Top Ten Tuesday is an original weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish.

This Week’s Theme:
2016 Releases I Didn’t
Get a Chance To Read

Initial Thoughts:

Of course I have a massive list. Of course.

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Tattoo Atlas (Tim Floreen)

You know that saying “I’ve been meaning to read [author name] for a while. Yes, that applies here.

A year ago, Rem Braithwaite watched his classmate Franklin Kettle commit a horrific crime.

Now, apart from the nightmares, life has gone back to normal for Rem. Franklin was caught, convicted, and put away in juvenile detention for what he did. The ordeal seems to be over.

Until Rem’s mother selects Franklin as a test subject for an experimental brain procedure intended to “cure” him of his cruel and violent impulses. Suddenly Rem’s memories of that day start coming back to the surface. His nightmares become worse than ever. Plus he has serious doubts about whether his mother’s procedure will even work. Can evil really just be turned off?

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The Sidekicks (Will Kostakis)

Gotta thank all of my Oz friends for telling me about this title; and particularly to Jenna @ Reading With Jenna who brought me a copy all the way from down under when she visited Canada!

The Swimmer. The Rebel. The Nerd.

All Ryan, Harley and Miles had in common was Isaac. They lived different lives, had different interests and kept different secrets. But they shared the same best friend. They were sidekicks. And now that Isaac’s gone, what does that make them?

Will Kostakis, award-winning author of The First Third, perfectly depicts the pain and pleasure of this teenage world, piecing together three points of view with intricate splendour.

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The Sun is Also A Star (Nicola Yoon)

Probably won’t read Everything, Everything (more-so now that I’ve read Under Rose-Tainted Skies, I’m not for that story line now) but the character dynamics in this story did interest me.

The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?

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Crooked Kingdom (Leigh Bardugo)

I started this book. I did. But then I had other reading shit to do. Then I was spoiled re: death, and haven’t found the urge to pick it back up. Now we are here.

Kaz Brekker and his crew have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn’t think they’d survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they’re right back to fighting for their lives. Double-crossed and left crippled by the kidnapping of a valuable team member, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz’s cunning and test the team’s fragile loyalties. A war will be waged on the city’s dark and twisting streets―a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of magic in the Grisha world.

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A Taste for Monsters (Matthew J. Kirby)

Something about this premise (sans Historical setting) intrigues me very much so…

It’s London 1888, and Jack the Ripper is terrorizing the people of the city. Evelyn, a young woman disfigured by her dangerous work in a matchstick factory, who has nowhere to go, does not know what to make of her new position as a maid to the Elephant Man in the London Hospital. Evelyn wants to be locked away from the world, like he is, shut in from the filth and dangers of the streets. But in Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, she finds a gentle kindred who does not recoil from her and who understands her pain.

When the murders begin, however, Joseph and Evelyn are haunted nightly by the ghosts of the Ripper’s dead, setting Evelyn on a path to facing her fears and uncovering humanity’s worst nightmares.

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The Fireman (Joe Hill)

Doesn’t this just sound so rad??

The fireman is coming. Stay cool.

No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.

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Phantom Limbs (Paula Garner)

My self-implicated contemporary radar was revving up to read this title; fully expecting to be hit with all the feels as I was for an earlier 2016 contemporary in The Serpent King. This book sounds like it has that kind of pull for me — and I really hope I’m not wrong.

Otis and Meg were inseparable until her family abruptly moved away after the terrible accident that left Otis’s little brother dead and both of their families changed forever. Since then, it’s been three years of radio silence, during which time Otis has become the unlikely protégé of eighteen-year-old Dara—part drill sergeant, part friend—who’s hell-bent on transforming Otis into the Olympic swimmer she can no longer be. But when Otis learns that Meg is coming back to town, he must face some difficult truths about the girl he’s never forgotten and the brother he’s never stopped grieving. As it becomes achingly clear that he and Meg are not the same people they were, Otis must decide what to hold on to and what to leave behind. Quietly affecting, this compulsively readable debut novel captures all the confusion, heartbreak, and fragile hope of three teens struggling to accept profound absences in their lives.

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Kids of Appetite (David Arnold)

So everything I said about Phantom Limbs…also applies here.

Victor Benucci and Madeline Falco have a story to tell.

It begins with the death of Vic’s father.
It ends with the murder of Mad’s uncle.
The Hackensack Police Department would very much like to hear it.
But in order to tell their story, Vic and Mad must focus on all the chapters in between.

Three Dark Crowns (Kendare Blake)

Let me just put on the cone of shame…

In every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born—three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions.

But becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins.

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Every Heart a Doorway (Seanan McGuire)

Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssss.

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere… else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced… they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

 

Afterthoughts:

A great prompt to remind us/me of how much of a reading fail 2016 was haaaaah. actually disappointed :(.

Cheers,
Joey

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