Books to Stay up All Night to Read...and Those to Avoid in 2014 (Part 1)

I am an avid reader, as in I am always reading something. Actually, I am almost always reading multiple books at the same time, perhaps a few non-fiction, and a fiction (or two). Up until recently I never thought myself that picky of a a reader. I thought I could read and enjoy almost anything, that my tastes were very eclectic (like my music tastes where I can go between Frank Sinatra, Eminem, Taylor Swift, and Metallica all in one day...okay, more like one hour.) As it turns out, I suppose I do like many types of books, but I tend to go in spurts. When I was in junior high and thought I wanted to become a judge (after being a lawyer of course!) I read every John Grisham book out. I also read true crime type books. Then I became interested in medical thrillers and read every Robin Cook novel imaginable. Surprisingly enough, especially to my husband, I have not once really gone through a romance novel read-a-thon (unless you count junior high when my friends and I would pass her mother's romance books around and read the good parts!). I even tried Stephen King, and I say tried because I actually liked a few of his works, but they were when he was writing as Richard Bachman, and though creepy as all get out, they had a quality that I enjoyed more than the more typical King works. I also tried, and liked some of Dean Koontz (one of my dad's favorite authors).

Now, probably since way back with Harry Potter and Twilight, I have become enamored with YA Fantasy and Paranormal fiction. I love dystopian societies (A dystopia is a community or society that is in some important way undesirable or frightening. It is the opposite of a utopia). I have read my share of great books as well as books that were just mreh. I actually used to feel guilty when I would not finish a book I began, or a book that was highly recommended to me. But now I figure, life is short, and there are millions (probably billions) of books to be read, and time wasted reading one I don't enjoy means time I am not reading one that I do.

We all have unique tastes, but I decided to make a list of books I have read in the last year that I loved, and a few I'd avoid if I were you. I have provided each title a link to Amazon, so that you can read the reviews on there versus me lengthily reviewing each one. It's winter, get yourself some new reads to cozy up with.  Happy reading!!!

Young Adult (YA) Fantasy/Dystopian 

• Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins (can't leave this one out! Love the series). You have likely seen the movie or at least heard of it. Movie is good...book is phenomenal. 
• Matched Trilogy by Ally Condie: In a society where everything is controlled, even the person you will marry, a young girl must make the choice between what is supposed to be and what she really feels. Very interesting premise in this dystopic reality.
• The Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare: both are set in a society where Shadow-hunters hunt demons. The Infernal Devices is set a century before The Mortal Instruments, though both series can stand alone. A movie has been made of City of Bones, the first Mortal Instruments book. The movie is pretty decent...again, the book is FAR better.
• Iron Fey Series  by Julie Kagawa: In a world where faeries exist, a young girl must battle evil to take her rightful place among them.
• An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Series by Chanda Hahn. Not as much substance as other books I recommend, but a FUN read about an ancestor of the Grimm brothers having to battle her way through fairy-tales that have come to life. There are 3 books so far, and more to come.  You can get the first one free right now for Kindle! 

YA Dystopian (kind of disturbing)...not sure what to call this category. These are dystopias I LOVE, but you can't be squeamish...

• Chemical Garden Trilogy by Lauren DeStefano. I am currently reading this one, and I cannot speak for the entire trilogy since I am on book 1, but I LOVE this book!! This has caught my attention like nothing else has in quite awhile. It definitely blurs some moral boundaries that make for great thinking (and conversations) I have included the description from Amazon here, because I highly recommend..

What if you knew exactly when you’d die? The first book of The Chemical Garden Trilogy.

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males born with a lifespan of 25 years, and females a lifespan of 20 years--leaving the world in a state of panic. Geneticists seek a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

When Rhine is sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Yet her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement; her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next; and Rhine has no way to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. 

Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

• Unwind by Neal Shusterman. This is the first book, and there are more but I have not read them all yet. It is creepy, but thought-provoking. It is a society in which unwanted teens are salvaged for harvesting of their body parts, and the story of 3 teens trying to escape. 
• The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer takes a look at using human clones to make necessary parts for an aging society. I love the moral dilemma in this award-winning novel. 

This is all for now, because this is quite a list just of the YA books I recommend, but in my next post  Part 2 I will list some adult fiction, non-fiction, and books I wouldn't recommend.