Challenge Wrap Up: Debut Author Challenge

In the month of December I've been doing weekly posts and challenge wrap ups. In addition to doing a favorite books of the year thing, I want 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 and I think they each deserve some individual attention. This week I am doing debuts and the Debut Author Challenge.

The actual challenge is to read 15 debuts a year but I always go crazy and read way more. My goal for the year was to read 25 debuts and I beat that. I read a total of 31 debuts for the Debut Author Challenge hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Yes, that's right, I read twice as many debuts as the challenge, because I couldn't help myself. And as I have read 155 books so far for the year which means 20% of the books I read in 2016 were debuts. That's a lot of debuts.

And while I found some really fantastic ones, I wasn't totally in love. Usually at least one debut is in my top ten books of the year and I don't think that is the case this year. And don't get me wrong, there were some really fantastic ones, and there is a book that was one of my favorites but it's not in the top tier I guess. But seriously, a handful of them were big disappointments. Although we're not here to talk about those books. We're here to talk about the good ones. Here is the list of some of my favorites. In no particular order...

1.) The Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock - My Review
(Amazon / Goodreads )

This book was on my list of favorite books of the year for most of the first half of 2016 but unfortunately some fall releases kicked it off. Sorry, book. But honestly, it was really good. It's a very close call whether this was my favorite debut of the year or not.

This is one of those books where the lives of seemingly unrelated people all connect in an interesting and compelling way. It feels very much like a contemporary even though it is technically historical fiction. But honestly, I loved that. But I also liked the historical fiction elements. It's set in Alaska during the 1970's making it one of the most unique historical novels I've read in awhile. Plus I really connected with the characters who were looking to get out of their small towns and make something of themselves.

All in all this was a really fantastic and emotional story. I totally loved it and would recommend it to basically everyone. It flew a bit under the radar I think and I wish more people would read it, it's really good.

2.) The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie - My Review
(Amazon / Goodreads)

This is one of those books that was not what I expected but it ended up being way better than my wildest dreams. I'm not sure I knew what I was getting myself into with this book but I thought it was going to be more hard sci-fi with space travel and it was more science fantasy/dystopia/I don't know what to call it.

The only thing I really want to call it is amazing. It had a little bit of everything. For one thing it had pirates, which was honestly super hot this year which I am not complaining about. That would have been enough but it also had sea monsters, trained sea monsters, who attack pirates. Then there is the fact that it has diverse characters and a great f/f romance. see how it had a little bit of everything? Not to mention that the plot was amazingly thrilling that I flew through and loved every second of. It was a really fantastic and engaging story.

This is another debut that I think flew under the radar for a lot of people. It's a really fantastic read that has a little something for everyone. And if you are looking for SF/F with diverse characters then you should definitely pick this one up. But even if you aren't looking for that, read it.

3.) The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You by Lily Anderson - My Review
(Amazon / Goodreads)

As soon as I learned about this book I knew I needed to read it. I mean come on, it's a Much Ado About Nothing retelling (shout out to one of the many Shakespeare retellings which I loved this year) with nerdy teen protagonists. That's super up my alley.

And it was honestly so good. Of course when we are talking about Much Ado it's all about the humor and the awkward interations between the characters. This had some really amazing ones. The perfect love to hate romance, great friendships, and just generally great characters. I'm not a huge contemporary reader but I love ones like this. Ones with humor and heart. Plus on top of that there was a fun mystery here and you all know I love a good mystery.

 I would totally recommend this book. If you are a contemporary reader or not, this is a book I think you will enjoy. It's a fast and fun read that you should check out as a palette cleanser or if you are looking for something fluffy. Or if you know, you like nice things.

4.) Kingdom of Ash and Briar by Hannah West - My Review
(Amazon / Goodreads)

I didn't even know about this book until BEA. On the first day I was walking around with one of my friends (shout out to Rachael) and she stopped by the publisher to pick this book up and I was intrigued so I too asked for a copy. I'm so glad I did.

This was probably one of the most creative fantasies I read this year. It reads a little bit like a retelling with elements from some of your favorite fairy tales (yes, Sleeping Beauty like the title alludes) but it also had a very amazing fantasy world. It's one of those books that feels familiar and creative at the same time and those are some of my favorite kinds of fantasies. It's not a perfect read but it was a really great YA fantasy standalone and one of my favorite debuts of this year,

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 it's one of those books that is reminiscent of the classic fairy tales and fantasies that we loved as kids but still feels new and different.

5.) Enter Title Here by Rahul Kanakia - My Review
(Amazon / Goodreads )

This book makes my list of favorite debuts because I was honestly surprised by how much I liked it. It's not the kind of book that I would usually gravitate towards but I think that was one of the reasons why I ended up liking it so much.

I'm not a big contemporary reader and one of the things that I liked about this book is that while it is definitely a coming-of-age story it is a book that plays with the tropes of contemporary YA and it does that in such a creative way. There's sort of this book within a book thing where the main character is trying to live the ideal bookish life so she can write the ideal book. That in and of itself was fascinating. But on top of that, the main character of Reshma was kind of terrible. And I mean this in the best possible way. Like this is a book about an unlikable character and I love that.

This is a book that I think will appeal to fans of contemporaries or those who don't necessarily like them. The way that it plays with the tropes will appeal to a broad audience and makes for an interesting read for sure. If you're like me and like unlikable characters then definitely check this out.

6.) Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco - My Review
(Amazon / Goodreads)

Last but certainly not least, is my favorite debut of 2016 and the one that will be making my favorites of the year list. This is another book that was one of mymost anticipated debuts of 2016 and didn't disappoint. Nope, this book was everything I was hoping it would be and more.

I was super excited when I heard that there was going to be a YA historical mystery centered around Jack the Ripper so obviously I picked up a copy of the book at BEA and met the author who is a delight, by the way. And it was seriously amazing. For one thing it had an amazing historical fiction setting. I love books set in Victorian England because of the built in drama that comes with that setting. But one that had mystery and CSI elements made it even better. And while the mystery was easy to solve, it didn't feel predictable and there was actually a really interesting twist at the end that had me all the more interested and engaged.

Basically this book is total Cassi bait and I loved it. I couldn't stop reading it and I really can't wait for the next book in the series. It was so amazing and without a doubt my favorite debut of 2016.

Honorable Mentions:

7.) The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye - My Review
I was going to include this in my top 6 but I already talked about it in my favorite audiobooks of the year and I honestly think that the main reason I loved this is because it's the perfect book in the audio format and it's narrated by Steve West who is utter perfection.

8.) Ivory and Bone by Julie Eshbaugh - My Review
This was one I really did consider putting in my top six as well. It was really really good. I loved how creative it was with the genderbent Pride and Prejudice, the prehistoric setting, and the semi-first person perspective.

9.) Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton - My Review
This is a case where I loved a book in the moment, or should I say immediately after finishing it, but over time I lost a little bit of my love. Although honestly it was a really great YA fantasy and I am super excited for the sequel/

There you have it, all my favorite debuts of the year. I loved a lot of them and despite being disappointed by many I did read some really great debuts this year. But the biggest victory for this is that I read a total of 31 debuts. I doubled the challenge which is not too shabby. For a full list of all 31 books check out my Debut Author Challenge tab.

What debuts did you read this year? What were your favorites? Leave me a comment with your thoughts. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!

ARC Review: The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You by Lily Anderson

Title: The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You Written by: Lily Anderson Published: May 17, 2016 by St. Martin's Griffin (Macmillan) (Amazon / Goodreads) Synopsis: Trixie Watson has two very important goals for senior year: to finally save enough to buy the set of Doctor Who figurines at the local comic books store, and to place third in her class and knock Ben West--and his horrendous new mustache that he spent all summer growing--down to number four.  Trixie will do anything to get her name ranked over Ben's, including give up sleep and comic books--well, maybe not comic books--but definitely sleep. After all, the war of Watson v. West is as vicious as the Doctor v. Daleks and Browncoats v. Alliance combined, and it goes all the way back to the infamous monkey bars incident in the first grade. Over a decade later, it's time to declare a champion once and for all.  The war is Trixie's for the winning, until her best friend starts dating Ben's best friend and the two are unceremoniously dumped together and told to play nice. Finding common ground is odious and tooth-pullingly-painful, but Trixie and Ben's cautious truce slowly transforms into a fandom-based tentative friendship. When Trixie's best friend gets expelled for cheating and Trixie cries foul play, however, they have to choose who to believe and which side they're on--and they might not pick the same side.

*** I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This fact has not change my opinion. ***

I did not expect to be able to read this book any time soon but I had a small window in my reading schedule after finishing something earlier than planned so I squeezed this in and am really glad I did. It was seriously fantastic.

In one respect this is a really fun modern rebelling of Much Ado About Nothing. I'm realizing more and more that I love these Shakespeare retelling and this was no exception. It was an interesting and modern spin on the classic, one of my favorites. I like the comedies so much more than the dramas. But even if you don't know the original story you will appreciate this book. The author does a great job of taking the basics of the original story and not only bringing it into the current period, but putting her own spin on it. It's not a shot for shot retelling but it's pretty close in the best possible way.

The real heart of this book, and let's face it Much Ado About Anything, is in the relationships. If you're familiar with that play then you know the infamous Beatrice and Benedick relationship. Here we have Ben and Trixie. Like their classic counterparts this is a fantastic hate to love romance, a trope that is one of my all-time favorites and I will almost always get behind. Because oh the banter, you guys! When they were competing and fighting I absolutely loved the snarky digs and verbal jabs between them. But then when the love part clicked in, it was so freaking fluffy and adorable I could barely handle it in the best possible way.

But in general I really loved these characters. Part of the modern spin is that the book takes place in a school for geniuses, which worked so well with the quick-witted characters of the original. But they were also fantastic nerdy type characters talking and arguing about pop culture and geeky references that had me seriously fangirling. Trixie and Ben were fun but they also had a great group of friends around them. I loved that Trixie's friends Harper and Meg called her out for being too mean. And while Ben's friends did kind of blend together in my mind, it was great to see a solid group of nerds with shared and varying interests supporting one another. And another great thing about this books was the parents. Not only were they involved but they added something positive to the plot. It's sad that that is refreshing. But I honestly like Trixie's parents, they were fun in a realistic kind of way.

Plus on top of all of that, there was a fun mystery to the book. I wasn't able to predict who the culprit was hear and so I really love this book for keeping me guessing and the subtle clues that it unraveled. But the mystery is also my main criticism. The synopsis kind of gives away a bit too much (you may have noticed that I hid a portion of it, that's intentional) and the actual mystery elements didn't kick in until two-thirds of the book. I honestly thought that there would be more to this aspect of the story but I was perfectly fine with the contemporary romance aspect of the story then suddenly the mystery changed the plot completely. It's not that I didn't like the mystery, because I did, it just felt a little too late. I think more of it throughout the book or just rework the synopsis so it doesn't give away so much.

On the whole I absolutely melted for this book. I flew through it, laughing, fangirling, and swooning along the way. It's an amazing modern Shakespeare retelling with great geeky characters that I think everyone will love.

I give The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You by Lily Anderson 9 out of 10 stars

Buy/Borrow/Bypass: Buy. I really loved this book and I would totally recommend it to basically anyone. If you are a big contemporary fan then definitely get your hands on it. If you are a Shakespeare fan grab it for that aspect. But even if you just want something quick and fluffy then check this out.

Blog Tour: The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You by Lily Anderson Excerpt

Hi Everyone,
I'm so excited to be a part of the blog tour for The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You by Lily Anderson. I can't remember when I first learned about this book but I knew I needed to read it. I mean basically it is a modern retelling of the Beatrice and Benedict story from Much Ado About Nothing. But on top of that it has geeky characters which I love in my contemporaries. But enough from me, I'll let the book do the talking.

About the Book:

Title: The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You Written by: Lily Anderson Published: May 17, 2016 by St Martin's Griffin (Macmillan) (Amazon / Goodreads) Synopsis: Trixie Watson has two very important goals for senior year: to finally save enough to buy the set of Doctor Who figurines at the local comic books store, and to place third in her class and knock Ben West—and his horrendous new mustache that he spent all summer growing—down to number four.  Trixie will do anything to get her name ranked over Ben's, including give up sleep and comic books—well, maybe not comic books—but definitely sleep. After all, the war of Watson v. West is as vicious as the Doctor v. Daleks and Browncoats v. Alliance combined, and it goes all the way back to the infamous monkey bars incident in the first grade. Over a decade later, it's time to declare a champion once and for all.  The war is Trixie's for the winning, until her best friend starts dating Ben's best friend and the two are unceremoniously dumped together and told to play nice. Finding common ground is odious and tooth-pullingly-painful, but Trixie and Ben's cautious truce slowly transforms into a fandom-based tentative friendship. When Trixie's best friend gets expelled for cheating and Trixie cries foul play, however, they have to choose who to believe and which side they're on—and they might not pick the same side.

Excerpt:

Chapter One

       Ben West spent summer vacation growing a handlebar mustache.

       Seriously.

       Hovering over his upper lip—possibly glued there—was a bushy monstrosity that shouted, “Look out, senior class, I’m gonna tie some chicks to the train tracks and then go on safari with my good friend Teddy Roosevelt. Bully!”

       I blindly swatted at Harper with my comic book, trying to alert her to the fact that there was a mustachioed moron trying to blend in with the other people entering campus.

       “I know I should have made flash cards for the poems that Cline assigned,” she said, elbowing me back hard, both acknowledging that she wasn’t blind and that she hated when I interrupted her monologues about the summer reading list. “But I found Mrs. Bergman’s sociolinguistics syllabus on the U of O website and I’m sure she’ll use the same one here.”

       The mustache twitched an attempt at freedom, edging away from West's ferrety nose as he tried to shove past a group of nervous looking freshmen. It might have been looking at me and Harper, but its owner was doing everything possible to ignore us, the planter box we were sitting on, and anything else that might have been east of the wrought iron gate.

       “So,” Harper continued, louder than necessary considering we were sitting two inches apart. “I thought I’d get a head start. But now I’m afraid that we were supposed to memorize the poems for Cline. He never responded to my emails.”

       Pushing my comic aside, I braced my hands against the brick ledge. The mustache was daring me to say something. Harper could hear it too, as evidenced by her staring up at the sun and muttering, “Or you could, you know, not do this.”

 “Hey, West,” I called, ignoring the clucks of protest coming from my left. “I’m pretty sure your milk mustache curdled. Do you need a napkin?”

Ben West lurched to a stop, one foot inside of the gate. Even on the first day of school, he hadn’t managed to find a clean uniform. His polo was a series of baggy wrinkles, half tucked into a pair of dingy khakis. He turned his head. If the mustache had been able to give me the finger, it would have. Instead, it stared back at me with its curlicue fists raised on either side of West’s thin mouth.

“Hey, Harper,” he said. He cut his eyes at me and grumbled, “Trixie.”

       I leaned back, offering the slowest of slow claps. “Great job, West. You have correctly named us. I, however, may need to change your mantle. Do you prefer Yosemite Sam or Doc Holliday? I definitely think it should be cowboy related.” 

       “Isn’t it cruel to make the freshmen walk past you?” he asked me, pushing the ratty brown hair out of his eyes. “Or is it some kind of ritual hazing?” 

       “Gotta scare them straight.” I gestured to my blonde associate. “Besides, I’ve got Harper to soften the blow. It’s like good cop, bad cop.”

       “It is nothing like good cop, bad cop. We’re waiting for Meg,” Harper said, flushing under the smattering of freckles across her cheeks as she turned back to the parking lot, undoubtedly trying to escape to the special place in her head where pop quizzes—and student council vice presidents—lived. She removed her headband,  pushing it back in place until she once again looked like Sleeping Beauty in pink glasses and khakis. Whereas I continued to look like I’d slept on my ponytail.

Which I had because it is cruel to start school on a Wednesday.         

       “Is it heavy?” I asked Ben, waving at his mustache. “Like weight training for your face? Or are you just trying to compensate for your narrow shoulders?”

       He gave a half-hearted leer at my polo. “I could ask the same thing of your bra.”

       My arms flew automatically to cover my chest, but I seemed to be able to only conjure the consonants of the curses I wanted to hurl at him. In his usual show of bad form, West took this as some sort of victory. 

       “As you were,” he said, jumping back into the line of uniforms on their way to the main building. He passed too close to Kenneth Pollack, who shoved him hard into the main gate, growling, “Watch it, nerd.”

       “School for geniuses, Kenneth,” Harper called. “We’re all nerds.”

       Kenneth flipped her off absentmindedly as West brushed himself off and darted past Mike Shepherd into the main building.  

       “Brute,” Harper said under her breath.

       I scuffed the planter box with the heels of my mandatory Mary Janes. “I’m off my game. My brain is still on summer vacation. I totally left myself open to that cheap trick.” 

       “I was referring to Kenneth, not Ben,” she frowned. “But, yes, you should have known better. Ben’s been using that bra line since fourth grade.”

As a rule, I refused to admit when Harper was right before eight in the morning. It would just lead to a full day of her gloating. I hopped off of the planter and scooped up my messenger bag, shoving my comic inside.

“Come on. I’m over waiting for Meg. She’s undoubtedly choosing hair care over punctuality. Again.”

Harper slid bonelessly to her feet, sighing with enough force to slump her shoulders as she followed me through the front gate and up the stairs. The sunlight refracted against her pale hair every time her neck swiveled to look behind us. Without my massive aviator sunglasses, I was sure I would have been blinded by the glare.

“What’s with you?” I asked, kicking a stray pebble out of the way.

“What? Nothing.” Her head snapped back to attention, knocking her glasses askew. She quickly straightened them with two trembling hands. “Nothing. I was just thinking that maybe senior year might be a good time for you to end your war with Ben. You’d have more time to study and read comics and…”

       Unlike the tardy Meg, Harper was tall enough that I could look at her without craning my neck downward. It made it easier to level her with a droll stare. Sometimes, it’s better to save one’s wit and just let the stupidity of a thought do the talking.

She rolled her eyes and clucked again, breezing past me to open the door.  

       “Or not,” she said, swinging the door open and letting me slip past her. “Year ten of Watson v. West starts now. But if one of you brings up the day he pushed you off the monkey bars, I am taking custody of Meg and we are going to sit with the yearbook staff during lunch.”

       “I accept those terms,” I grinned. “Now help me think of historical figures with mustaches. Hitler and Stalin are entirely too obvious. I need to brainstorm before we get homework.” 

About the Author:

Lily Anderson is an elementary school librarian and Melvil Dewey fangirl with an ever-growing collection of musical theater tattoos and Harry Potter ephemera. She lives in Northern California. THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN ME IS YOU is her debut novel.

AUTHOR LINKS:

Wesbite: http://mslilyanderson.com/about/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mslilyanderson

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ms_lilyanderson

Tumblr: http://mslilyanderson.tumblr.com/

YAY! Thanks to St. Martins for having me on the blog tour and providing me with an excerpt. I hope you enjoyed it and that you are as excited as I am to check this book out when it comes out next week. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!