Best of the Bunch - October 2013

Best of the Bunch is a book blog hop hosted over at Always Lost in Stories on the last day of each month, where we can look back over the books we have read over this past month and give a Best of the Bunch award to our favorite book of that month.

October 2013

Wow!!  I read A LOT of books that I really enjoyed this month!!  Picking a Best of the Bunch is going to be even tougher than usual!

This month I reviewed the following books:

• Cold Steel by Kate Elliott | Review | Rating: 4/5
• Relativity by Cristin Bishara | Review | Rating 4/5
• Breaking Nova by Jessica Sorenson | Review | Rating 5/5
• Sleepless by Tracey Ward | Review | Rating 4.5/5

   

• Iron Crowned by Richelle Mead | Review | Rating 3.5/5
• More by T.M. Franklin | Review | Rating 4/5
• The Curse Giver by Dora Machado | Review | Rating 4/5
• The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau | Review | Rating 4/5

• The Iron Traitor by Julie Kagawa | Review | Rating 4/5
• The Long Game by J.L. Fynn  | Review | Rating 4.5/5
• After the Ending by Lindsey Fairleigh & Lindsey Pogue | Review | Rating: 3/5
• Unmaking Hunter Kennedy by Anne Eliot | Review | Rating 4/5

• Switch by Janelle Stalder | Review | Rating 4.5/5
• Divergent by Veronica Roth | Review | Rating 5/5
• Insurgent by Veronica Roth | Review | Rating: 4.5/5
• Starstruck by Brenda Hiatt | Review | Rating 4/5

• Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma | Review | Rating 5/5
• Allegiant by Veronica Roth | Review | Rating 4.5/5
• Just Ella by Annette K. Larsen | Review | Rating: 4.5/5
• The Island by Jen Minkman | Review | Rating 4/5

And my October 2013 Best of the Bunch winner is . . .

Divergent by Veronica Roth  &  Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

I just couldn't decide this month, so I had to call it a tie between Divergent and Forbidden.  I absolutely loved both of these books!  Divergent thrilled me and Forbidden wrecked me.  I won't be forgetting either of these books any time soon.

Divergent Summary: In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, Tris also learns that her secret might help her save the ones she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

My Review

  

Forbidden Summary: She is pretty and talented - sweet sixteen and never been kissed. He is seventeen; gorgeous and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But... they are brother and sister.

Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives—and the way they understand each other so completely—has also also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.

My Review

  

So, what was your best October read?