Blogoversary Bash: Day 5

Today is the fifth day of my Blogoversary Week! I've been blogging for three years now and to celebrate I asked some of my best book blogging buddies if they wanted to celebrate with me. Today the amazing Ellice co-blogger at Paper Riot is sharing her

Top Three Favorite and Dissapointing Books of 2014 (so far)

I was thrilled when Karin invited me to join her blogoversary celebration. Three years is an incredible milestone, and I have enjoyed getting to know her so much over my past year as a co-blogger at Paper Riot. She has been so helpful and great, welcoming me into the book blogging family. We’ve shared many late-night (late for me, anyway!) Twitter conversations because I’m often on European time and can’t sleep. I think it’s a sign from the universe that I need to come visit my European friends, no?

Anyway, since I always look forward to filling out the end of the year survey and sharing my favorite books from the past year, I decided I’d use this opportunity to get a head start on that! So, I thought long and hard about which books were my top 3 absolute favorites so far this year, as well as the three books that have disappointed me the most. Why three? Well, because Life of Karin is turning THREE, of course! :)

So, without further adieu, I present to you my THREE favorite books of 2014 (so far!):

1. The One & Only by Emily Giffin – This book was a total surprise for me. I was expecting to enjoy it, but I had no idea that it would become a new all-time favorite. Football, family, romance, more football, more romance… All of these elements combined to equal the perfect book for me. I highly recommend this book to anyone who comes in the library and asks for my opinion (and sometimes even when they don’t ask for it. Ha!).

2. Breathe, Annie, Breathe by Miranda Kenneally—It’s no secret that I’ve been a huge fan of Miranda’s Hundred Oaks series, but the newest installment is by far my favorite. Annie is dealing with the grief of losing her boyfriend, and she’s training to run a marathon to finish what he had started before he died. While training, she meets Jeremiah, her running coach’s brother, and well, let’s just say he is swoony with a capital S. Don’t walk, RUN (haha, no pun intended), to the bookstore if you haven’t read this book yet!

3. One Plus One by JoJo Moyes – Okay, it’s incredibly difficult to narrow it down to my top three favorites, but I knew that this book HAD to be on the list. I actually drove three hours to Nashville to listen to JoJo talk about this book and then meet her (squee!), and she is so lovely. She told us that she loves road trip books (as do I!), so she wanted to write her own take on a road trip, and One Plus One was born. Her quirky characters are what make it such a wonderful book though. If you haven’t read a JoJo Moyes book yet, I highly recommend starting with this one.  

Unfortunately, there have also been a few disappointing reads this year as well. Here are the top three books that I expected to love but that have fallen flat for me:

1. I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson – To be honest, I had to DNF this one. I read about 65% but had been stuck on it for over a week and just could NOT make myself finish. The story is told in the alternating POV of twins Noah and Jude, and I just couldn’t identify with either one of them. Truthfully, I found myself not really caring what happened to them or even how the book ended. I was super disappointed because this was one of my most anticipated books of the year!

2. #scandal by Sarah Ockler – So this was my very first Sarah Ockler book, and I had heard so many great things about her other books that my expectations were sky high. I think that’s why I ended up being so disappointed in #scandal. It was okay, and I didn’t hate it, but I just didn’t find the story to be memorable or original. I’m hoping for better luck with some of her other titles.

3. We Were Liars by e. lockhart—I think I may be in the minority here, but We Were Liars was just not for me. It’s really difficult to discuss this book without giving away some important parts of the plot. Basically, Lockhart leaves the reader confused for most of the book, and then when I finally realized what was going on, eh, I just didn’t like the ending. At all. This book had some major hype surrounding it, so I was sad that I didn’t end up loving it! Oh well, you just can’t love every book.

Thanks for letting me talk share my list, Karin. This was so much fun! I can’t wait to see how my list grows and changes by the end of the year.

Happy Three Years on the blog, friend. I wish you many more! I’m so honored to be a part of your celebration. :) *throws confetti* 

Thank you Ellice  for sharing your favorite and dissapointing books of 2014 with us today. I was completely blown away by the lenght of your post and I now know that I need to finally read a Jojo Moyes book soon. I totally think you being on European time so much is a sign of the universe for you to at least visit us soon. I am looking forward to it ;) Come back tomorrow for another guestpost by one of my favorite book people.