FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2017.
Hey, what's up, hello, my name is Emma and today I am giving you guys, my top of 17 books of 2017. In the year 2017 I have read just under 85 books for this year which is so amazing and I know that 2018 is going to be filled of even more wonderful wonderful stories. But for today's video I'm going to talking about 17 of my absolute favorite books that I read this past year and just as like a quick note before we jump in don't place too much value on the ordering of this because I've gone back and forth a million times as to what position they hold. Just in total these are 17 of my favorite books that I read in 2017.
Coming in at number seventeen is Daughter of the Burning City By Amanda Foody. This is a fantasy murder mystery that takes place at a traveling carnival where our main character named Sorina has no eyes but she's able to create illusions that look and feel like real people and her illusions are being killed off despite the fact that they're not real. This is a debut novel and I really loved it. I feel like one of its strongest points is that it's just so atmospheric, you can really feel what it's like to be in Gomorrah.
I find the characters to be very lovable and very realistic and I also really loved the murder mystery aspect of this novel because I just could not tell who the killer was, why they were committing these murders and how. It's just-- it's so intriguing and fun and light-hearted, but also very dark and there's just a balance in this book that is made so well that I couldn't help but absolutely love it. Coming in at number sixteen is Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia which is all about a girl named Eliza who lives this online life as one of the internet's most famous webcomic designers but she is totally anonymous and this boy named Wallace turns up in her school and happens to be a huge fan of her series. I loved Eliza and Her Monsters.
I know it is so many of you guys's favorite book of the year, it is just so adorable and fun and light-hearted but the ending is just so heartbreaking and you can't help but really feel for Eliza with what she goes through. Also, I find the anxiety representation in this book to be very very accurate. One of my favorite things about it is that although I am an adult reading YA. Books I usually only relate to mental illness rep as I was as a teenager whereas with Eliza and Her Monsters, I'm able to really resonate with how Eliza feels as a twenty-one year old and I find that to be very powerful.
If you love nerdy cutesy contemporary novels that also deal with some hard topics, I would definitely recommend reading Eliza and Her Monsters because it absolutely very quickly became one of my favorites of the year. Number fifteen on my list is A Tragic Kind of Wonderful By Eric Lindstrom which is all about a girl named Mel who has bipolar disorder and she's really struggling to open up to her friends in her life about her disorder. This book-- this very short contemporary had such an impact on me where I feel like I was just like blindsided by the ending with the impact it had on me. It's just such an emotional, powerful novel that surprised me because I didn't really expect it to have this long lasting impact on my heart but I just feel the way the story was written where it represented teens very accurately from my education in psychology I think it is a great representation of bipolar disorder and just all of the things that Mel goes through really really touched me and I think that's the best way for me to describe this book.
It-- it made my heart feel happy and sad at the same time and those are a lot of times the books that I love to read. So I'm so pleased that I read A Tragic Kind of Wonderful this year because it is definitely going to be one of my long lasting favorites. Coming in at number fourteen on my list of top seventeen of 2017 is Nice Try, Jane Sinner By Lianne Oelke which does not come out until January 9th, but I had the amazing pleasure to read it beforehand and it is so freaking good. So this book is all about this girl named Jane Sinner, who has recently been expelled from her high school as a result of a depressive/suicidal episode that she was experiencing but she decides to go to a community college to finish up some classes to get her degree where she ends up being a part of an online reality show called House of Orange.
Isn't it such like a strange concept but I love this book, this is definitely one of my new favorite YA. Books in general just because it is so realistic. It deals with so many different themes so well and it's so freakin good. It's also told in journal form which I really liked, and that's not a format that I feel I was experimented with a lot in YA, but I think it really added to the story.
I really value this book because while so much YA. Is obviously focused on teenagers and high school students and whatnot, this deals with a more college setting which is something that I can more closely identify with and a lot of the struggles that Jane goes through especially considering her struggle with her faith in Christianity, it was just-- it was so good and so unique and I can't recommend it enough for you guys so do not forget to put this one on your TBRs for January releases because it is absolutely amazing. As a note if you are from the New York City area, I am going to be moderating the Nice Try, Jane Sinner event with the author on January 6th, Saturday at 4 p.M. At Books of Wonder.
Please come hang out and celebrate this amazing book because I can't wait to talk about it more in depth with you guys. This happened last year too, I keep losing count of what number I'm up to-- I think this is number thirteen and that is The Nowhere Girls By Amy Reed. The Nowhere Girls is all about these three girls at a small town high school where a different girl named Lucy has recently accused three of her classmates of raping her and because nobody does anything about it and nobody helped her, Lucy's family moves away. So our main characters named Grace, Rosina and Erin start this group called The Nowhere Girls where it is an anonymous space for the girls of this school to talk about things like rape culture and feminism and sexism and make efforts to change the way people view women in their town all in the name of justice for Lucy and other survivors of rape who weren't able to have their story told.
This book deals with a lot of different representation for various diverse populations. For example, Grace is a plus-sized main character. We have Rosina, who is a Latina girl that also has a relationship with another girl and then we have Erin who has Asperger's and also anxiety so just like hitting all sides of the spectrum of stuff I love to see in books. Really, really loved this one.
If you're at all interested in feminist issues and making a difference in the world of rape culture and similar issues I would highly highly, recommend it. It is intellectual and sophisticated and just everything I could have possibly wanted to read as a teen girl that I'm so glad I got the opportunity to read as an adult. Number twelve I think-- is The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue By Mackenzie Lee. This book takes place in like the 1700s where our main character named Monty is about to embark on a grand tour of Europe with his best friend named Percy whom he is also in love with and Monty's sister named Felicity who also tags along and they just go across Europe with all of these crazy adventures and shenanigans.
There's pirates, there's chases, there's like hidden objects and stuff and it's so great like, you've heard the hype for this book I know you have and it was totally worth it. The humor in this book was just unlike anything I had read this year and anything I had a read in a really long time. It is hysterical, it has a lot of diverse representation in addition to having a bisexual main character, there is a black love interest who also has epilepsy and it is just-- it's so good guys. In addition to the comedy which I absolutely loved, I was not expecting it to be this like super high intensity adventure chase-- whatever and I loved it so much.
The action in the story is definitely one of my absolute favorite things, and I'm just so pleased I read it. Number eleven on my list of top seventeen books of 2017 is Of Fire and Stars By Audrey Coulthurst. This is actually one of the first books that I read in 2017 and it has prevailed through the entire year. It's this absolutely phenomenal high fantasy novel where our main character named Denna is a princess who is engaged to the prince of another kingdom.
But the catch is she ends up falling in love with her prince husband to be's sister. I did not know I needed a story about princesses falling in love until now but, oh my goodness this book absolutely changed the way I view YA relationships forever. The chemistry between Denna and Mare is unbelievable--they are just absolute soulmates who deserve each other so much and I can't remember the last time I gushed about like a new couple in YA, but Of Fire and Stars did it for me man. If you're looking for a new fantasy standalone which I'm very upset it's a standalone, but if you're looking to not commit like to a huge series but you still want an absolutely amazing fantasy story with a cool, magic system, great loveable characters and a steamy romance, I cannot recommend Of Fire and Stars enough to you.
Number ten is another book that I also read at the very very beginning of the year but it has such a soft spot in my heart that I couldn't help but put it in this list and that is Under Rose Tainted Skies By Louise Gornoll. Our main character named Nora deals with agoraphobia, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder as well as self-harm and it was all about Nora's story of this life where she has barely been able to leave her house for the past four years as a result of her illnesses. Where a boy named Luke moves in next door and Luke sees her as more than just her illnesses and wants to befriend her but Nora is very much afraid of forming a new relationship, because she believes that he deserves so much better than her. I can't even begin to express to you how much I love Under Rose Tainted Skies.
Nor is just such an inspiration to me, she is such a survivor and I love her character grow throughout this story, it's really inspirational to me. The author herself has dealt with the same issues as Nora and it is just such amazing representation I'm so happy we're getting more own voices mental-health novels. But Under Rose Tainted Skies definitely left an impact on my heart and I know it is going to be one of my absolute favorites for a very, very long time. Number nine nine on this list is The Hate U Give By Angie Thomas which I actually read it twice this year.
The Hate U Give follows a teen named Starr who is the anonymous witness to the murder of her best friend. Khalil by a police officer while Khalil was unarmed. It is a very enlightening story, I don't think you can walk away from reading The Hate U Give as the same person that you were, whether it be that you really identify with Starr's story or you learn something from it or you just enjoyed it because it is such a fun book although it deals with some very strong themes. Starr is super funny, her family dynamic is beautiful and one of my absolute favorites in YA.
In general, there's just so much to love about it. If you haven't read The Hate U Give yet, you have been missing out and you better mark it on your TBRs for 2018. What are we up to-- eight? I don't even know anymore but whatever the next number is, it is They Both Die at the End By Adam SIlvera. Y'all knew this one was coming.
They Both Die at the End takes place in a near-futureistic New York City, where on the day you're going to die you get a call at midnight from the service called Death Cast where they let you know you have 24 hours to live. It is so hard to give a short synopsis of this book but basically the world is obviously formed around this new intervention into their lives and there is this thing called the Last Friend app where maybe you were going to die that day, you were able to interact with other people, who are also going to die and got the call. It's about mourning and it's all about these two boys named Rufus and Mateo who meet on the Last Friend app and it takes course over the last day of their lives and you will have to read it to find out if they both died at the end. I want to shove this book in every single reader's face because it's so good.
I mean, I absolutely love the characters because I am all about more Latinx boys who like boys in YA literature and hello with that New York Times bestseller title. But I think one of the things I love most about They Both Die at the End is the world. There are just endless possibilities for stories that Adam can write within the They Both Die at the End worlds and I want to know more about it. I don't think I've ever been more? Intrigued with a like not super super high fantasy world, but one that's like this.
It's very interesting and I loved it so much. So I don't know if this is 7 & 8 or that this is 6 & 7 whatever. I have two books from the same series and now I don't normally do this. I normally like if I read multiple books in a series in the year I will put them together as one spot.
But I struggled so hard to pick like exactly. Number seven that I put these two together as individual slots and moved everything up if you, did not know. Picking seventeen books that you want to talk about as your favorites of the year is very very difficult but to see two books I chose our Lair of Dreams and Before the Devil Breaks You By Libba Bray, books two and three in The Diviners series. I'm only gonna hold up Before the Devil Breaks You cuz these, books are really heavy.
Talking about The Diviners is really easy because I have nothing bad about it to say it is one of the most amazing YA series of all time and my voice just cracked. I love talking about the Diviner series and the only person I can really do that with is Sara from sarawithoutanh so please read The Diviners if you haven't heard of The Diviners, it takes place in 1920s New York City where there are ghosts and people have special abilities and they're all entirely different. You have really amazing well rounded fantastic characters. We have a black main character, we have a gay main character, we have a half Chinese, half Irish asexual main character who's interested in women who is also disabled.
You also have a Jewish main character and like all of these characters are one of the best YA. Gangs I've, ever read. I love The Diviners so much, so well-written, so exciting, amazing, fantastic, wonderful you have to read it. Oh my god, how are we only down to four? But number four on my list of top seventeen of 2017 is What I Lost By Alexandra Ballard.
It's all about this girl named Elizabeth who has anorexia and has recently entered an inpatient treatment center for her eating disorder. As someone who's been battling anorexia for the last ten years, I. Love this book with all of my heart. It is my favorite book with eating disorder representation of all time probably my favorite mental health book of all time.
I just-- I cannot express to you how happy I am that this book exists. My favorite thing about What I Lost is not just that it has fantastic representation for anorexia as the author has also dealt with an eating disorder herself but it is focused on recovery and treatment and getting better which is unfortunately not as focused on when it comes to mental health novels relating to mental illness in young adult literature. This book pretty much has everything I ever want anyone to know about anorexia and everything I want them to know about eating disorder treatment. It is so important and if you like mental health novels and you like my recommendations for mental health novels, please take this one.
What I Lost is honestly a book that I am just going to treasure for the rest of my life. It is so important to me-- it is literally a piece of my identity and I am so so happy I read it this year. We're up to the top three now Book number three on this list is one I've been raving about for a while and that is Moxie By Jennifer Mathieu. Very similar to The Nowhere Girls and Moxie is all about this girl named Viv who is a very fed up with the sexist and misogynistic culture at her school so she takes it upon herself to create a feminist zine inspired by the riot girls movement of the 90s and distributed anonymously at school to bring all of the girls together to create change again.
Like The NoWhere Girls because these books really are just like sisters and if you like one you'll love the other. I really, wish I had this book when I was a teen. II feel like it just it spreads such an important message of equality and strength and women empowerment and that's the kind of stuff i want to see in young adult. It's super empowering, super fun and it's another one of those books that is just it really hits the nail on what teenagers are actually like it's very realistic.
It has a very healthy love interest and relationship which I absolutely love. I love everything about Moxie. It's really really fantastic and I will continue to recommend it to you guys over and over and over again until the entire world has read it because it's just--its that good. Book number two, what I feel like most of you will be surprised to hear is number two, because I've only really talked about it like twice on my channel but that's because it was a very recent read.
So number two for my favorite books of 2017 is Warcross By Marie Lu. Warcross is another one that is just very very hard to give you a short synopsis of. It takes place in near futuristic New York and Tokyo where it's the science fiction world, where like everything is virtual reality so there's this virtual reality game called Warcross and it's just like an international phenomenon. Everyone plays, everyone watches it it's biggest thing in the world and our main character named Emika ends up accidentally glitching herself into the opening ceremony of Warcross where she's hired by the creator of Warcross to investigate some like problems going on within the internal stuff of Warcross where there might be some crime going on and some people breaking down stuff and whatnot.
It's really hard to explain but it's absolutely amazing this book is probably one of the most well constructed YA books I have read in such a long time. I loved it, I loved everything about it. I loved the characters, I loved the plot, I loved the world, I loved the twists everything, about Warcross is absolutely amazing. I cannot recommend Warcross enough.
The second I finished it I just-- I need the sequel and I know I have to wait a full year for it but I just love it so so much. I know there's a lot of contemporary on this list because I have read so much contemporary this year but if you're going to, take the science fiction/fantasy recommendation out of this list, I would highly recommend it for it to be Warcross. It is groundbreaking in my opinion, I loved it so much and I cannot wait for the sequel. And finally we get to my absolute favorite number one book of 2017 and I know I said like all of the order doesn't really matter.
This one is absolutely number one. I don't know why I keep it for last because you all knew what it was gonna be before I even started this video. It is of course Lord of Shadows By Cassandra Clare, book 2 in the Dark Artifices series. I am blown away by Lord of Shadows.
I am deceased, I am dead, this is my ghost speaking because this book wrecked me. It takes the Shadow World to new heights that we never could have expected from the beginning of it 10 years ago. It is absolutely, by far Cassandra Clare's best and most sophisticated work, and I'm just so proud to see her, like, doing her thing improving her writing and just writing such amazing, amazing books I cannot even give you a concise representation of why I love Lord of Shadows so much because like my review was 30 minutes long. I love absolutely everything about this book.
I love the characters, I love all the romances, I love the plot, I love the world, I love how everything about it is just expanding and growing bigger beyond what any of us could have expected and it's so amazing. If you haven't started the Shadowhunter Chronicles yet, you need to and so specifically so you can get to Lord of Shadows because it is one of my absolute favorite books of all time. It is so good, it's so amazing I'm so happy it came out this year and I cannot wait for Queen of Air and Darkness coming out December of next year. That is really it for my top seventeen books of 2017.
I had such an amazing reading year, I think this is probably like my favorite reading year of my entire life. I read so many good books and I love them so much. Definitely let me know in the comments below what were some of your favorite books to 2017? Did you read any of these books, did you like them, did you not like them? Are you planning to read any of them in 2018, which I really really hope so. But that is it for this video, thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you soon for new one.
Bye! {Outro}.
Coming in at number seventeen is Daughter of the Burning City By Amanda Foody. This is a fantasy murder mystery that takes place at a traveling carnival where our main character named Sorina has no eyes but she's able to create illusions that look and feel like real people and her illusions are being killed off despite the fact that they're not real. This is a debut novel and I really loved it. I feel like one of its strongest points is that it's just so atmospheric, you can really feel what it's like to be in Gomorrah.
I find the characters to be very lovable and very realistic and I also really loved the murder mystery aspect of this novel because I just could not tell who the killer was, why they were committing these murders and how. It's just-- it's so intriguing and fun and light-hearted, but also very dark and there's just a balance in this book that is made so well that I couldn't help but absolutely love it. Coming in at number sixteen is Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia which is all about a girl named Eliza who lives this online life as one of the internet's most famous webcomic designers but she is totally anonymous and this boy named Wallace turns up in her school and happens to be a huge fan of her series. I loved Eliza and Her Monsters.
I know it is so many of you guys's favorite book of the year, it is just so adorable and fun and light-hearted but the ending is just so heartbreaking and you can't help but really feel for Eliza with what she goes through. Also, I find the anxiety representation in this book to be very very accurate. One of my favorite things about it is that although I am an adult reading YA. Books I usually only relate to mental illness rep as I was as a teenager whereas with Eliza and Her Monsters, I'm able to really resonate with how Eliza feels as a twenty-one year old and I find that to be very powerful.
If you love nerdy cutesy contemporary novels that also deal with some hard topics, I would definitely recommend reading Eliza and Her Monsters because it absolutely very quickly became one of my favorites of the year. Number fifteen on my list is A Tragic Kind of Wonderful By Eric Lindstrom which is all about a girl named Mel who has bipolar disorder and she's really struggling to open up to her friends in her life about her disorder. This book-- this very short contemporary had such an impact on me where I feel like I was just like blindsided by the ending with the impact it had on me. It's just such an emotional, powerful novel that surprised me because I didn't really expect it to have this long lasting impact on my heart but I just feel the way the story was written where it represented teens very accurately from my education in psychology I think it is a great representation of bipolar disorder and just all of the things that Mel goes through really really touched me and I think that's the best way for me to describe this book.
It-- it made my heart feel happy and sad at the same time and those are a lot of times the books that I love to read. So I'm so pleased that I read A Tragic Kind of Wonderful this year because it is definitely going to be one of my long lasting favorites. Coming in at number fourteen on my list of top seventeen of 2017 is Nice Try, Jane Sinner By Lianne Oelke which does not come out until January 9th, but I had the amazing pleasure to read it beforehand and it is so freaking good. So this book is all about this girl named Jane Sinner, who has recently been expelled from her high school as a result of a depressive/suicidal episode that she was experiencing but she decides to go to a community college to finish up some classes to get her degree where she ends up being a part of an online reality show called House of Orange.
Isn't it such like a strange concept but I love this book, this is definitely one of my new favorite YA. Books in general just because it is so realistic. It deals with so many different themes so well and it's so freakin good. It's also told in journal form which I really liked, and that's not a format that I feel I was experimented with a lot in YA, but I think it really added to the story.
I really value this book because while so much YA. Is obviously focused on teenagers and high school students and whatnot, this deals with a more college setting which is something that I can more closely identify with and a lot of the struggles that Jane goes through especially considering her struggle with her faith in Christianity, it was just-- it was so good and so unique and I can't recommend it enough for you guys so do not forget to put this one on your TBRs for January releases because it is absolutely amazing. As a note if you are from the New York City area, I am going to be moderating the Nice Try, Jane Sinner event with the author on January 6th, Saturday at 4 p.M. At Books of Wonder.
Please come hang out and celebrate this amazing book because I can't wait to talk about it more in depth with you guys. This happened last year too, I keep losing count of what number I'm up to-- I think this is number thirteen and that is The Nowhere Girls By Amy Reed. The Nowhere Girls is all about these three girls at a small town high school where a different girl named Lucy has recently accused three of her classmates of raping her and because nobody does anything about it and nobody helped her, Lucy's family moves away. So our main characters named Grace, Rosina and Erin start this group called The Nowhere Girls where it is an anonymous space for the girls of this school to talk about things like rape culture and feminism and sexism and make efforts to change the way people view women in their town all in the name of justice for Lucy and other survivors of rape who weren't able to have their story told.
This book deals with a lot of different representation for various diverse populations. For example, Grace is a plus-sized main character. We have Rosina, who is a Latina girl that also has a relationship with another girl and then we have Erin who has Asperger's and also anxiety so just like hitting all sides of the spectrum of stuff I love to see in books. Really, really loved this one.
If you're at all interested in feminist issues and making a difference in the world of rape culture and similar issues I would highly highly, recommend it. It is intellectual and sophisticated and just everything I could have possibly wanted to read as a teen girl that I'm so glad I got the opportunity to read as an adult. Number twelve I think-- is The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue By Mackenzie Lee. This book takes place in like the 1700s where our main character named Monty is about to embark on a grand tour of Europe with his best friend named Percy whom he is also in love with and Monty's sister named Felicity who also tags along and they just go across Europe with all of these crazy adventures and shenanigans.
There's pirates, there's chases, there's like hidden objects and stuff and it's so great like, you've heard the hype for this book I know you have and it was totally worth it. The humor in this book was just unlike anything I had read this year and anything I had a read in a really long time. It is hysterical, it has a lot of diverse representation in addition to having a bisexual main character, there is a black love interest who also has epilepsy and it is just-- it's so good guys. In addition to the comedy which I absolutely loved, I was not expecting it to be this like super high intensity adventure chase-- whatever and I loved it so much.
The action in the story is definitely one of my absolute favorite things, and I'm just so pleased I read it. Number eleven on my list of top seventeen books of 2017 is Of Fire and Stars By Audrey Coulthurst. This is actually one of the first books that I read in 2017 and it has prevailed through the entire year. It's this absolutely phenomenal high fantasy novel where our main character named Denna is a princess who is engaged to the prince of another kingdom.
But the catch is she ends up falling in love with her prince husband to be's sister. I did not know I needed a story about princesses falling in love until now but, oh my goodness this book absolutely changed the way I view YA relationships forever. The chemistry between Denna and Mare is unbelievable--they are just absolute soulmates who deserve each other so much and I can't remember the last time I gushed about like a new couple in YA, but Of Fire and Stars did it for me man. If you're looking for a new fantasy standalone which I'm very upset it's a standalone, but if you're looking to not commit like to a huge series but you still want an absolutely amazing fantasy story with a cool, magic system, great loveable characters and a steamy romance, I cannot recommend Of Fire and Stars enough to you.
Number ten is another book that I also read at the very very beginning of the year but it has such a soft spot in my heart that I couldn't help but put it in this list and that is Under Rose Tainted Skies By Louise Gornoll. Our main character named Nora deals with agoraphobia, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder as well as self-harm and it was all about Nora's story of this life where she has barely been able to leave her house for the past four years as a result of her illnesses. Where a boy named Luke moves in next door and Luke sees her as more than just her illnesses and wants to befriend her but Nora is very much afraid of forming a new relationship, because she believes that he deserves so much better than her. I can't even begin to express to you how much I love Under Rose Tainted Skies.
Nor is just such an inspiration to me, she is such a survivor and I love her character grow throughout this story, it's really inspirational to me. The author herself has dealt with the same issues as Nora and it is just such amazing representation I'm so happy we're getting more own voices mental-health novels. But Under Rose Tainted Skies definitely left an impact on my heart and I know it is going to be one of my absolute favorites for a very, very long time. Number nine nine on this list is The Hate U Give By Angie Thomas which I actually read it twice this year.
The Hate U Give follows a teen named Starr who is the anonymous witness to the murder of her best friend. Khalil by a police officer while Khalil was unarmed. It is a very enlightening story, I don't think you can walk away from reading The Hate U Give as the same person that you were, whether it be that you really identify with Starr's story or you learn something from it or you just enjoyed it because it is such a fun book although it deals with some very strong themes. Starr is super funny, her family dynamic is beautiful and one of my absolute favorites in YA.
In general, there's just so much to love about it. If you haven't read The Hate U Give yet, you have been missing out and you better mark it on your TBRs for 2018. What are we up to-- eight? I don't even know anymore but whatever the next number is, it is They Both Die at the End By Adam SIlvera. Y'all knew this one was coming.
They Both Die at the End takes place in a near-futureistic New York City, where on the day you're going to die you get a call at midnight from the service called Death Cast where they let you know you have 24 hours to live. It is so hard to give a short synopsis of this book but basically the world is obviously formed around this new intervention into their lives and there is this thing called the Last Friend app where maybe you were going to die that day, you were able to interact with other people, who are also going to die and got the call. It's about mourning and it's all about these two boys named Rufus and Mateo who meet on the Last Friend app and it takes course over the last day of their lives and you will have to read it to find out if they both died at the end. I want to shove this book in every single reader's face because it's so good.
I mean, I absolutely love the characters because I am all about more Latinx boys who like boys in YA literature and hello with that New York Times bestseller title. But I think one of the things I love most about They Both Die at the End is the world. There are just endless possibilities for stories that Adam can write within the They Both Die at the End worlds and I want to know more about it. I don't think I've ever been more? Intrigued with a like not super super high fantasy world, but one that's like this.
It's very interesting and I loved it so much. So I don't know if this is 7 & 8 or that this is 6 & 7 whatever. I have two books from the same series and now I don't normally do this. I normally like if I read multiple books in a series in the year I will put them together as one spot.
But I struggled so hard to pick like exactly. Number seven that I put these two together as individual slots and moved everything up if you, did not know. Picking seventeen books that you want to talk about as your favorites of the year is very very difficult but to see two books I chose our Lair of Dreams and Before the Devil Breaks You By Libba Bray, books two and three in The Diviners series. I'm only gonna hold up Before the Devil Breaks You cuz these, books are really heavy.
Talking about The Diviners is really easy because I have nothing bad about it to say it is one of the most amazing YA series of all time and my voice just cracked. I love talking about the Diviner series and the only person I can really do that with is Sara from sarawithoutanh so please read The Diviners if you haven't heard of The Diviners, it takes place in 1920s New York City where there are ghosts and people have special abilities and they're all entirely different. You have really amazing well rounded fantastic characters. We have a black main character, we have a gay main character, we have a half Chinese, half Irish asexual main character who's interested in women who is also disabled.
You also have a Jewish main character and like all of these characters are one of the best YA. Gangs I've, ever read. I love The Diviners so much, so well-written, so exciting, amazing, fantastic, wonderful you have to read it. Oh my god, how are we only down to four? But number four on my list of top seventeen of 2017 is What I Lost By Alexandra Ballard.
It's all about this girl named Elizabeth who has anorexia and has recently entered an inpatient treatment center for her eating disorder. As someone who's been battling anorexia for the last ten years, I. Love this book with all of my heart. It is my favorite book with eating disorder representation of all time probably my favorite mental health book of all time.
I just-- I cannot express to you how happy I am that this book exists. My favorite thing about What I Lost is not just that it has fantastic representation for anorexia as the author has also dealt with an eating disorder herself but it is focused on recovery and treatment and getting better which is unfortunately not as focused on when it comes to mental health novels relating to mental illness in young adult literature. This book pretty much has everything I ever want anyone to know about anorexia and everything I want them to know about eating disorder treatment. It is so important and if you like mental health novels and you like my recommendations for mental health novels, please take this one.
What I Lost is honestly a book that I am just going to treasure for the rest of my life. It is so important to me-- it is literally a piece of my identity and I am so so happy I read it this year. We're up to the top three now Book number three on this list is one I've been raving about for a while and that is Moxie By Jennifer Mathieu. Very similar to The Nowhere Girls and Moxie is all about this girl named Viv who is a very fed up with the sexist and misogynistic culture at her school so she takes it upon herself to create a feminist zine inspired by the riot girls movement of the 90s and distributed anonymously at school to bring all of the girls together to create change again.
Like The NoWhere Girls because these books really are just like sisters and if you like one you'll love the other. I really, wish I had this book when I was a teen. II feel like it just it spreads such an important message of equality and strength and women empowerment and that's the kind of stuff i want to see in young adult. It's super empowering, super fun and it's another one of those books that is just it really hits the nail on what teenagers are actually like it's very realistic.
It has a very healthy love interest and relationship which I absolutely love. I love everything about Moxie. It's really really fantastic and I will continue to recommend it to you guys over and over and over again until the entire world has read it because it's just--its that good. Book number two, what I feel like most of you will be surprised to hear is number two, because I've only really talked about it like twice on my channel but that's because it was a very recent read.
So number two for my favorite books of 2017 is Warcross By Marie Lu. Warcross is another one that is just very very hard to give you a short synopsis of. It takes place in near futuristic New York and Tokyo where it's the science fiction world, where like everything is virtual reality so there's this virtual reality game called Warcross and it's just like an international phenomenon. Everyone plays, everyone watches it it's biggest thing in the world and our main character named Emika ends up accidentally glitching herself into the opening ceremony of Warcross where she's hired by the creator of Warcross to investigate some like problems going on within the internal stuff of Warcross where there might be some crime going on and some people breaking down stuff and whatnot.
It's really hard to explain but it's absolutely amazing this book is probably one of the most well constructed YA books I have read in such a long time. I loved it, I loved everything about it. I loved the characters, I loved the plot, I loved the world, I loved the twists everything, about Warcross is absolutely amazing. I cannot recommend Warcross enough.
The second I finished it I just-- I need the sequel and I know I have to wait a full year for it but I just love it so so much. I know there's a lot of contemporary on this list because I have read so much contemporary this year but if you're going to, take the science fiction/fantasy recommendation out of this list, I would highly recommend it for it to be Warcross. It is groundbreaking in my opinion, I loved it so much and I cannot wait for the sequel. And finally we get to my absolute favorite number one book of 2017 and I know I said like all of the order doesn't really matter.
This one is absolutely number one. I don't know why I keep it for last because you all knew what it was gonna be before I even started this video. It is of course Lord of Shadows By Cassandra Clare, book 2 in the Dark Artifices series. I am blown away by Lord of Shadows.
I am deceased, I am dead, this is my ghost speaking because this book wrecked me. It takes the Shadow World to new heights that we never could have expected from the beginning of it 10 years ago. It is absolutely, by far Cassandra Clare's best and most sophisticated work, and I'm just so proud to see her, like, doing her thing improving her writing and just writing such amazing, amazing books I cannot even give you a concise representation of why I love Lord of Shadows so much because like my review was 30 minutes long. I love absolutely everything about this book.
I love the characters, I love all the romances, I love the plot, I love the world, I love how everything about it is just expanding and growing bigger beyond what any of us could have expected and it's so amazing. If you haven't started the Shadowhunter Chronicles yet, you need to and so specifically so you can get to Lord of Shadows because it is one of my absolute favorite books of all time. It is so good, it's so amazing I'm so happy it came out this year and I cannot wait for Queen of Air and Darkness coming out December of next year. That is really it for my top seventeen books of 2017.
I had such an amazing reading year, I think this is probably like my favorite reading year of my entire life. I read so many good books and I love them so much. Definitely let me know in the comments below what were some of your favorite books to 2017? Did you read any of these books, did you like them, did you not like them? Are you planning to read any of them in 2018, which I really really hope so. But that is it for this video, thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you soon for new one.
Bye! {Outro}.
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