Top Ten Tuesday – November 20, 2012: Top Ten Books/Authors I’m Thankful For

It’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by the wonderful blog at The Broke and the Bookish!

This Week’s Topic is: Top Ten Books/Authors I’m Thankful For

MY TOP AUTHORS (AND THEIR BOOKS) THAT I’M THANKFUL FOR
(in no particular order)

1. J.K. ROWLING: Of course. Although I said in no particular order, I think Jo’s gotta be number one. Harry Potter has been not only enjoyable but prominent and important from childhood all the way to adulthood. Harry Potter was what brought me back around to enjoying the books that I read. I’ve watched the movies with my family, talked about Harry Potter with my friends. It’s a series that’s made an impact not only on me but on everyone I know. How’s that for serious?

2. MEG CABOT: Meg Cabot is another author that brought me back to reading. I gave up for a while because I was reading too many books for school that I just plain didn’t like. I borrowed the Heather Wells series from my sister and fell in love with Meg’s books! I still need to start The Princess Diaries (I will, I promise, Tee!!!) so I can’t wait to read even more awesome works from Meg!

3. STEPHANIE PERKINS and LAUREN MORRILL: I was way behind the times as far as Perkins books go so I read Anna and Lola back to back and LOVED them. I grouped Lauren Morrill with Stephanie Perkins because I just finished reading Meant To Be and realized that these are the kinds of books I want to write! After I had a NaNoWriMo breakdown (literally), I realized I was writing the entirely wrong story. I love reading dystopians so I tried to write one and it was so, so wrong. I didn’t have any idea where I was trying to take this story and no matter how long and hard I thought about it, I just wasn’t in love with any plot idea I tried to come up with. The bits and pieces that kept popping in my head was what I wanted to write but didn’t with with my dystopian idea and everything was very Morrill and Perkins-esque. I had a meltdown and an epiphany within the span of a few hours (it was quite the exhaustiing day) and I realized these are the two ladies that are inspiring me right now and that’s really where my writing should be headed.

4. LEIGH BARDUGO: In case you haven’t heard (psh!) Leigh wrote this awesome book called Shadow and Bone. First off, I loved the book. I’ve also been fortunate enough to meet Leigh twice at author signings and hear her speak about the book and she is just so much fun! She’s super nice and you can tell she just has a lot of fun with everything. She also takes the time to Tweet back and forth with all the readers which is something that I always appreciate! So thanks, Leigh, for being awesome! I’ll definitely say this is one of the times where meeting an author has made me enjoy their books so much more. Her personality really shines and makes me want to encourage everyone to read her books!

5. ANNA BANKS: Anna Banks is another perfect example of meeting an author and then loving their books even more! Anna is awesome and funny and she’s just a blast to talk with. She’s another author who Tweets with the readers and meeting her was a lot of fun too! I’ve read both of her books that have been published so far (Of Poseidon and Degrees of Wrong) and both are really great. Meeting Anna let me see her insights from when she was writing and a LOT of her sense of humor that’s clearly tied in throughout the books.

6. GAYLE FORMAN: I fell in with with If I Stay when I first read it a few months ago and then equally fell in love with Where She Went. I wasn’t really big on YA contemp so Gayle Forman really opened the door to that and I got to see how beautiful writing can be one of the best parts about a book and not just action and adventure.

7. JANET EVANOVICH: Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series is definitely one of my favorites. Her books have everything I love: romance, mystery, and comedy.

8. LOIS LOWRY: Thank you, Lois Lowry for writing The Giver. Not the series, just The Giver. This is another book that I’ve carried with me since childhood and started my thirst for dystopians.

9. LAURENS: I already mentioned Lauren Morrill and there’s also Lauren Oliver and Lauren DeStefano, all of whose books I fell in love with this year.

10. STEPHENIE MEYER: Yes, I like the Twilight books. My feelings about them may have changed a little here and there, but hell, I still love em and own them all. What I’m mostly thankful for is how much these books opened up young adult to the masses. I think a lot of people discovered so many new authors in the young adult genre once the Twilight door opened (myself included) and now I’m not embarrassed to shop for YA books like I once was (it was a grab and run situation).

So that’s my list! What are you thankful for this year?