First To-Read List for 2015

Realistic Fiction (oxymoronic as it sounds):


1. Saint Anything, by Sarah Dessen

I would read ANYTHING by Sarah Dessen. Ever since I first picked up Keeping the Moon when I was 14, I was sold.

Saint Anything didn't come by smoothly for the writer. Sarah struggled with a story that was going nowhere, and was miserable when she wrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it again. It's hard to churn out a novel a year, and after writing more than ten books in the same genre, I guess she got a little burnt out. But I'm so glad she took a break, because Saint Anything looks SO GOOD, slightly different and darker than her usual books.


2. Made You Up, by Francesca Zappia

Ever since E. Lockhart's We Were Liars wrecked me emotionally, I've been looking for more stories told by unreliable narrators. Plus, Made You Up also involves mental illness, another theme I gravitate towards. And the cover art! How pretty!


3. All the Bright Places, by Jennifer Niven

This book is touted as The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park, a "love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die". Even though I found E&P a little over-dramatic at times, I'm holding out on the hope that this won't be as overplayed.


4. The Howling Boy, by Cath Crowley

This book is a mystery. No cover art yet, or confirmed publishing date. But after reading - and rereading, and re-rereading - the magical, bittersweet, poignant, inspiring Graffiti Moon, this book CANNOT come soon enough.



Fantasy:


1. Six of Crows, by Leigh Bardugo

More stories from the Grishaverse (that's Grisha universe, by the way). YES, PLEASE! I'm still savouring the final installment of the Grisha trilogy, Ruin and Rising, so it won't end so soon. So more Grisha tales are definitely welcome.


2. The Darkest Part of the Forest, by Holly Black

Faeries, monster-slaying children, fairy-tale retelling. What's not to love? And knowing Holly Black, it would be dark and sinister and all kinds of delicious.


3. Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard

OMG OMG OMG. I have never been this psyched for a book to be released before -

Okay, well that's not true. But this is definitely one of the books I'm properly excited about. I mean, just read the blurb. COME ON. Does it not want to make you read it already?! I can only hope it won't disappoint, because I am all ready to sink my teeth into this juicy novel.


4. Beastkeeper, by Cat Hellisen

I love how fairytale-ish the premise is, yet how real and current the protagonist's conflict is, with an age-old curse and an absentee mother. "The day she falls in love for the first time, Sarah will transform into a beast ... unless she can figure out a way to break the curse forever." Okay, I'm on board.


What's on YOUR To-Read list for 2015?

By the way, I am HOOKED on Aussie YA, thanks to incredible writers like Cath Crowley, Lucy Christopher, Melina Marchetta, Karen Foxlee, and Vikki Wakefield. There must be something in those Australian waters that lets them churn out such dreamy prose and create such relatable characters. If anyone has any recommendations, please share the good stuff! :0)