Jamie at The Perpetual Page Turner apparently does an End of the Year Book Survey, and I thought it would be a lot of fun to participate, as well as feature to my reading audience what books qualify for me as the best of 2012. Be sure to go check out others' answers as well. Also, I finished this survey before reading at least 2 more books I'd add to the top 2012, so they aren't listed below, but they are Hopeless by Colleen Hoover and The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay.
Ok guys…so help me, I’m going to try to complete this survey. However, if you ever read any of my Top 10 Tuesday posts, you know that I’m not so good at narrowing down options and staying within the allotted number of choices. But here goes nothing—oh and I do have several end of the year posts planned recapping the year and outlining my goals for the upcoming year, this was just a for fun type of thing.
End of the Year 2012 Book Survey
Best in Books 2012
1) Best Book You Read In 2012?
2) Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going to Love More But Didn’t?
Wilde’s Fire, Undeadly, Entice, The Raven Boys, Incarceron, Airel, The Shack, Hare Moon
3) Most Surprise (in a good way) Book of 2012
Slammed. I hadn’t seen any reviews on this, I’d barely read the description before I requested it, and I was just sure that it might be a total dud. And then Back to You by Priscilla Glenn. To think, I almost turned this one down when Priscilla Glenn contacted me about reading and review it. I’m still kicking myself for even thinking about turning it down. And also Graffiti Moon. I didn’t have high expectations for this one, but was greatly surprised with how much I liked it and how fast I read through it. These three are must reads—go check them out, NOW! J
4) Book You Recommended to People Most in 2012
Probably Pushing the Limits, Crazy Love, Boundaries, Push, Made to Crave, Graffiti Moon, and Slammed. Though I LOVE fiction, I also like to read books that help me work on myself and become a better person. And I’m lucky to be surrounded by a group of ladies who also like to work on themselves. So any time I read a book that helps me grow as a person, that book is getting recommended to my friends who like to work on themselves too. And then of course, several of my friends will read anything I can pass their way, so my favorite fiction books of the year definitely get recommended A LOT!
5) Best Series You Discovered in 2012
Divergent, Graceling, Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Slammed, Pushing the Limits
6) Favorite New Author You Discovered in 2012
Katie McGarry, Colleen Hoover, Veronica Roth, Jamie McGuire, Priscilla Glenn, Cath Crowley
7) Best Book That Was Out of Your Comfort Zone or Was a New Genre For You
That’s hard to say. The only one I really feel like I read in 2012 that was much of a step outside of being a comfortable genre for me was The Kindling (a middle grade book) and I wasn’t hugely impressed with it.
8) Most Thrilling, Unputdownable Book in 2012
Divergent, Insurgent, Bitterblue, Pushing the Limits, Slammed, Point of Retreat, Back to You, Graffiti Moon, & Beautiful Disaster
9) Book You Read in 2012 That You Are Most Likely to Re-Read Next Year
Pushing the Limits, Slammed, Point of Retreat, Back to You, Graffiti Moon
10) Favorite Cover of a Book You Read in 2012
Clockwork Prince
11) Most Memorable Character You Read in 2012
Will Cooper from Slammed. Travis from Beautiful Disaster. Fire from Fire. Will Herondale (though my first introduction to him was not in 2012) from Clockwork Prince.
12) Most Beautifully Written Book Read in 2012
Slammed, Pushing the Limits, Graffiti Moon
13) Book That Had the Greatest Impact on You in 2012
Boundaries, Push, Made to Crave, Crazy Love, Praying the Names of Jesus
14) Book You Can’t Believe You Waited UNTIL 2012 to Finally Read
Graceling, Divergent
15) Favorite Passage/Quote From a Book You Read in 2012
I'm not good about keeping up with quotes as I read them. I used to be, but not so much anymore.
16) Shortest & Longest Book You Read in 2012
Deadlocked by AR Wise at 54 pages & A Storm of Swords by George R R Martin at 1128 pages
17) Book That Had a Scene in it That Had You Reeling and Dying to Talk to Somebody About It? (a WTF moment, an epic revelation, a steamy kiss, etc) Be careful of spoilers.
Clockwork Prince for all of the above, Pushing the Limits just because it was awesome, Slammed for all of the above, A Storm of Swords for all of the above.
18) Favorite Relationship From a Book You Read in 2012 (be it romantic, friendship, etc)
Echo & Noah; Will & Layken; Lucy & Ed; The Hound& Arya; Lauren & Michael; Tessa & Will; Fire & Brigand
19) Favorite Book You Read in 2012 from an Author You Read Previously
Clockwork Prince, A Storm of Swords
20) Best Book You Read That You Read Based SOLEY on a Recommendation from Somebody Else
When I first read this question I thought, “I haven’t actually read ANY books based solely on a recommendation from someone else.” But that’s not really true. Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend was a recommendation from my friend Kay (love it by the way). Praying the Names of Jesus by Ann Spangler was recommended to me by my friend Jennifer. Partials by Dan Wells I won in a giveaway, but I wouldn’t have even entered the giveaway had it not been for the recommendation through her blog by Kat @ The Aussie Zombie. Made to Crave was recommended to me by my friend Paula. And finally Back to You was recommended to me by the author Priscilla Glenn.
Book Blogging/Reading Life in 2012
1) New Favorite Book Blog You Discovered in 2012?
So I knew NOTHING about book blogging before I started my own blog. I literally visited Anna Reads like once or twice before deciding that I thought it was a cool idea. I literally had no idea that there was such a community out there as it is. That being said, I’ve discovered SO MANY great blogs this year. Even though I started my blog in 2011, I didn’t actually tell people about it until the beginning of 2012. So I didn’t really start discovering the community until this year. That being said I’m going with Kimba The Caffeinated Book Reviewer. I hope this isn’t offensive, but in some ways, I feel like she’s my blogging mom. Everywhere I go I see her comments on other people’s blogs, not just my own. She’s always willing to give you tips, tricks, and ideas to help you out. And she had this crazy month long event for October that was AWESOME!
2) Favorite Review that you wrote in 2012?
Oh man. I’m so critical of my own writing. I don’t write lyrically or very descriptive. I’m blunt, okay. I have a point of view and I put it out there. So many times I go back, re-read my reviews, and think that I should have added more or been more eloquent. But I’m not here to write beautiful descriptions of books. I’m just here to share my excitement and love for reading. I tell it how I see it, and that’s not always very beautiful or eloquent. That being said, I guess these are some of my favorites….Linger, Pushing the Limits, Slammed, Point of Retreat….
3) Best discussion you had on your blog?
Um truthfully, there hasn’t been much discussion on my blog. I try not to post too many “random” things. I try to stick to reviews, memes, and such. But I did a post recently asking for help on the subject of DNFing that’s gotten the longest comments—though not very many comments.
4) Most thought-provoking review or discussion you read on someone else’s blog?
Again, I’m not a huge discussion type person. Though I’ve done my best to stay out of the craziness that has gone down in the blogging sphere this year, I have learned a lot from the whole situation and spent a good bit of time thinking and asking myself questions about it all. I didn’t really discuss my thoughts with anyone except my husband.
5) Best event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, memes etc)?
I didn’t make any author signings this year. And I didn’t make it to any physical events. I did participate in Armchair BEA which was pretty cool considering I’m not sure I’ll ever actually make it to the real BEA. I love Top 10 Tuesday and Waiting on Wednesday memes. And as I mentioned above, Kimba hosted a month-long event for October and part of that was Fraterfest. Fraterfest was my first read-a-thon event. Very fun. Though I think I spent more time participating in the events and visiting other people's blogs than I did reading. Oops!
6) Best moment of blogging in 2012?
There have been so many great moments for me this year. My first giveaway. Considering my first goal for the year concerning the blog was to have 15 followers….the moment I had 100 followers and then when I didn’t take my near as long to get to 200...and then 300. The first time an author contacted me to review his book. The first time an author contacted me about doing an interview and author hosted giveaway. Hitting 100 likes on my Facebook page for the blog. I know all of that is focused more around the numbers than content, but you know how it is starting out.
7) Most popular post this year on your blog (by comments or views)?
8) Post you wished got a little more love?
All of them?
9)Best bookish discovery (book related sites, book stores, etc)?
Goodreads! I was keeping a wish list on Amazon for any book that I saw that even looked like something I would read, and then I found out about Goodreads. I can’t even remember where I heard about it first, but LOVE that site.
10) Did you complete any challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of the year?
I didn’t really do any challenges this year. I did set a goal for myself for the number of books to read this year (52 averaging 1 a week) and I believe I hit that goal in September or something. I can’t remember. Anyway. 2012 was the first year I didn’t have to work college into the reading mix as well (or should that have been “work reading into the college mix”???) so I wasn’t really sure how many books I could read in a year. One a week seemed like a stretch at the time, but obviously, that wasn’t so far-fetched. I’ll do another post soon recapping my goals and such.
Looking Ahead....
1) One Book You Didn’t Get to in 2012 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2013?
Ten by Gretchen McNeil
2) Book You are Most Anticipating for 2013
See my Top 10 Tuesday Post here for an extended list. Short list is The Indigo Spell, Clockwork Princess, Dare You To, Walking Disaster
3) One Thing You Hope to Accomplish or Do in Your Reading/Blogging in 2013
I’ll do a separate post for my New Year’s “goals” for the blog and for reading closer to the beginning of 2013. One thing that’s been on my mind is being more specific with the books I request for review. I don’t want to requests books that I’m not wholly excited about reading and reviewing because chances are I won’t be overly excited once it comes time to read those and I feel too much pressure not to DNF if I can help it. See my post on that recently.
So that's it for the End of the Year 2012 Best in Books Survey. I've enjoyed participating! This has definitely been the best reading year for me so far. What do you guys think? Feel free to participate by leaving your answers in my comments section if you don't have a blog. If you do, leave me your link so I can check out your Best in Books 2012.