Challenge Wrap Ups: Rock My TBR Challenge

Last week I did my first round of an end of the year wrap up where I do weekly posts and challenge wrap ups. In addition to doing a favorite books of the year thing, once a week in December I am going to do a challenge wrap up to talk about some of my favorite books in the categories that I did challenges for. I did a total of four challenges this year. This week I am doing my back list books or the Rock My TBR challenge. I will be reading one more backlist book this year but it's in a series so I feel comfortable sharing my thoughts.

My goal for the year was to read 25 backlist books that I already owned. And while I did read 27 backlist books, I think only about 20 of them were books that I already owned but I am calling this one a win for the Rock My TBR Challenge hosted by The YA Book Traveller. But I did read 153 books so far for the year which means about 1/6 of the books I read were all published before 2016. I think that is still pretty good considering so much of book blogging is about the newest books.

And honestly I loved so many of these books. A few of them will probably be on my list of favorite books of the year. There were a handful of them that I had been waiting a long time to read and am very glad that I took the time to read them, Here is the list of some of my favorites.

1.) And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie - My Review
(Amazon / Goodreads )

I have wanted to read this book for years. Years. That is not an overstatement. Like I have wanted to read this book for at least 10 years. I probably had it on my Amazon wishlist when I first set up said wishlist. But I never actually read it until now when I picked up a copy at a Goodwill. And seriously, what was I waiting for? This book is phenomenal.

As many of you probably know, I am kind of picky when it comes to mysteries. I like being able to solve it but not too quickly. I also like being surprised but because there wasn't clues. I feel like with the mystery here I wasn't able to solve it, there were not many clues, and I still loved it. It messed with my head and caught me off guard and I loved it. It was so good and I need to read more Agatha Christie because seriously, why did I wait so long to read her books?

But I would absolutely recommend this one. If you are like me and have for some reason not read any Agatha Christie, take the time to read this one. Especially if you like mysteries. It's amazing, I loved it.

2.) Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin - My Review
(Amazon / Goodreads)

I considered not including this book on this list because it is one of my favorite books of the year, like top three favorite books. But if I am being honest I have to include this one on this list because it is my favorite book from this challenge. I read it because of this challenge and I will forever be grateful to this challenge because of that. Whatever the reason, I read it and I loved it.

Because honestly this was a really amazing book. It is full of phenomenal characters (LUKA LOWE, you guys!), insane amounts of action and adventure, and it may have me reconsidering my thoughts that I don't like alternate histories and road trips. What I'm saying is that this book is not one I expected to love. It's almost the perfect storm of things I don't usually like all working together to create something I did like. Is that a thing? I feel like it should be a thing.

If you are interested in this book I would definitely suggest listening to the audio. I think it kind of made it what it was for me. It's a great read and perfect for the audio format so yes, listen to it.

3.) The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce - My Review
(Amazon / Goodreads)

Okay so once again a book, or well series, that I wanted to read forever and haven't. Also another book that I can't believe I waited so long to read this book. I feel like my elementary/middle school librarian let me down by not somehow ensuring that I read this series instead of whatever else I was reading.

Because as I am sure all you fans of Tamora Pierce know, this is an amazing YA fantasy series that kind of set the tone and stage for what we know of today as YA fantasy. It's got an amazing world and great characters that we get to grow and develop with throughout their life which I always enjoy. It also has a really cool fantasy world that we get to explore which is full of magic, adventure, and mythology. It's a classic sword and sorcery series and I loved it.

 I would totally recommend this series. If you were somehow living under a rock called Goosebumps and The Babysitter's Club like me in the 90's and missed this series take the time to read it now because it's totally worth it.

4.) Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley - My Review
(Amazon / Goodreads)

This is another one of those books that am kind of surprised and ashamed that I hadn't read until this year. I wanted to read it when I first learned about it back in 2014. I even had an advance copy that I picked up my first year at BEA. But for some reason I didn't read it until this year.

But I am really glad that I took the time to finally read it because this book was really fantastic. It's a really great piece of historical fiction as it takes the reader to Virginia in the 1950's during the segregation process and tells a really honest story of some of the horrible things that occurred during that period. But the diversity with this series goes even further with LGBTQIA characters. It was really complex and interesting and I really loved it. It's a total me book and I'm not sure why I waited to read it. I don't even have a good excuse.

If you haven't read this book and you are at all interested in it, definitely read it. I think it's something that will appeal to a broad audience because of the many different themes about diversity and acceptance. This is one of a few Robin Talley books I read this year and I definitely want to read more.

5.) A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness - My Review
(Amazon / Goodreads )

I know so many of you are obsessed with this book and honestly I was a little worried about it for that reason. I didn't want to hate it and then have the collective blogosphere shun me because I didn't enjoy this book. But rest assured, I loved it. It also made me sob while in a car with all my coworkers driving to a statewide meeting, so there's that.

But to be honest, everyone who loves this book is totally right, it's everything. Not only does it have an amazing story full of great themes and surprises that kept me engaged and interested, but it also has gorgeous images as well. It's not quite a graphic novel or a short story but is probably something in between. That in and of itself made for a unique and interesting read.

I would definitely recommend this book. If you are like me and putting off reading it for some reason or just haven't yet, you must change that immediately. This book is everything everyone says it is.

Honorable Mentions:

6.) Elantris by Brandon Sanderson - My Review
What favorites list is complete without a Sanderson book? (My audiobooks list, apparently). I had plans to read more Cosmere books this year but I didn't end up doing that for some reason.
But anyway, I did really enjoy Elantris. It is not my favorite of his books but it was really fantastic.

7.) You by Caroline Kepnes - My Review
I could have included this above, and honestly I initially did. But I moved it to honorable mentions because I explained much of my affection for it last week in my audiobook wrap up. Just know, it's amazing.

8.) The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger - My Review
I had such a hard time deciding if this should be on the main list or not. I ended up putting it down here just because I'm not finished with the series and also because I didn't love all the books. I mean I did but also I didn't.

There you have it, all my favorite backlist books of the year. I loved so many of them that at least a few will end up on my favorites of the year list. Not to mention that this was a great year for reading books I had wanted to read for a long time and somehow did not. I marathoned some full series, and I read some books that have been in my TBR for a decade. If you want to see the full list on all the audiobooks I listened to this year and to find my thoughts, check out the Rock My TBR Challenge page HERE. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!

Series Review: The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce

Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce (Published 1983 by Atheneum) (Amazon / Goodreads) In the Hand of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce (Published 1984 by Atheneum) (Amazon / Goodreads) The Woman Who Rides Like a Man by Tamora Pierce (Published 1986 by Atheneum) (Amazon / Goodreads) Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce (Published: September 1988 by Atheneum) (Amazon / Goodreads)  Series Synopsis: Noblewoman Alanna of Trebond, disguised as the boy "Alan," exchanges places with her twin brother Thom, to go to the royal palace in the city of Corus to train for knighthood, while Thom studies magic. Throughout the four novels Alanna befriends George, the king of the thieves; the scholar Sir Myles of Olau; senior students Gareth (Gary) of Naxen, Raoul of Goldenlake, and Prince Jonathan of Conté; Princess Thayet of Sarain; Liam Ironarm, a martial-arts champion; and Buriram (Buri) Tourakom, Thayet's bodyguard. Her principal rivals are classmate Ralon of Malven, and Jonathan's kinsman Duke Roger, who becomes the chief antagonist in the final book.  By reason of her double identity, small size, inherent magic, and impatience, Alanna is often shown questioning her own character; but resolves these questions in the third book, in which she becomes an honorary member of the 'Bazhir' (a Bedouin-like ethnicity), through gaining unique acceptance because of her gender. In the final volume, she becomes King's Champion to Jonathan and Baroness of the coastal estate Pirate's Swoop.

This is such a beloved series by fans of YA fantasy. I can't believe I never read it as a kid but with the popularity of it around the blogosphere I knew I needed to take the time to read it, So when my OTSP Secret Sister in the last round bought me copies of the series it was the perfect opportunity to read it during my high fantasy month as my Rock My TBR Challenge.

I had high expectations for this series because it is so popular. And while I wasn't completely blown away by it in the way I had hoped, I really enjoyed it. On the whole I think The Song of the Lioness Quartet is a classic sword and sorcery high fantasy series. It's not a super high stakes adventure but it has a great combination of magic and action.Throughout the series, it slowly brings in more and more magic and fight scenes as the series goes on to really build to a thrilling conclusion. But along the way there were lots of moments that kept you reading and interested. For one thing, I really liked the magical system and world-building here. It was the perfect kind of show not tell as you learned about the world without being overwhelmed with detail. It was interesting and engaging.

My one main criticism though is with the pacing of the series. Each individual book was really well-paced but it didn't feel like much of a cohesive series until the very end. Even when I had finished the third book it left me wondering how it would all end, what the ultimate conflict was, and who the "big bad" of the series was. All of that wasn't really revealed until the second half of the last book. Now I get wanting to wait to reveal everything until you're ready but it left me wondering too much. I couldn't tell if this was just a book about Alanna's adventures or if there was an ultimate conclusion. And because of that, the stakes didn't feel as high as they could of and often are in these kinds of novels. It didn't feel like one of those epic end of the world kind of stories like I was hoping.

The first book in the series, Alanna The First Adventure, was probably my least favorite in the series. If you read this blog regularly then you know I always have a rough time with first books. They often contain too much exposition for me and this book was no exception. There was some great moments of action and some fantastic scenes with the magic, but on the whole those were few and far between. But the first book did do a great job with characterization. I loved Alanna and was invested in her story to continue which is one of the main reasons I kept reading.

The second book in the series, In the Hand of the Goddess, by contrast may have been my favorite. It took everything I loved with the first book and gave me more of that. It had more magic, more mystery, and much more action. It even kind of resolved some of the conflicts from the first book which was really interesting. But this was about the time where I started to question what the big picture stuff was because of that resolution. But the great characters and characterization continued, especially with new characters like Faithful.

The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, the third book in the series, felt a lot like your typical third book in a series. Often what I see a lot in trilogies is that with the third book the author will expand the world and show you a different part of the universe. That's exactly what happened here as we were taken to the desert to live with the Bazhir people. It was an interesting turn for the series and I liked exploring it, but it felt a little bit like a diversion before the finale.

Lioness Rampant however redeemed so much of that. The last book in the series was a fantastic conclusion and could be my favorite in the series too. One thing that I loved about is the way that it took everything full circle. It harkened back to some great moments of the the first book especially which was fantastic, plus by the end there you did have the high stakes adventure that I was missing in some of the other series.

On the whole, The Song of the Lioness quartet was a fantastic young adult fantasy. It has great characters that you will fall for quickly and a great combination of magic and adventure. As a cohesive story the pacing is a little problematic but each individual book is engaging and interesting. It was a good read.

I give The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce 9 out of 10 stars

Buy/Borrow/Bypass: Buy/Borrow. If you have not yet read this series then check it out. I would absolutely recommend it to fans of the genre. If you haven't read it as a kid then take the opportunity to read it now. It's reminiscent about a lot of our favorite modern fantasies and you will love Alanna a tough but feminine female hero.