Armchair BEA - Tuesday (Best of 2011)

Best of 2011

Today is supposed to be all about giveaways. Those are fun! However, I'm not hosting a giveaway just yet since I'm still pretty new at the whole blogging thing. I did hit 100 followers yesterday, which is amazing!!! So maybe I'll have one at 200 followers! Keep checking in to find out :o)

Anyway, my post will be all about the best of 2011 so far. It's still pretty early, but I am going to share with you the books I've rated 4 and 5 stars so far this year on Goodreads. I rarely give a book 5 stars. 5 stars are reserved for the likes of Jane Austen, Jodi Picoult, and and Cecelia Ahern. I have literally only given 5 stars to 14 books. EVER. I am pretty picky on what qualifies as a 5 star book. 4 stars is a little easier to earn. That doesn't mean I hand them out like they're free, though. I take rating books very seriously, because I want my recommendation to actually come from the heart. Hopefully fellow book bloggers can understand and appreciate this! :o) So here are my 4 and 5 star books for the year so far. I look forward to seeing how my list compares to yours, and you can let me know if you haven't read them and would now like to. Please click on the picture to see my review at Goodreads. And remember, they are in no particular order. Enjoy!

Four Stars

Five Stars

Yep. Just one! I've read some great stuff this year, but so far the winner is Jodi Picoult's Sing You Home. Hands down, this is the best novel I've read by her and the best one all year. The theme of this book is one near and dear to my heart. I am a big advocate for gay rights, and this book is centralized around just that. I listened to the audio book, and I loved all the voices. I appreciated very much that this novel is written in first-person, present tense (as you may have read in my tense post and POV post, I'm particular about these as well). It's also written from three different characters' perspectives. I enjoyed seeing these characters make decisions and evolve. They really became more like close friends telling me their stories. I felt like part of the process. I even exclaimed the same "WHAT!?" as a character did during the book at the same time! That was an amazing feeling, as small as it sounds. I was very connected and would recommend this book to anyone feeling like they want to dive into Picoult's work.

I do have a feeling, however, that Richelle Mead's Succubus Revealed might also get 5 stars. That series is AMAZING and I can't believe it's about to end. Anyone else completely looking forward to that one? Oh man.

I look forward to checking out everyone else's Best Of 2011 and the giveaway posts! I'm really loving this BEA thing, but I will also be posting my regularly scheduled features this week as well. Happy Tuesday everyone!!