January Wrap-Up and Best of the Bunch

My Goings On in January:

• In December and January, I marathoned the first two seasons of The 100. I’m loving this show and glad to be caught up to the rest of the world!
• I finished up editing Dare by Allie Juliette Mousseau (an NA book that got rave reviews and even made it to spot #61 on the USA Today Best Sellers list!)
• I finished a first edit for the first book in a new series coming out by author L.A. Starkey and I did a first read of the final book in her YA fantasy Soul Keepers trilogy.

Most Popular Posts:

January 2015 Discussion Challenge Link-up (& Giveaway) (and the Challenge Sign-up page was still really popular too)

Let’s Discuss – The Irresistible Pull of ARCs

Review – Mad World by Kate L. Mary

Review & Giveaway – Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins (This giveaway is still going on, so check it out if you’re interested!)

Let’s Discuss – I Wasn’t Stressed About Blogging Until I Found Out I Was Doing it Wrong

Other Features & Discussions:

2014 End of Year Book Survey

Let’s Discuss – Online Identity: Who are You Online?

Top Ten Books I Meant to Read in 2014

Let’s Discuss – Why Authors Write Insta-Love (No, Really – I Think I Know)

My Favorite January Discussions on Other Blogs:

These posts were much harder to choose this month because there were over 100 discussion posts linked up to our 2015 Discussion Challenge (not to mention all those awesome discussions happening elsewhere around the blogosphere). I’ve never discussed so much in one month!

Renae over at Respiring Thoughts talks about her quest for positivity in her post, 1096 Days, and the Year of Blogging Positively.

Val over at The Innocent Smiley asks, Do You Have Trouble Talking to People About Books?

Lory over at The Emerald City Book Review gives her opinion on What Makes a Great Book Blog Design?

Amber over at Young Adult Indulgences talks about 2015 Trends and Themes in YA.

Shannon over at It Starts at Midnight presents the question, Bookish Sins? You Decide.

Best of the Bunch is a book blog hop hosted over at Always Lost in Stories on the last day of each month, where we can look back over the books we have read over this past month and give a Best of the Bunch award to our favorite book of that month.

January 2015 Reviews

Hmmm … no five star books this month, but there were a few 4.5 star books that were really close. I also read a couple of not so great books this month, so hopefully February will be better! Here’s the reviews that went up in January:

• Mad World by Kate L. Mary | Review | Rating: 4.5/5
• The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black | Review | Rating: 4/5
• When by Victoria Laurie | Review | Rating: 4.5/5
• Jackaby by William Ritter | Review | Rating: 4/5
• Inked by Eric Smith | Review | Rating: 3.5/5

• The Last Orphans by N.W. Harris | Review | Rating: 3.5/5
• Split Second by Kasie West | Review | Rating: 4.5/5
• Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins | Review | Rating: 4/5
• We Are the Goldens by Dana Reinhardt | Review | Rating: 3.5/5
• In His Keeping by Maya Banks | Review | Rating: 4/5

And January’s Best of the Bunch winner is:

I chose Mad World because it was extremely close to being a five star book for me, and I’ve so been enjoying this series as a whole. I was also really excited to see that the review for this book was one of my most popular posts because I love to give a little well-deserved attention to lesser known series that are true gems!

***Warning: Contains spoilers for Broken World and Shattered World. (Click on the links to read my reviews of those books – which I loved!)
Mad World is the third book in the Broken World series, which follows a group of survivors after a super-virus has destroyed the world and the dead have come back to claim it as their own…

Vivian didn’t think things could get any worse than losing Emily, and getting to the shelter should have been their salvation. But once again their hopes were shattered when they discovered things weren’t safe as promised, forcing them to head into Vegas in search of supplies.

Vivian

But now she and Hadley find themselves in a situation more threatening than even the dead walking the Earth. Kidnapped by armed men and taken deep into Vegas, they’re cut-off from anyone who cares about them and thrust into a world so sick and twisted it can only be described as madness. Knowing that Axl has no idea where they are and little hope of finding them, Vivian and Hadley must team up with one of the very men who abducted them if they have any hope of escaping their new nightmare.

Axl

Watching Vivian get thrown into the back of a van almost tears him apart, but he’s determined to find her no matter what it takes. With the growing tension between him and Angus, Axl finds himself wondering if the price will be his relationship with his brother. Putting both old and new wounds aside, Axl and Angus must infiltrate the group holding Vivian and Hadley, and make their escape through a zombie-ridden Vegas.

But the men in charge of Vegas aren’t the type to easily forget, and the group soon discovers that getting the girls out alive very well could mean the end for them all…

 My Review

So, that was my January in a nutshell! Tell me about your month!

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