Best Books of 2011

Today’s topic for Armchair BEA is to share some of your favorite books so far this year, and/or the the books being promoted at BEA that you hope will end up among your favorites for the year! 2011 has been a fantastic year for YA books. Some of my favorites reads so far have been debut authors and sequels and that goes for books that I am anticipating as well.

Here are some my favorite books for 2011 and links to my reviews:

Divergent by Veronica Roth (have not reviewed it yet), The Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa, The Lost Saint by Bree Despain, Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini and Unearthly by Cynthia Hand.

Here are some of the books that I am eagerly anticipating that I hope will be among my favorites. I think all of these are being promoted at BEA:

The Faerie Ring by Kiki Hamilton, Frost by Wendy Delsol, The Pledge by Kimberly Derting, Vanish by Sophie Jordan and Supernaturally by Kiersten White. 

What are your best books of 2011?

Review of The Lost Saint by Bree Despain

Release Date: Dec. 28, 2010
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Pages: 404 pages
Genre: Paranormal
Rating: 5 stars
Source: Library

This summary and review contains spoilers to The Dark Devine, the first book in this series!

Goodreads Summary: A family destroyed. A love threatened. An enemy returns. Grace Divine made the ultimate sacrifice to cure Daniel Kalbi. She was infected with the werewolf curse while trying to save him, and lost her beloved brother in the process.

Desperate to find Jude, Grace befriends Talbot, a newcomer to town. But as the two grow closer, Grace's relationship with Daniel is put in danger -- in more ways than one. Unaware of the dark path she is walking, Grace begins to give into the wolf inside of her -- not realizing that an enemy has returned and a deadly trap is about to be sprung.

Review:  Rarely do I think that that a sequel is better than the original book, but Bree Despain has done that with The Lost Saint, the darker, exciting sequel to The Dark Divine.

The Lost Saint picks up where The Dark Divine ended and is fast paced all the way through. Grace’s character is not nearly so naïve as she was in the first book, and even though she is more mature, she still makes mistakes and bad decisions. That’s not a bad thing, it makes her character more real. She is also bolder, stronger, more willing to take risks to help her family. She kicks butt and looks great doing it!

There are no perfect characters in the story, even Grace’s dad who is a pastor and her mom are just human in their intense sadness over Jude’s disappearance. There are beautiful themes in this book about love, faith, trust, and forgiveness.

I really love Grace and Daniel as a couple. Unfortunately, they do go through the sequel phase, best described by Enna at Squeaky Books as the following: “The sequel-phase is where our happy couple (who fought to be a couple in the first book) begin to drift apart. Whether from misunderstanding, change of interests, homicidal angels/werewolves/vampires, or all of the above, it doesn’t matter. The point is, our couple breaks up.” Thankfully, this is not the only point to the book and as far as sequel phrases go, this one is really good.  

There are great new characters, new mythical creatures, awesome fight scenes, and a cliffhanger ending I did not see coming. I highly recommend this series and cannot wait for the third book!

Content: Violence, demons.