End of Year Bookish Survey for 2014/2015

Saw this over on Katharine's blog and...stole it :D Hope she won't mind! ^_~ Just some reading wrap-up stuff for you guys to check out~

End of Year Bookish Survey!

2014 Reading Stats

Number Of Books You Read:
126

Number of Re-Reads:
Hmm... >counts< 7 I believe. Mostly so I could read sequels/continuations, but in some cases just because I was craving a reread of something.

Genre You Read The Most From:
Most likely that same as ventureadlaxre: Speculative Fiction.

Best In Book

1. Best Book You Read In 2014?
Goodness, they give you tough questions early in this! I'm going to go with A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. That book just hit me hard.

2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?
Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski.

3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read in 2014?
Fortune's Pawn by Rachel Bach - in fact, that whole trilogy. I did not expect to fall in love with those characters.

4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did) In 2014?
Virtually anything by Juliet Marillier.

5. Best series you started in 2014? Best Sequel of 2014? Best Series Ender of 2014?
Best series: Blackthorn and Grim series by Juliet Marillier
Best sequel: Not exactly a sequel, but Lullabies by Lang Leav
Best finale: Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor (keeping this the same!)

6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2014?
Ohhhh another hard one...I'm gonna go with Lucy Knisley. I just fell in love with her graphic novels.

7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?
Action Packed: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard (to be released in 2015, read in 2014)
Unnputdownable: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

9. Book You Read In 2014 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year?
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2014?

Prickle Moon by Juliet Marillier (art by Ravenari)

11. Most memorable character of 2014?
Helen from H is for Hawk. Which is... interesting. Just amazingly written.

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2014?
as stars fall by Christie Nieman

13. Most Thought-Provoking/ Life-Changing Book of 2014?
The Sculptor by Scott McCloud (to be released in 2015, read in 2014)

14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2014 to finally read?
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2014?
I don't have any one stand-out passage or quote. Just a general feeling of inspiration.

16.Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2014?
Longest: The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear at 704 pages.
Shortest: The Velveteen Rabbit at 40 pages.

17. Book That Shocked You The Most
The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss, simply by how different and yet fascinating it was.

18. OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!)
I'm not entirely sure, but my first thought was Simon and Meg from Anne Bishop's The Others books. Just because... they make me laugh and feel along with them? And kind of at them...

19. Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship Of The Year
Hmm, the one I was going to write might be a kind-of sort-of spoiler for some, so I will just go with Deviana and Hyrek from the Paradox trilogy by Rachel Bach.

20. Favorite Book You Read in 2014 From An Author You’ve Read Previously
Dreamer's Pool by Juliet Marillier

21. Best Book You Read In 2014 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure:
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. The fact that I won a copy from my friend's blog may have helped...

22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2014?
Rupert from the Paradox trilogy is pretty lovely...

23. Best 2014 debut you read?
The Young World by Chris Weitz was pretty good...

24. Best Worldbuilding/Most Vivid Setting You Read This Year?
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. Can't wait to get my hands on book two.

25. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read?
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley

26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2014?
This Shattered World (Starbound #2) by Amie Kaufman and Megan Spooner

27. Hidden Gem Of The Year?
Toyo by Lily Chan

28. Book That Crushed Your Soul?
The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick

29. Most Unique Book You Read In 2014?
Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov

30. Book That Made You The Most Mad (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?
Daughters of the Storm by Kim Wilkins - just, some of the girls in that... OH MY GOODNESS. GET A CLUE. Enjoyed the book, though.

Blogging/ Bookish life

1. New favourite book blog you discovered in 2014?
I'm going to go with booktuber here, instead, as I don't often read book blogs. I really loved The Gwendolyn Reading Method this year. She's so bright and bubbly, and she reads a LOT, and is unafraid to read paranormal romance and other romance that some might consider 'trashy'. Sure, it's trashy, but it's pretty damn fun anyway!

2. Favourite review that you wrote in 2014?
I like reading, I like writing book reviews. I don't really have a favourite review, though.

3. Best discussion/non-review post you had on your blog?
Uhm, I personally liked my Spoonie Diary posts, and also my new series on KPop Idols :3

4. Best event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, memes, etc.)?
I went to a small book lunch for Juliet Marillier's book Dreamer's Pool and loooved it. She was lovely, and I managed to complete my collection of her books. Plus, time with a dear friend. Win!

5. Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2014?
Basically any time a publisher sent me a book...

7. Most Popular Post This Year On Your Blog (whether it be by comments or views)?
This has remained the same for years: my T2 Melbourne Breakfast Review. Maybe I need to get back into reviewing teas?

8. Post You Wished Got A Little More Love?
I don't get that many comments, so I can't really tell for sure which posts are more loved than others. I am just grateful when people read :)

9. Best bookish discovery (book related sites, book stores, etc.)?
Found a few new booktubers that I like, but otherwise not a huge amount of new stuff. :)

10. Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year?
I finished my goodreads challenge, but that's about it! 

Looking Ahead

1. One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2014 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2015?
Two books - I am trying to complete the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, so I am currently reading The Battle of the Labyrinth (book 4) and want to read The Last Olympian (book 5).

2. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2015 (non-debut)?
There's a few, but I will go with Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman.

3. 2015 Debut You Are Most Anticipating?
I don't really have one O_o

4. Series Ending/A Sequel You Are Most Anticipating in 2015?
Series ending: Winter by Marissa Meyer
Sequel: Hidden Huntress by Danielle L. Jensen

5. One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading/Blogging Life In 2015?
Read more of the books I own, and get that number down a bit! Blog more in general.

6. A 2015 Release You’ve Already Read & Recommend To Everyone:
The Sculptor by Scott McCloud.

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Book Review: Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

I love reading. Books are amazing. They are a form of escapism, yes, but they are also inspiration, joy, and... well. Goodness. I think in some ways I have used my appetite for reading to define parts of my personality, so it made sense for me to review some of what I read! Here we go...

goodreads link

Title: Going Postal
Author: Terry Pratchett
Series: #33 in the Discworld books

Synopsis: "Moist von Lipwig is a con artist...

...and a fraud and a man faced with a life choice: be hanged, or put Ankh-Morpork's ailing postal service back on its feet.
It's a tough decision.

But he's got to see that the mail gets through, come rain, hail, sleet, dogs, the Post Office Workers' Friendly and Benevolent Society, the evil chairman of the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company, and a midnight killer.

Getting a date with Adore Bell Dearheart would be nice, too."

My thoughts: This book is the first on in my challenge for this year, and comes recommended by my brother who is a huge Terry Pratchett fan. (To be honest, I expected him to recommend a Pratchett book :P)

I have read another Discworld book before, and I remember enjoying it, but on the whole feeling a little underwhelmed with all of it after my brother had talked it up so much. With Going Postal, I felt similarly. The writing style is good, and I did find myself laughing every now and then, but ultimately I felt like Pratchett was just a bit too cynical and dry at times for his own good. I know people that would love this book for that very reason, so I believe it's just my own personal brand of humour that makes me feel slightly distant from this kind of writing.
The characters were interesting and the storyline was good, but I also felt like it moved along a little slowly - paragraphs of text were dedicated to making observations about people. For me this didn't work very well.
So I guess, to sum up, I enjoyed it, but it wouldn't go on my top five list :)

You would like this book if: you enjoy cynical, dry humour; you want some awesome postal action.

Rating:  7/10

If you'd like to keep up to date with what I'm reading, follow me on Goodreads here!

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Reading Challenge 2014

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I decided towards the end of 2013 that I'd like to have a reading challenge for myself for 2014. Originally, it was going to be to read a certain book each month - resulting in twelve mini-challenges. But I am thinking about being involved in the Aurealis Awards again this year, and so I wanted to keep most of the latter half of the year free for that.

So what I did instead was ask my family, my boyfriend, and my best friend what they'd recommend for me to read. And then I added in two books of my own - one to read for Japan, and one to read for my birthday. And that resulted in the below list...

January - Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (recommended by my brother)

February - Tales of Unfamiliar Japan by Lafcadio Hearn (for Japan)

March - The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert (for my birthday)

April - The World According to Garp by John Irving (my dad's recommendation)

May - The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (Xin's recommendation)

June - Sabriel by Garth Nix (a re-read that my best friend recommended, and I'm thinking about reading the others, too, if I can!)

July - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (my mum's recommendation, and is good for Christmas in July!)

I will try and write a review or at least a post on my thoughts on the book in question after each month.

As you can probably tell, I will have to fit in my brother's book pretty quickly, but that's okay. I'm very nearly finished with Aurealis stuff and I have a feeling I will be able to get through Going Postal pretty quickly :)

What about you? Do you have any reading challenges for yourself this year?

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