted in violent outbursts, zero friends, and clueless adults dumping him in the special education room at school.

Nothing is ever going to change. No one cares that he’s tried to learn to control himself, and the girl he likes has no idea who he really is. Everyone’s just waiting for him to snap…and he’s starting to feel dangerously close to doing just that.

In this fearless portrayal of a boy on the edge, highly acclaimed Printz Honor author A.S. King explores the desperate reality of a former child “star” who finally breaks free of his anger by creating possibilities he never knew he deserved.

I have loved everything that I have read by A.S. King and I just know that this will be no exception.   I love how this sounds like it doesn't have the most likeable characters ever, but it sounds like it has characters who go through immense growth.

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock

by Matthew Quick

to be published August 13, 2013 by Little Brown

In addition to the P-38, there are four gifts, one for each of my friends. I want to say good-bye to them properly. I want to give them each something to remember me by. To let them know I really cared about them and I'm sorry I couldn't be more than I was—that I couldn't stick around—and that what's going to happen today isn't their fault.

Today is Leonard Peacock's birthday. It is also the day he hides a gun in his backpack. Because today is the day he will kill his former best friend, and then himself, with his grandfather's P-38 pistol.

But first he must say good-bye to the four people who matter most to him: his Humphrey Bogart-obsessed next-door neighbor, Walt; his classmate Baback, a violin virtuoso; Lauren, the Christian homeschooler he has a crush on; and Herr Silverman, who teaches the high school's class on the Holocaust. Speaking to each in turn, Leonard slowly reveals his secrets as the hours tick by and the moment of truth approaches.

In this riveting book, acclaimed author Matthew Quick unflinchingly examines the impossible choices that must be made—and the light in us all that never goes out.

I have this weird obsession with books about school shootings.  I'm not sure why but they always draw me in and I usually end up really liking them (except in this case.) Also, this is by the author of The Sliver Lining's Playbook so how could it not be made of win?

Just One Year (Just One Day #2) 
by Gayle Forman
to be published October 15, 2013 by Dutton Children's

Companion to JUST ONE DAY. It will be in Willem's POV.

"Can you fall in love in just one day? Can you become a new person? How about in just one year? In JUST ONE DAY and its companion novel JUST ONE YEAR, sheltered American good girl Allyson “LuLu” Healey and easygoing actor Willem De Ruiter are about to find out against a guidebook-worthy array of foreign backdrops. Equal parts romance, coming-of-age-tale, mystery and travel romp (with settings that span from England’s Stratford upon Avon to Paris to Amsterdam to India’s Bollywood) JUST ONE DAY and JUST ONE YEAR show how in looking for someone else, you just might wind up finding yourself."

As you probably noticed above, Just One Day was one of my favorite reads this year so I absolutely NEED to get my grubby hands on this.  I love how Forman does her stories in two parts and we get the second from the male perspective. It worked expertly with If I Stay/Where She Went and I know it will here as well.

Tumble & Fall

by Alexandra Coutts

to be published September 15, 2013 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux

A novel about the end of days full of surprising beginnings

The world is living in the shadow of oncoming disaster. An asteroid is set to strike the earth in just one week’s time; catastrophe is unavoidable. The question isn’t how to save the world—the question is, what to do with the time that's left? Against this stark backdrop, three island teens wrestle with intertwining stories of love, friendship and family—all with the ultimate stakes at hand.

Alexandra Coutts's TUMBLE & FALL is a powerful story of courage, love, and hope at the end of the world.

 Ok, first of all look at that cover? Seriously, does it get any prettier than that? Next, we can read the blurb and find out what it's about (but let's be honest, that doesn't REALLY matter.)   I absolutely love the Armageddon feel of it and I think that the desperation of the impending doom will really add to the story.

Racing Savannah (Hundred Oaks #4)
by Miranda Kenneally
to be published December 3, 2013 by Sourcebooks Fire

Author of Catching Jordan, Miranda Kenneally’s Racing Savannah, about an underprivileged girl training to be a jockey while working in the barn at a high-stakes horse farm whose on-again, off-again relationship with the owner’s son has an upstairs/downstairs effect on race day.

Note: Pitched as Downton Abbey in the South to Leah Hultenschmidt at Sourcebooks Fire, in a three-book deal, for publication in 2013, by Sara Megibow at Nelson Literary Agency (world).

 If you read my blog at all, you know I am a HUGE Miranda Kenneally fangirl.  I even went so far as to dub the feeling that her books give me The Kenneally Feeling.  Her romances are sweet and she always deals with issues in a really great way.  I also love how all the stories are companions and we get to see beloved characters from previous books in each one!

There you have it! Now it's your turn! Let me know down below what some of your favorite reads have been this year and which titles you can't wait to get your paws on!