Thursday Thoughts – Best Books of 2016?

Barnes and Nobles’ Teen Blog recently released their list of Top 25 Teen/YA books of 2016. Of course, I was super excited to see what books made it on this list and compare it to the list of books that I read…only until I realized that I saw I had ran a grand total of 3 of the books that had on the list.

3.

3 out of 25. That’s 12%. If this was a test, I technically failed – epically.

So I started asking myself, why is it that I only managed to read 3 out of what these certified experts were telling me that all of these other books were clearly the best? Did my book tastes fail? Was I not branching out enough in the book worlds? Was I a true book hipster that avoids books that have major hype?

Well, a definite yes to the last one. I can be the worst kind of superhero sometimes: Captain Not So Popular Opinion, and I get super scared to read books that everyone loves. It happened to me for Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and Divergent by Veronica Roth to name a few. I have had some great experiences, but I always seem to think about the bad ones whenever I see a book getting a lot of hype.

So, what books did I actually manage to read off this list?

• The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi. This book actually lived up to its hype, and it actually even might have surpassed it. I could tell why it was so high up on this list – it was lyrical, beautiful, and a stunning story. It even had a bit of humor, which I loved, and so beautifully original. It definitely deserved to be on this list, and I’m so glad that my book hipster never showed on this book.

• Where Futures End by Parker Peevyhouse. I’m not sure I can really count that I read this, since it was a DNF. I really tried to get into this book, but it was way more complicated than I originally thought. It seemed like a big girl book – like a really big girl book since I didn’t understand anything that was going on…and I think I only made 20 pages. Yeah, definitely not a fave.

Credits to Kathy Dawson Books

• Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo. Yes, totally worth all the awards. This series was amazing, and the finale was everything that I hoped it would be. Bardugo definitely is one of the best writers in YA history, and I will forever recommend this book to just about everyone. It took me forever to be convinced to read the hype, and when I did, I totally realized I should perhaps never doubt it again.

So, my vow for 2017 is perhaps to expand my book tastes, and maybe, just maybe take a chance on books that super hyped up and “critically” acclaimed. I do think that perhaps I might be missing out on some things, but usually for me, one bad review scares me off on these books. However, I’m also going to perhaps not doubt my book tastes as well…because just because I don’t like the critically acclaimed stuff doesn’t mean that I have bad tastes. We’re all unique, right?

Side note: I was trying to create a book moral, but I don’t think it worked too well. XD

So what do you think? Are you slightly book hipster or do you tend to go for the hyped up books? How many books did you read on the list? Did you enjoy them? Should I totally read some of them because they were amazing and I totally missed out? Please let me know, and let me know your thoughts on book tastes and the other subjects I discussed in this post! 🙂