My Ten Most Read Authors

I mentioned in my post the other day about authors I want to read more of, that I’d be doing this post. I’m talking about my most read authors today. In fact, I’m updating you on my most read authors. I did a post on this last July, and I thought today would be a good time to redo it.

I’m doing it a little differently this year. I’m only focusing on my top 10 most read authors, rather than listing all of them. Some of these haven’t really changed, but others have…let’s move on anyway.

Firstly, drawn for number 10/9 are Rick Riordan and Maggie Stiefvater with seven books. I’m sure most of you understand their amazingness. My favourite Riordan so far is Son of Neptune, and my favourite Stiefvater is The Dream Thieves. I haven’t finished either series so no spoilers please!

Next, we have James Patterson with eight books. As I mentioned in the last post, I’m not a fan of James Patterson anymore. In fact, I really dislike him so he’s never going to go up on this list.

With nine books each we have Maureen Johnson and Cassandra Clare. Like Patterson, I’m no longer a fan of Cassandra Clare but I absolutely adore everything that Maureen Johnson touches. I’m working on reading every single one of her books. I think my favourite MJ is The Madness Underneath because FEELS.

With ten books, there’s two of my favourite childhood authors—Jacqueline Wilson and J.K Rowling. I loved HP obviously, but I couldn’t pick a favourite between Prisoner of Azkaban and Deathly Hallows. I can’t even remember my favourite Jacqueline Wilson.

Now onto the top three! With eleven books there is the wonderful Richelle Mead. I’m not sure if I could pick a favourite because I loved the entire Vampire Academy series. I’m also very very excited for Soundless.

Number two…why, it’s Agatha Christie of course! I’ve read 12 Christie’s so far and the only reason I haven’t read more is because I’m scared of a world where I have no new Christie to experience.

My number one should surprise no one. It’s Lemony Snicket! Snicket is kind of my bae and he will always hold this incredibly special place in my heart that no writer will ever replace. I’ve read 15 of his books and I will read anything he puts out under this name.

Book Shame #5

Book Shame is a monthly post here on A Book So Fathomless where I pick out four books from my TBR jar, talk about them and then challenge myself to read them before the next post.

I know this is a little early in the month, but I’ve already finished my four books from last month so I figured there was no point waiting.

I liked Who Could That Be At This Hour by Lemony Snicket, and you can see my review here. Unfortunately, I didn’t love Charlotte Gray or Castle Dor as much as I’d hoped. I didn’t techanically read The White Queen but I was doing research on the series and everyone recommends starting with The Lady of the Rivers (which I already own) so I’m going to start that this weekend.

I picked out four really great books for April. I really love that I don’t tend to pick YA novels out of my TBR jar, which means I pick up things that I might not otherwise read for months.

The Mirror Crack’d Side to Side by Agatha Christie

I’m trying to read 12 Agatha books this year and so far I’ve only read one, so I’m happy to have picked this one out. This is one of her books that I know literally nothing about.

The Keys to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson

I love me some Maureen Johnson. Seriously, I adore everything I’ve read by her. Again, no idea what this is about.

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

It’s been a while since I’ve read any Orwell, but this is probably the book of his that I am most excited for. Also, I’ll be visiting Paris and London in a few months so this should be a really interesting read.

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

I’m not even going to try and pretend that this isn’t the book I’m most excited for. This a re-read for me as I went through a massive Nancy Drew stage when I was younger. I’m so excited to return to one of my favourite characters.

I’m genuinely excited for all of these. They are all reasonably short books so hopefully I can get through them quite quickly.

REVIEW: Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson

Title: Scarlett Fever (Scarlett #2)

Author: Maureen Johnson

Publication Date: Febuary 1^st 2011

Publisher: Point

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 332

Rating: 4/5
Blurb: From top-selling author Maureen Johnson comes the second book in the trilogy about a girl and her hotel.

Ever since Mrs. Amberson, the former-aspiring-actress-turned-agent, entered Scarlett Martin's life, nothing has been the same.

She's still in charge of the Empire Suite in her family's hotel, but she's now also Mrs. Amberson's assistant, running around town for her star client, Chelsea - a Broadway star Scarlett's age with a knack for making her feel insignificant.

Scarlett's also trying to juggle sophomore year classes, her lab partner who is being just a little TOO nice, and getting over the boy who broke her heart.

Review: Maureen Johnson is a goddess. No, really- she is like the goddess of funny contemporary young adult novels or something. She is just brilliant. Needless to say, I was really excited about getting the chance to read Scarlett Fever. I’d been looking for this book ever since I finished the first one- I literally checked every single library and bookshop that I could find until I finally managed to find this one. The first book in this trilogy, Suite Scarlett, was amazing and perhaps one of my absolute favourite contemporaries ever so you can just imagine how exciting a sequel would be.

Unfortunately, I was a little bit disappointed by this book. I still loved the majority of the returning characters- Spencer still remains as one of my favourites and I also really liked the addition of some of the news characters, mainly Max and Chelsea- I found both of them to be interesting in different ways and I’m looking forward to seeing where they go in the third book. I still enjoyed the plot of the book, I still find Scarlett ridiculously funny and I genuinely enjoy reading about everything that is happening to her. However, what bought this book down for me were a couple of things. One, I feel like the hotel and all the problems included with that from the first book were sort of put on the backburner a bit. While I didn’t want the entire book to be about those problems and nothing else, I felt like it deserved to be mentioned a few more times than it was- just to add to pressures put on the Martin family. Two, Eric. In the first book, I was all for Eric but by this one, I’ve become a bit sick of him. It actually annoyed me that Scarlett was so hung up about him when I would have been quite happy for him to fade out of Scarlett’s life for a little bit longer than he did. I know that Eric is an important character as it shows Scarlett’s growth as a character, but in a way I feel protective of Scarlett and I can only hope that she doesn’t end up with him in the next book!

Originally, I had rated this book as three out of five but as I wrote this review, I realised how much I actually enjoyed this book which made me bump it up to a four star review. Now, all I can do is sit around and wait for the third and final book to be released, something tells me that it is going to be amazing.

REVIEW: The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

Title: The Name of the Star (Shades of London #1)

Author: Maureen Johnson

Publication Date: September 29^th 2011

Publisher: Harper Collins

Format: Paperback

Pages: 372

Rating: 4/5
Blurb: The day Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London marks a memorable occasion. For Rory, it's the start of a new life at a London boarding school. But for many, this will be remembered as the day a series of brutal murders broke out across the city, gruesome crimes mimicking the horrific Jack the Ripper events of more than a century ago.

Soon “Rippermania” takes hold of modern-day London, and the police are left with few leads and no witnesses. Except one. Rory spotted the man police believe to be the prime suspect. But she is the only one who saw him. Even her roommate, who was walking with her at the time, didn't notice the mysterious man. So why can only Rory see him? And more urgently, why has Rory become his next target? In this edge-of-your-seat thriller, full of suspense, humour, and romance, Rory will learn the truth about the secret ghost police of London and discover her own shocking abilities.

Review: Before I review this book, I should let you know that I’m really not a big fan of scary-horror-thriller type novels though I would consider myself a bit of a Maureen Johnson-novel-worshipper. So it kind of surprised (and excited) me that I ended up enjoying this novel as much as I did.

So let’s start with characters. As usual, Maureen Johnson has created an amazing main character in Rory Deveaux. She’s funny, a little bit awkward, a little odd at times, she’s a bookworm and she’s smart, and I can connect to her as a reader and of course, I wish that she was actually real. I loved Rory’s friends as well, Jazza, Boo, Jerome and the rest of them- even the one’s like Charlotte, who’s a little bit too bossy for anyone’s liking. I liked them all so much because I found them interesting but they were also real- some of them had even a little bit too much likeness to people I know...(Charlotte had a twin, right?). I even liked the Ripper, I know that sounds insane, but I loved how Maureen created the new ‘Ripper’ and the history of it and how it ties in with the actual Ripper (it’s hard to explain without completely spoiling who the Ripper is).

Now on the plot. I really enjoyed how Maureen set everything out, there wasn’t ever really a moment where things didn’t seem to fit right, at least not after everything was revealed in the end. The plot as a whole was amazing- the idea of the new Ripper who is recreating the original Jack the Ripper’s crimes in modern day London is just amazing. Like I mentioned before I’m not really a fan of the scary kind of novel (I consider Jack the Ripper to be scary, personally) but I found that I wasn’t really scared of anything within the novel- there were some parts that sent a few shivers up my spine but nothing I lost any sleep over.

World-time. Technically, Maureen didn’t really create a world as such for the novel but I really wanted to comment on all the local knowledge within the book, I’ve never been to London before (sadly) but I felt like I knew the streets and the places that Rory was going, just because Maureen described them so wonderfully.

The only thing I was slightly disappointed about in this book was the romance. After reading a couple of Maureen’s books, I was expecting that same kind of romance- maybe not as sweet and fluffy as her usual things, but I just wanted a little more romance in this one.

I would definitely recommend reading The Name of the Star, even if you aren’t usually a fan of this sort of thing, I’m sure that you’ll end up liking it! I can’t wait to get my hands on the second book as soon as possible!

You can buy The Name of the Star on The Book Depository (Free shipping worldwide): here