2016 Rereading Challenge

After a lot of thought in the past few months, I’ve come to realize my need to reread books I’ve already read and own. I didn’t know how many books I wanted to read. Should I reread 2 books a month? One book a month?

Whilst scrolling and thinking about my little dilemma, I came a cross Mary’s (@books-and-cookies​, on tumblr) 2016 Re-reading challenge where you would read at least 1 book a month that you’ve already read; hence the “Re-read” part. And that’s actually a perfect amount for me. The books below aren’t in any order that I’m going to read them. I just organized the books by size, biggest being on the bottom.

Here are the books in the picture from the top:

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

‘Mara Dyer believes life can’t get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.
It can. 

She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed. 
There is.

She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love. 
She’s wrong.’

I didn’t think I would like this book as much as I did. I’m pretty sure that I got this book on a whim, and that I was hooked on this book by the first…chapter?? I can’t remember. All I know is that I loved this book the first time around, and that I’m really looking forward to reading this book again. This book is also part of a trilogy!! –Trigger warning! There’s an attempted Rape Scene in the beginnings of the book. 

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The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong

‘My name is Chloe Saunders and my life will never be the same again.

All I wanted was to make friends, meet boys, and keep on being ordinary. I don’t even know what that means anymore. It all started on the day that I saw my first ghost – and the ghost saw me.

Now there are ghosts everywhere and they won’t leave me alone. To top it all off, I somehow got myself locked up in Lyle House, a “special home” for troubled teens. Yet the home isn’t what it seems. Don’t tell anyone, but I think there might be more to my housemates than meets the eye. The question is, whose side are they on? It’s up to me to figure out the dangerous secrets behind Lyle House… before its skeletons come back to haunt me.‘

I think that this book has a slow start, but other than that it’s been years since I’ve read this book which I absolutely love! So this rereading challenge is a perfect chance to revisit one of my favourite worlds!!

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Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

‘Budding designer Lola Nolan doesn’t believe in fashion… she believes in costume. The more expressive the outfit – the more sparkly, more wild – the better. And life is pretty close to perfect for Lola, especially with her hot rocker boyfriend.

That is, until the Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket return to the neighbourhood and unearth a past of hurt that Lola thought was long buried. So when talented inventor Cricket steps out from his twin sister’s shadow and back into Lola’s life, she must finally face up to a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door. Could the boy from Lola’s past be the love of her future?‘

What I love about this book is well, the ending and the middle and that even though it’s a second book, its not at all connected to the first book, Anna and the French Kiss. Lola and the Boy Next Door is a companion novel!!! I’m so so happy to reread this!

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Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

‘When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she knows it isn’t love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her.

Never ask about the past.
Don’t expect a future.

They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.

Hearts get infiltrated.
Promises get broken.
Rules get shattered.
Love gets ugly.‘

I first read this book from the library, then won a copy. I’ve read this book like, 4 or 5 times. No joke. I just love this book so much, I think I’ve started my own tradition where I read this book at least once a year. And then look at it longingly for the rest of the year, haha.

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I Was Here by Gayle Forman

‘Cody and Meg were inseparable.
Two peas in a pod.
Until . . . they weren’t anymore.
 
When her best friend Meg drinks a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated. She and Meg shared everything—so how was there no warning? But when Cody travels to Meg’s college town to pack up the belongings left behind, she discovers that there’s a lot that Meg never told her. About her old roommates, the sort of people Cody never would have met in her dead-end small town in Washington. About Ben McAllister, the boy with a guitar and a sneer, who broke Meg’s heart. And about an encrypted computer file that Cody can’t open—until she does, and suddenly everything Cody thought she knew about her best friend’s death gets thrown into question.‘

I didn’t know what to expect when I read this book because this is really unlike any book that Forman had wrote. Nonetheless, though, I kept my mind open and ended up loving this book a lot.

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Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

‘Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan…

But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words… And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?

Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?‘

I love love love this book! This book surprised me actually, with the emotional depth that is in the story. I loved all the characters, even if some did annoy me.. I can’t wait to jump back in!

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The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

‘The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. But if at first the choices seemed random, soon the pattern became clear. One was always beautiful and good, the child every parent wanted as their own. The other was homely and odd, an outcast from birth. An opposing pair, plucked from youth and spirited away.

This year, best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to discover where all the lost children go: the fabled School for Good & Evil, where ordinary boys and girls are trained to be fairy tale heroes and villains. As the most beautiful girl in Gavaldon, Sophie has dreamed of being kidnapped into an enchanted world her whole life. With her pink dresses, glass slippers, and devotion to good deeds, she knows she’ll earn top marks at the School for Good and graduate a storybook princess. Meanwhile Agatha, with her shapeless black frocks, wicked pet cat, and dislike of nearly everyone, seems a natural fit for the School for Evil.

But when the two girls are swept into the Endless Woods, they find their fortunes reversed—Sophie’s dumped in the School for Evil to take Uglification, Death Curses, and Henchmen Training, while Agatha finds herself in the School For Good, thrust amongst handsome princes and fair maidens for classes in Princess Etiquette and Animal Communication.. But what if the mistake is actually the first clue to discovering who Sophie and Agatha really are…?‘

I read this book last year around christmastime because I’d gotten my Kobo and a gift card as presents! The School for Good and Evil was one of the books I actually read on my Kobo. Thinking back to that day, I realize that I actually read it on Christmas day! I now have it in physical form and am looking forward to rereading this book.

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Zodiac by Romina Russell

‘At the dawn of time, there were 13 Houses in the Zodiac Galaxy. Now only 12 remain….

Rhoma Grace is a 16-year-old student from House Cancer with an unusual way of reading the stars. While her classmates use measurements to make accurate astrological predictions, Rho can’t solve for ‘x’ to save her life—so instead, she looks up at the night sky and makes up stories.

When a violent blast strikes the moons of Cancer, sending its ocean planet off-kilter and killing thousands of citizens—including its beloved Guardian—Rho is more surprised than anyone when she is named the House’s new leader. But, a true Cancerian who loves her home fiercely and will protect her people no matter what, Rho accepts.

Then, when more Houses fall victim to freak weather catastrophes, Rho starts seeing a pattern in the stars. She suspects Ophiuchus—the exiled 13th Guardian of Zodiac legend—has returned to exact his revenge across the Galaxy. Now Rho—along with Hysan Dax, a young envoy from House Libra, and Mathias, her guide and a member of her Royal Guard—must travel through the Zodiac to warn the other Guardians.

But who will believe anything this young novice says? Whom can Rho trust in a universe defined by differences? And how can she convince twelve worlds to unite as one Zodiac?‘

I absolutely loved this book the first time I read it. Managing to finish it within like, 3 hours, was actually awesome but I’ve totally forgotten everything, hahaha. The most I remember about this book is that betrayal and that when I was eating dinner and reading (dangerous, kids!!) I kept on gasping and saying “oh my god” repeatedly. And squealing. There was lots of squealing. I’m really looking forward to rereading Zodiac so then I can move onto Wandering Star; the second book!

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Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

‘This is a world divided by blood – red or silver.

The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.

That is, until she finds herself working in the Silver Palace. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.

Fearful of Mare’s potential, the Silvers hide her in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess, now engaged to a Silver prince. Despite knowing that one misstep would mean her death, Mare works silently to help the Red Guard, a militant resistance group, and bring down the Silver regime.

But this is a world of betrayal and lies, and Mare has entered a dangerous dance – Reds against Silvers, prince against prince, and Mare against her own heart …‘

I was actually so excited that when the preview for this book came out, I read it, and over hyped the book for myself. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this book. Aside from the slightly predictability-ness that happened quite a few times, this was actually a great new world to fall into.

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Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

‘Julia and Valentina Poole are semi-normal American twenty-year-olds with seemingly little interest in college or finding jobs. Their attachment to one another is intense. One morning the mailman delivers a thick envelope to their house in the suburbs of Chicago. From a London solicitor, the enclosed letter informs Valentina and Julia that their English aunt Elspeth Noblin, whom they never knew, has died of cancer and left them her London apartment. There are two conditions to this inheritance: that they live in it for a year before they sell it and that their parents not enter it. Julia and Valentina are twins. So were the estranged Elspeth and Edie, their mother.

The girls move to Elspeth’s flat, which borders the vast and ornate Highgate Cemetery, where Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Radclyffe Hall, Stella Gibbons and Karl Marx are buried. Julia and Valentina come to know the living residents of their building. There is Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword-puzzle setter suffering from crippling obsessive compulsive disorder; Marijke, Martin’s devoted but trapped wife; and Robert, Elspeth’s elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunt’s neighbors, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including – perhaps – their aunt.‘

I first found this book a few years back and read it every year when my family went on holiday. A few years back though, I didn’t bring it with us, and that was the last time I even touched the book. Now it is high time for a reread, and I’m really looking forward to it!

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Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

‘Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious “errands”, she speaks many languages – not all of them human – and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?‘

I first got this book out of the library (yay, libraries!!!!) read it in 5 hours, was screeching and laughing; crazy reader, really. And then when the box set of the trilogy came out, I snatched them all up so quickly!! I’m rereading Daughter of Smoke and Bone because I haven’t yet read Dreams of Gods and Monsters. I read the first half of the book and then just fell out of reading it. So now I’m hoping that by rereading Daughter of Smoke and Bone, it’ll cause me to want to read the last book in the trilogy.

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A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

‘When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.

As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it… or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.‘

I was actually so excited for this book that I pre-ordered it. When I realized that I wasn’t going to have the copy asap, I stayed up until midnight and bought this. Then proceeded to read this story until 8 am and finished it.

I’m actually pretty excited to take my time with this book!

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So these are the 12 books that I am going to try to reread in 2016. Are you going to reread any books in 2016?? If you are, what are they? Are you excited to reread them?

Thanks for reading!

Until next time,
Adele