Top 10 Week #3: Best Dual POVs of 2012

Top 10 of 2012 is one week of bookish goodness hosted by the fantastic peeps at Two Chicks on Books, Fiktshun, Confessions of a Bookaholic, and Magical Urban Fantasy Reads! Every day from December 24th to December 28th, I'll have a Top 10 list up regarding to the day's topic. Today's topic is:

Best Dual POVs of 2012

In case you don't know what a Dual POV is: basically, it's when a story is told by two different people, typically the male and female protagonists.

Here are my top 10, in no particular order (once again, the book covers lead to the Goodreads pages):

Waiting on Wednesday {24}

This week, I'm waiting on...

Top 10 Settings in 2011

Today's topic was characters, and I chose settings. Though some people might say that a setting isn't a real, animate thing, it can't be a character (and you're right), here is the definition for character (from dictionary.com):

Character: Noun. One of the attributes or features that make up and distinguish the individual.

A setting is an attribute that distinguish the characters in a story, and it usually plays a major role as well. Without the claustrophobic environment of Godspeed, would Across the Universe be as horrifying as it is? Without the Shifted world of Shade, Aura's story would have been exponentially different. So, here it is, my top 10 settings of 2011 (in no particular order):

Top 10 Book Boyfriends in 2011

After much hair-pulling and no actual cursing, here are my top 10 book boyfriends of 2011 (in no particular order):

Top 10 Books I've Read in 2011

Top 10 Books I've Read in 2011(in no particular order):

SHIVER, Linger, Forver, I love you Maggie Stiefvater!

Shiver
By: Maggie Stiefvater
Reported by: Julianna Helms

For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf--her wolf--is a chilling presence she can't seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again.

Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It's her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human--or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.

-Summary from Amazon
Barnes&Noble||Amazon||The Book Depository

“'How long?'
His smile was amazingly sweet. 'The longest.'
'Forever?'
Sam's lips smiled, but above his grin, his yellow eyes turned sad, as if he knew it was a lie. 'Longer.'"

-Shiver 

Once upon a time, there was a little girl, not as innocent as most other girls, but innocent still.
Then the girl grew up, and one day, she fell in love with a book called The Scorpio Races. She vowed to read Shiver, because that was by the same author, and the girl knew it will whisk her away on journeys an universe away.
She read Shiver, and it ripped her heart right out of her chest.


I read somewhere that the best romances are when you can't imagine the boy with anyone other than the girl. This is it. Sam and Grace... God, they made me bawl. Maggie's brilliant, beautiful prose poured heart and emotion straight out of the characters into me, deep into my heart, and all I felt while reading this book was just... this amazing sense of absoluteness, rightness, because I dare say that Sam and Grace are the best couple ever created in the literature world--I can't remember another couple that made me feel like this (except for Forbidden, but that's another story for another time). And it's this bittersweet fairytale that tore me in half.

I bawled, I laughed, I smiled, I shivered. I bawled again. I think this book is my favorite book ever now, though The Scorpio Races is still a close second.

My point is this: Read this book. It doesn't matter if you hate paranormal and whatnot, because GODDAMNDARNIT I am in love with everything about this book.


You know your heart? You know how fragile it is, a single drop of glass frozen, about to splash and shatter? Shiver is blood, pumping through you, into you, clogging your thoughts, just leaving your heart vulnerable. It's blood rushing into you and killing you and making you love at the same time. It's blood that keeps you alive and raw, desperate and flawed.

It will change you. Because this blood? It will fortify your being, your heart, your soul, and you'll know that no matter what, you have a definite goal, and that is to search for love like Sam and Grace's. Maybe just by reading about them, or finding a couple like them, or maybe being part of a relationship similar yourself. But the most important truth this book will teach you? It's that true love never dies. Love fades, love grows, love transforms into lust, love breaks, but true love never dies.


Don't ever forget that.

The Scorpio Races

The Scorpio Races
By: Maggie Stiefvater

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

-Summary from Goodreads

It is the fourth day of November and so, today, I have finally found a book that (in my humble opinion) surpasses The Hunger Games.

Here's the thing: The Hunger Games was my ultimate favorite book. 

And then a little something called The Scorpio Races came along and I drowned in it. I drowned in it and I loved it. Loved it more than my favorite book.

That's right. The Scorpio Races is now  my favorite book of all time.

I can't tell you exactly what it is that made me fall in love with this story, because it's not just one thing, but so many things that together they started to blend and blend until the only coherent thought I had was that I am in love. This book is unlike anything you'll ever read--it was certainly the most original thing I have ever read. There is not just character development, but plot, twists, surprises, heartbreaks, hope. They are each a mountain and you journey with the characters to the top, where the skies swarm below you and the world lies beneath your feet and all you feel is this feeling of greatness that nothing else can fulfill. 

In fact, it seems to me that the more I think about this book, the more this feeling of... this feeling I've only felt with my most favorite books of all time (The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, etc.) bubbles up. And the thing is that I finished this book four days ago, on November 1st (also happens to be a very significant day in the book!), I sat on it for four days and I still love it beyond words. In fact, to ask me why I love this story is like asking wings why they fly. Because they do. Because I do. Because there is just no other way around it.

I'm trying to keep this review short and succinct, so you can go ahead and get this book already. But I feel like it's important that you know I have not previously read any of Maggie's books. I've heard of the Shiver trilogy and they've been on my TBR list for a long time, but I'm so overwhelmed with paranormal (vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc.) nowadays that I just never really felt compelled to pick it up.

I will now. Right now. I need more Maggie.

If there is one book you can get, get this one. There's just nothing else I can say except this: the sunset is an explosion of colors, and this book is an explosion of beauty. Pure magical. 

Phenomenal. And I never say this, truly, I never do, because I didn't believe in it. But I will say it now, because it is finally true:

Flawless.