Top 10 Books I Read When I need something light and fun

1. Heist Society: I love this series about a group of teenage con artist who are able to plan and put into actions a number of elaborate heists. I love the characters and their relationships and I also think the book has a nice sense of humor to at times as well.
2. Pants on Fire: This is a lovely book by Meg Cabot who I love her writing style and I think that her books have a great sense of humor. I also remember I loved the characters a lot as well.
3. Cardcaptor Sakura: This is a series I love because of how happy it can make me it's just so sweet and cute and I love everything about this series. I love the artwork, the characters, the relationships and the plot.
4. How to Be Popular: Another great Meg Cabot book that I loved that had a great sense of humor and good characters.
5. Beauty Pop: This may very well be the weirdest series I've ever read but I love the series since it made me laugh quite a bit. This series is about people who take hair styling extremely seriously and that is part of the reason I love it.
6. Hex Hall: I love this series because of the characters and plot, I especially love that magic is a big part of the plot and I love the friendship between Sophie and Jenna so much their parts together has made me laugh at times and warmed my heart at others. I do think there will be darker aspects as the series moves on so it's not an entirely light series by any means.
7. Gallagher Girls: I love this series about girls in spy school and I love that it has a sense of humor to it and that the girls have a strong friendship and are mix of their teenage selves as well as spies. The series gets darker as it moves on but that makes it better in my opinion.
8. Secret Circle: I love this series because it combines witches and teenage bitches which are weirdly two of my favorite things. The series plotline is actually quite dark the more I think about it but the reasons I love this series so much is due to witches, bitches and les yay tastic friendships.
9. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: This is my favorite book series I love it's great characters, relationships, plots, mythology and sense of humor. the series can be a bit dark at times with it having characters deaths and the threat of civilization falling.
10. Fruits Basket: This is my favorite series of all time it's perfect in my opinion and I love everything about it so reading it makes me super happy. The series can be pretty dark at times though.

Top 5 Female Friendship in Fiction

I'm just making this list because it's been a while since I did a list that wasn't a part of some meme.

1. Sakura and Tomoyo(Cardcaptor Sakura): I just really love this friendship because they both clearly love each other, they both have so much faith in each other and while they are different in quite a few ways the two of them just end up admiring each other for those differences. I love how Sakura values Tomoyo's emotional support so much through out the series and that she was able to trust Tomoyo with her secret right a way. I love how Tomoyo has this complete unwavering faith in Sakura and all of her abilities and that she wants more than anything is for Sakura to be happy. I just really love this two and I think they have a beautiful friendship.

2. Faye and Melissa(Secret Circle): I love their friendship because they have this good understanding of each other and they there for each other when they need to be. I really love how Faye can be a bit protective of Melissa such as when she started seeing Nick and Faye thought he wouldn't treat her right so she made sure to confront him about it to make sure he treated her right. I love how Melissa can see that although Faye can come off as a bitch a lot of the time that she does truly care about her but she just isn't always the nicest person. I loved how the two of them would have fun together with their magic as well and I love the chemistry that the two of them share as well.

3. Hikaru, Umi and Fuu(Magic Knight Rayearth): I love how fast these girls bonded and I loved how within a day or two of being transported into to this strange world that they all learned to work together and started to see each other as sister. I loved how all three of them would never turn on or abandon each other to save themselves but that they were all willing to die in order to save the other two. I also loved how they all had different personalities but were still able to come together so quickly and I loved how the whole story was mostly about their friendship with each other.

4. Holly J and Fiona(Degrassi: TNG): This two are a bit different from the rest of the friendships on the list since when they first met they didn't get along at all but that all changed in season 10 when Fiona went to Holly J when she felt she had no one else to go to. I love that these two became friends because before this Fiona didn't have any friends and none of Holly J's friends really appreciated her overachiever personality. I really just loved how their relationship developed and how much the care for each other and see the good in each other and are there for each other whenever they're going through something.
5. Sophie and Jenna(Hex Hall): Even though I've only read the first book of the series so far I have to say that there friendship is my favorite part so far. I love how they are both outcasts with Sophie's dad being the head of the council and Jenna being a vampire although both these things makes it hard for them to make friends with anyone else it doesn't stop them from being friends with each other nor does the fact that Sophie could have had the chance to have more friends if she wasn't friends with Jenna. I love how when people started to accuse Jenna of killing people that Sophie trusted that Jenna would never do something like that no matter what anyone else said. I also love how the two are able to tease each other and do normal teenage girl things such as have fun getting ready for the dance despite their supernatural status.

End of Year Book Survey 2012

                                                               Best in Books
1. Best Book You Read In 2012?
Fantasy: Game of Thrones
Contemporary: Perfect
2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?
 Anna and the French Kiss, I was really looking forward to reading Anna and the French Kiss because I heard it's was this great sweet romance with wonderfully developed characters, a relate able main character and an extremely charming love interest. But once I actually read the book I felt like it was okay but not really anything special and I hated that St. Clair had a girlfriend the almost the whole book even though it was clear that he was in love with Anna and he basically went on dates with her all year and that he only broke up with his other girlfriend once his friends caught him with his tongue halfway down Anna's throat and I felt like the writing of St.Clair was trying to make him too perfect with the being French but having a British accent, I really didn't like St.Clair so that kind of ruined the book for me.
3.Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2012? The Lost Gate, I just kind of picked this book up one day in the book store and I was happy to discover that it was a great story of someone coming of age and also having the whole mage thing and all it's mythology.
4. Book you recommended to people most in 2012? Probably, Fruits Basket because Fruits Basket is my favorite series of all time it's a great story with great character development for all of it's characters and it also does a great job at writing relationships of both friendship and romance.
5.Best series you discovered in 2012? A Song of Ice and Fire
6. Favorite new authors you discovered in 2012? George R.R. Martin, the write of A Song of Ice and Fire series.
7. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you? The Poisoner's Handbook, this book was non-fiction and had to do with different kinds of poisons and I ended up really enjoying this book which I thought I wouldn't since I was only reading it because it was assigned for a class.
8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2012? The Awakening, the second book in The Darkest Powers series was even more exciting than the first.
9. Book You Read In 2012 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year: Tokyo Babylon volumes 5-7 because I still have to review those volumes therefore I have reread them next year.
10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2012? Hex Hall

 

11. Most memorable character in 2012? I can't really pick just one so I'm going to list my top 3.
1. Daernerys(A Song of Ice and Fire): Daernerys is a great character who had a fantastic character arc in Game of Thrones and she was able to walk through fire without getting burned and brought dragons back from excination all of which is very memorable.
2. Sansa(A Song of Ice and Fire): I just really loved, understood and related to her character through out most of the first book and I really feel bad for at the end of the book but I really admire how she's keeping herself together in A Clash of Kings.
3. Cole St. Clair(Wolves of Mercy Falls): I just love that he's filled with self-hatred and he's such a wreck and really reckless but also very smart and I think he brings a lot to the series.
12.Most beautifully written book read in 2012? I'd say Tricks by Ellen Hopkins she has the most beautiful way of writing and her characters always have such depth.
13. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2012? Game of Thrones, I just got really obsessed with both the book and tv series after reading this book.
14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2012 to finally read? Thirteen Reasons Why, I've been wanting to read this book for like five years and I finally read it this year and I loved it.
15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2012?
Sansa stared hard at his ugly face, remembering how he had thrown down her father for Ser Ilyn to behead, wishing she could hurt him , wishing that some hero would throw him down and cut off his head. But a voice inside her whispered,  There are no heroes,and she remembered what Lord Petyr had said to her, here in this very hall. "Life is not a song, sweetling," he'd told her. "You may learn that one day to your sorrow."  In life,the monsters win, she told herself, and now the Hound's voice she heard, a cold rasp, metal on stone. "Save yourself some pain, girl and give him what he wants."-Game of Thrones
16. Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2012?
Shortest: Don't Judge a Girl by her Cover: 263
Longest: Game of Thrones: 673
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. etc.)
The end of Game of Thrones and volume 7 of Tokyo Babylon were both things that made me cry and want to talk to someone about what had happened.
18. Favorite Relationship From A Book You Read In 2012 (be it romantic, friendship, etc).
Sophie and Jenna's friendship from Hex Hall, I just really loved their friendship and I found myself enjoying the parts with the two of them the most.
19. Favorite Book You Read in 2012 From An Author You Read Previously:Perfect by Ellen Hopkins.

Book Review: Hex Hall

                                                            Hex Hall Review

Hex Hall is about a young witch named Sophie Mercer who after a love spell goes wrong is sent to a boarding school for Prodigium also known as supernatural beings. Sophie has a hard time adjusting to life at Hecate, her boarding school due to not really knowing anything about being a witch, finding out her dad his head of the council, making enemies with a trio of popular witches and befriending the only vampire at Hecate. Sophie also has developed a crush on Archer Cross who already has a girlfriend and his girlfriend Elodie is one of the witches that Sophie has became enemies with very early on in the book.

There's also been attacks on members of Elodie's coven of witches which have left the victims drained of their blood with the victims waking up without any memories of the attack or not waking up at all. Most of the school blames Jenna the only vampire at the school but Sophie doesn't believe this is true because she and Jenna have become close friends and therefore Sophie begins to suspect that a demon or a group of Prodigium hunters named L' Occhio di Dio are behind the attacks.

I really loved the friendship that developed over the course of the novel between Sophie and Jenna because it felt real to me and I loved how much they cared about each other and often times ended up having fun together and cheering each other up. I also enjoyed the romantic tension that developed through out the story between Sophie and Archer. Another thing I liked was that there were quite a few twist that came into view towards the end of the novel involving both demons and L' Occhio di Dio and I'm really excited to see what those twists means for the future of the series.

I overall loved Hex Hall it had fun and witty writing style, an exciting plot but still felt very much like a teenage story and I really liked a lot of the characters and their relationships with each other as well. Please tell me your thoughts on this book.