Best of the Bunch & Challenge Updates - March 2014

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.

March 2014

I read so many amazing books this month!  I can't believe how many 4.5 and 5 star reviews I posted!

This month I reviewed the following:

• This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales | Review | Rating: 4.5/5
• The Star Thief by Jamie Grey | Review | Rating 4.5/5
• Saving Quinton by Jessica Sorenson | Review | Rating 5/5
• The Violet Hour by Whitney A Miller | Review | Rating 4/5

• Almost by Anne Eliot | Review | Rating 4.5/5
• Hopeless by Colleen Hoover | Review | Rating 5/5
• All of You by Christina Lee | Review | Rating 3.5/5
• Golden Stair by Jennifer Blackstream | Review | Rating 5/5

• Don't Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski | Review | Rating 3.5/5
• True North: Finding Home by Allie Juliette Mousseau | Review 5/5
• Angelfall by Susan Ee  | Review | Rating 4.5/5
• Severed Colours by Dawna Raver | Review | Rating: 3.5/5

• The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna | Review | Rating 3/5
• Before You Break by Christina Lee | Review | Rating 4/5
• The Romeo Club by Rebekah L. Purdy | Review | Rating 3/5
• The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay | Review | Rating: 5/5

• Obsession by Jennifer L. Armentrout | Review | Rating 4.5/5
• Alive by Megan D. Martin | Review | Rating 2.5/5

And my March 2014 Best of the Bunch winner is . . .

The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

This month was really tough to pick a winner.  I read SO many great books in March for some reason!!  But The Sea of Tranquility was just so amazing - it barely edged out some others.

Summary: I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk.

Former piano prodigy Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone learning about her past and to make the boy who took everything from her—her identity, her spirit, her will to live—pay.

Josh Bennett’s story is no secret: every person he loves has been taken from his life until, at seventeen years old, there is no one left. Now all he wants is be left alone and people allow it because when your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space.

Everyone except Nastya, the mysterious new girl at school who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. But the more he gets to know her, the more of an enigma she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he will ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding—or if he even wants to.

The Sea of Tranquility is a rich, intense, and brilliantly imagined story about a lonely boy, an emotionally fragile girl, and the miracle of second chances.

My Review

    

Runners Up:

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Now that you know what I read in March, here's how those books fit into the various challenges I've entered for 2014:

Hosted by: The Mad Reviewer

Goal: Mad Reviewer (104 books)

Read So Far: 37

Hosted by: Coffee Bean Bookshelf

Goal: 50 Books
Read So Far: 31

 

Hosted by: Ariel Avalon

Goal: 

Read So Far: 7

Hosted by: Read. Sleep. Repeat.

Goal: Gold (7-11 Series)

Read So Far: 0 (I don't think I've finished any series yet!)

Hosted by: Fiktshun and Phantasmic Reads

Goal: Adept (40+ books)

Read So Far: 29

Hosted by: Blog of Erised

Goal: Leader (19+ books)

Read So Far: 5

Hosted by: Bookish

Goal: Married With Children (50+ books)

Read So Far: 17

Hosted by: Falling for YA

Goal: Bronze (10 books) - though I might try for Silver (25 books)

Read So Far: 7