End of the Year Post (2015)

Well, I'm finally back. 2015 is finally over and I’m ready to put that year firmly behind me; however, I guess I need to talk about it somewhat. First, I hope everyone had a great holiday. I enjoyed my mini hiatus from the internet. I did read, but not as much as I thought I would since I was preoccupied with other things, and now I’m ready to get back to blogging.

So, what did I really think of 2015?

Well, 2015 started out on a good note for blogging. I made some changes to how I wrote posts and how many reviews I did per week, which worked out better. I didn’t really set any goals besides trying to read at least one book per week, maybe more if I felt like it. Mostly I kept to the first hundred pages for books—if it didn’t grab me then it just didn’t, factors tend to vary—which helped me get to more novels that I ended up enjoying, rather than spending time on something that just wasn’t for me.

As for the books, well I got a lot of reading done, which I’m pretty happy about. I found a lot of new favorites, read a couple of trilogies, and started some new series that I do want to finish—plus, I’m waiting for several sequels to come out. So in terms of reading, 2015 was an extremely good year, and I hope that trend continues. There were some books I didn’t enjoy, but they were so few and far between that it didn’t throw me off too badly—I did take a couple of breaks when I needed them.

For now, I'm pretty happy with the blog art, but who knows, I might get the urge to update it (but there's no telling if or when that might happen).

So that’s about it. Happy reading!

Up next: 2016 New Year’s Blogging Resolutions

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from Our Thoughts Precisely! We hope everyone has a marvelous day. Blogging will resume shortly. ;-)

Merry Christmas!

The Books of 2015

Since the year is almost over, it’s about time to look back on the year, specifically, the books. This post is going to focus on all of the books I liked and reviewed this year, give or take a few.

It’s always nice to discover a new book that ends up being a favorite. Last year, I more hesitant to step out of my comfort zone, and while I did find new authors, it wasn’t that many. But this year, I’ve tried to do better and give more books a try. On the other hand, it was also nice to keep up with series/trilogies by author’s I was already familiar with.

New favorites…

• A.G. Howard: I enjoyed Howard’s take on Wonderland, and though I had a few issues with Splintered, I really enjoyed it.
• Megan Shephard: I had the Madman’s Daughter on my shelf for a long time, and it was only during 2015 that I finally got around to reading it. The book was fantastic and Shephard’s writing style paired nicely with the story.
• Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff: One word: Illuminae. That book was epic, awesome in so many ways, and I look forward to the next book.
• Mari Mancusi: Scorched is by far one of my favorite books featuring dragons.
• Angelica Banks: Finding Serendipity was a ridiculously cute story and I’m really looking forward to the sequel coming out next year.
• Kim Karalious: Basically the story was cute for the most part and proposed the idea of love going seriously awry with some terrible consequences.
• Ray Bradbury: His style of writing is absolutely fantastic. The Halloween Tree was a really great story.
• Brian Selznick: The Invention of Hugo Cabret was just a really lovely book. The illustrations were also fantastic so obviously I will be reading more novels by Selznick.
• Alexandra Bracken: The Darkest Mind’s trilogy was fantastic and it was kind of nice that I didn’t have to wait for the books to come out (the plus side to waiting so long to start the trilogy).
• Jennifer Latham: I read Scarlett Undercover earlier in the year and I really liked it.
• Ryan Graudin: Graudin’s style of writing is easy to get into, and I look forward to reading more of her novels.
• Sherry Thomas: The Elemental Trilogy is just one of my favorites. I'm glad that I finally got around to reading it.

Review List…

• Splintered
• The Madman's Daughter
• Illuminae
• Scorched
• Finding Serendipity
• The Halloween Tree
• The Invention of Hugo Cabret
• The Darkest Minds, Never Fade, & In the Afterlight
• Scarlett Undercover
• Wolf by Wolf
• The Eye of Minds, The Rule of Thoughts, & The Game of Lives
• The Burning Sky, The Perilous Sea, & The Immortal Height

• Love Fortunes and Other Disasters

Old favorites…

• Victoria Schwab: I read the second book to The Archived series, and I liked it.
• Madeleine L’Engle: For obvious reasons I finished reading A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet this year. I had the omnibus edition with the first three books, and I liked A Wrinkle in Time. So I was curious to see the next part of the characters story.
• Stephanie Thomas: I read the second book of her series, Lucidity, and I liked it better than the first.
• Melissa West: Hover was a good book and I need to eventually read the last novel of the trilogy.
• Amanda Sun: Rise was just a really good short story and If you have read the series then I recommend checking it out.

Review List…

• The Unbound
• Lucidity
• Hover
• Rise
• A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, & A Swiftly Tilting Planet

Other Books I liked Review List... 

• Oleah Chronicles: Truth
• Doctor Who: The Drosten's Curse
• The Body in the Woods
• Doctor Who: Royal Blood
• Howl's Moving Castle
• John Shaw's Guide to Digital Nature Photography
• Headstrong: 52 Women who Changed Science and the World 
• Cookie Love by Mindy Segal with Kate Leahy
• Space Exploration for Dummies by Cynthia Phillips & Shana Priwer
• The Tapper Twins go to War (With Each Other) by Geoff Rodkey
• The Book of Spirits and Thieves by Morgan Rhodes
• Until Midnight by Melissa Landers
• Doctor Who: Silhouette by Justin Richards
• Video Game Storytelling by Evan Skolnick
• The Keep by Veronica Wolff 

Quick Announcement...

Because Christmas is just days away, I've decided to take the rest of the year off. There won't be anymore reviews until 2016, but I do have some posts already scheduled to go up, so those ones will be live on the blog. But overall, activity is just going to slow to a crawl. I look forward to just reading and getting back into the swing of things next year. I hope everyone has a great holiday!