My Top 12 Books of 2012 in 12 Words

Do you sense a theme here? I hope so. I'm not normally this obsessed with the number 12.

Now, not all of these books were exactly published in 2012, but I discovered/read/became obsessed with them in 2012. Good enough, yes? Let's begin.

12. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
By Mindy Kaling
Crown Archetype - 2011
After reading this, I want Mindy Kaling to be my new BFF.

11. The entire Stephanie Plum series
By Janet Evanovich
Various publishers, most recently Headline Book Publishing - 2012
Nineteen crime-solving, bounty-hunting books with one intensely hot love triangle.

10. I've Got Your Number
By Sophie Kinsella
The Dial Press - 2012
Girl finds boy's phone. Boy wants phone back. Guess what happens next.

9. The Next Best Thing
By Jennifer Weiner
Atria Books - 2012
TV writer Ruth learns that Hollywood's lights are more glaring than bright.

8. Size 12 and Ready to Rock
By Meg Cabot
William Morrow Paperbacks - 2012
Newly-engaged Heather must catch a killer because this time, it's personal.

7. Imperfect Bliss
By Susan Fales-Hill
Atria Books - 2012
Can reality TV inspire real feelings in a modern-day Elizabeth Bennet?

6. Destined (Wings #4)
By Aprilynne Pike
HarperTeen - 2012
With Avalon under attack, Laurel must embrace her destiny or destroy it.

5. Beautiful Redemption (Beautiful Creatures #4)
By Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers - 2012
Trapped between worlds, Ethan must risk everything to return home to Lena.

4. The Probability of Miracles
By Wendy Wunder
Razorbill - 2011
Cancer-striken Cam moves to Promise, where miracles are more than rumors.

3. The Art of Fielding
By Chad Harbach
Little, Brown and Company - 2011
One catastrophic mistake forever changes the once-inevitable course of several lives.

2. The Way We Fall
By Megan Crewe
Disney-Hyperion - 2012
Love struggles to survive an epidemic that destroys everything worth living for.

1. The Fault in Our Stars
By John Green
Dutton Books - 2012
A story about how deeply you love, not how long you live.

So there you have it, fellow bookaholics. Do you agree with any of my choices? Was there an awesomeamazing book that I missed and should become obsessed with in 2013? Are you as impressed as I am that I managed to summarize all 12 books in just 12 words? Discuss!

Photos courtesy of Goodreads.com

Abandon

Written by Meg Cabot

Goodreads Synopsis: Though she tries returning to the life she knew before the accident, Pierce can't help but feel at once a part of this world, and apart from it. Yet, she's never alone...because someone is always watching her. Escape from the realm of the dead is impossible when someone there wants you back.
But now she's moved to a new town. Maybe at her new school, she can start fresh. Maybe she can stop feeling so afraid. 
Only she can't. Because even here, he finds her. That's how desperately he wants her back. She knows he's no guardian angel, and his dark world isn't exactly heaven, yet she can't stay away...especially since he always appears when she least expects it, but exactly when she needs him most.
But if she let. s herself fall any further, she may just find herself back in the one place she most fears: the Underworld.


My Confession: Once again, if Meg Cabot writes it, I'll pick it up. Especially her YA novels (which I really think are where she shines). I love the concept of this trilogy--modernizing the Greek tale of Persephone and Hades, lord of the Underworld. As the myth goes, Hades fell in love with Persephone, and after tricking her into eating six pomegranate seeds, forced her to live with him in his Underworld kingdom six months out of the year. (This was how the Greeks explained the change in seasons.) I find Greek mythology utterly fascinating, so any take on a tale like this is worth investigating. In Cabot's version, seventeen-year-old Pierce has a NDE (near-death experience) after falling into her backyard pool. While the medics desperately try to restart her heart, she's taken to the underground kingdom of the mysterious John Hayden, who tries to keep her there. However, she escapes, the medics having successfully revived her. Pierce spends the rest of the book both simultaneously avoiding and goading John, not really deciding whether she loves or hates her once-captor.

Pierce's Pomegranate: The thing is, Pierce isn't as strong a character as I would have wanted. She seems utterly wishy-washy when it comes to her relationship with John, and I kept getting the feeling that there was something more there that we weren't being told as readers. By all means, she should fear and loathe the guy; he seems to stalk her, and he once held her captive. But instead, she's drawn to him, and we're not really sure why. At school, she doesn't seem interested in making friends, but quickly falls in step with a group of popular kids who are so transparent and superficial, it's hard to like Pierce for keeping their company. A lot of questions are raised about Pierce's past, which we know is shady, but the answers are drawn out for far too long, and they're not quite as satisfying as you would expect. As a writer, I totally understand the art of keeping the reader hanging on a certain plot point, but there were too many balls in the air at one time, and I just got a little lost. A new villain is introduced at the end, and it seems to come out of left field--how long was this person a villain? There was just a lot going on here, and even though the pace was good and kept me turning each page, occasionally the information withheld ended up dragging the story down.

Recommendation: I'm happy that this is just the first book in a trilogy. Because I think the next book has the potential to be much better. Judging from how this one left off, there will be more action and more peril in the sequel. Not unlike some of Cabot's past series, this first book gets weighed down under a lot of plot and backstory set-up. I didn't feel like a lot actually happened. It feels like a really long prologue to a story that just began during the last chapter. Yes, John's kind of sexy and mysterious. Yes, he and Pierce are probably "made for each other." But I want to see more than some kind of star-crossed romance. I want action, I want danger, I want to see some obstacles. I want Cabot to get right to the meat of this story in her next book.

Rating: 3/5

304 pages, published by Point (April 26, 2011)

Quote of the Day

"Needless to say, the fact that he actually spoke to me at all practically caused me to pass out. And then the fact that he was actually saying something that sounded like it might be a prelude to asking me out--well, I nearly threw up. I mean it. I felt really sick, but in a good way." 

The Princess Diaries

Meeting Meg Cabot

Lauren, me (in the middle), and Hannah with Meg Cabot !

Can you say BEST DAY EVER? I've been a fan of Meg Cabot since I was, like, 10. No joke. I grew up on The Princess Diaries and then proceeded to spend the entirety of my adolescence reading every book she's ever written. I swear, they kept me sane. They also turned me into a writer. I credit Meg with helping me become the writer I am today. Ever since reading her books, I've been inspired to write my own. Her style helped me hone my own. It was truly beyond an honor to meet her. Our conversation went something like this:

Me (fumbling with my book as I struggle to contain my excitement): Hi!
Meg (glancing down at the book I've basically thrown at her): Hello! You must be (looks down at yellow post-it affixed to the cover of said book) Andrea!
Me (choking on my saliva): That's me!
Meg (signing book with a flourish): Thanks so much for coming out!
Me (deciding on word vomit rather than star-struck silence): Oh my gosh it's such an honor to meet you I've been reading your books forever and someday I hope to be a writer too and it's all because of you I hope you get a chance to read what I write someday because I don't know if I mentioned it but I became a writer because I read your books and I just loved them I think you're awesome

[I pause for a breath]

Meg (with a poise that only comes from encountering crazies like me all the time): That's wonderful! Thank you so much! I hope to someday read something you write!
Me (finally stunned into awed silence): Thank you so much!

Yeah, something like that. She really is awesome, though. And I swear, I'm a completely normal person. I was just SO EXCITED. Ask my friends (check out their awesome blogs here and here). I've known those two girls less than 6 weeks, and they tolerate me better than most people I've known my whole life. Totally made friends for life.

And Meg? One of the highlights of my time here in New York. I'm serious about getting published someday, and I'm completely honest about her being the reason I hope to do so. She's a rockstar. And I hope, one day, she really will read something I write.

Overbite

Written by Meg Cabot

Synopsis: Meena Harper has a special gift, but it's only now that anyone's ever appreciated it. The Palatine Guard--a powerful secret demon-hunting unit of the Vatican--has hired her to work at their new branch in Lower Manhattan. With Meena's ability to predict how everyone she meets will die, the Palatine finally has a chance against the undead.
Sure, her ex-boyfriend was Lucien Antonescu, son of Dracula, the prince of darkness. But that was before he (and their relationship) went up in flames. Now Meena's sworn off vampires for good...at least until she can prove her theory that just because they've lost their souls doesn't mean they've lost the ability to love. 
Meena knows convincing her co-workers--including her partner, uber-demon-hunter Alaric Wulf--that vampires can be redeemed won't be easy...especially when a deadly new threat seems to be endangering not just the lives of the Palatine, but Meena's friends and family as well.
But Meena isn't the Palatine's only hope. Father Henrique--aka Padre Caliente--New York's youngest, most charming priest, has also been assigned to the case.
So why doesn't Meena--or Alaric--trust him?
As she begins unraveling the truth, Meena finds her loyalties tested, her true feelings laid bare...and temptations she never even imagined existed impossible to resist.
This time, Meena may have finally bitten off more than she can chew.

My Confession: I'm a huge Meg Cabot fan. Huge. She always manages to balance a light, satirical voice with big problems and crazy-cool action. Overbite isn't too different from that successful formula. A follow-up to Insatiable, I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to like this book. First of all, I'm allergic to vampire novels. Literally--I'm sick of these books. I find them annoying. I'm not-so-patiently waiting for the supernatural craze that has overtaken all of literature to die. I'd gladly put a stake in this phenom myself. One of my friends even proclaimed that Meg had "sold out" when she wrote Insatiable, seemingly jumping on the undead bandwagon. In the beginning, I kind of agreed. Even so, it caused me great pain to not pick up Insatiable and read Meg's take on the vampire world.

I was boycotting for the sake of boycotting. Within a week, I gave in. I read all 450-pages of Overbite's prequel and didn't really love it or hate it. It was just there. The end was better than the beginning, and the intensity of the action and suspense shone brighter than the I-love-you-please-become-a-vampire-like-me PDA moments between Lucien and Meena. I didn't read it again, and after I while, I forgot about it. But then I got a copy of Overbite free through my NYU program. And even though I didn't want to admit it to myself, I probably would have ended up buying this book regardless. NYU merely expedited the process and saved me $22.99.

Twice bitten--and much better: The best part about this book is that you don't need to have read Insatiable to understand what's going on. This book is much shorter (275 pages) and packs a much heavier punch. Tension was palpable throughout, and without the story setup that seemed to bog down Insatiable, the plot moved along at a much more rapid and enjoyable rate. Meena is a pretty likable character who never borders on whiny or cliche. I enjoyed the progression of her character as well as the development of both Alaric and Lucien. For once, the vampire boyfriend isn't Edward Cullen perfect. There are moments when it feels like there are too many characters, and trying to juggle them all and remember who they were and how they related to the story was a bit distracting. But on the plot side, Meg kept many different balls in the air at once, not allowing a single mystery to be solved until the end. The suspense and action was pretty fantastic. It was a page-turner. And the vampire-ness? Not nearly as annoying as the rest. By using legitimate history and real places in Manhattan, Overbite felt grounded in reality. The fantasy element was there, obviously, but somehow managed to not overtake the story.

Recommendation: I do recommend this vampire book! Read that again, because it's the first and last time I'll ever write that. This is a really enjoyable and quick-paced read. I surprised myself with how much I liked it, especially since my feelings about Insatiable were lukewarm at best. If you haven't read the first book, don't. Read Overbite first, and then, if you're left wanting more (which you will be, duh), pick up Insatiable. I'm planning on reading it again myself. I think I might actually enjoy it more now having read Overbite. Weird.

Rating: 4/5

275 pages, published by Harpercollins (July 5, 2011)