2016 End of Year Survey

Well, fellow book lovers, the year is finally coming to a close, and with that comes The Perpetual Page-Turner's annual End of Year Survey, which I have decided to join this year. I particularly love how many different questions are present in this survey, though I would like to warn you that I won't be doing all of the questions because, well, some I didn't have a strong answer for. Also, I will try not to have too many repetitious answers, but... I'm sorry if I repeat some titles a lot.

Number Of Books I Read: 121

Number of Re-Reads: 0 (I'm not a huge re-reader, but this year apparently I didn't do it at all...)

Genre I Read The Most From: Fantasy

1. Best Book You Read In 2016?

Picking only one book is a huge 'nope, impossible' for me, so I'm just going to list a few of the best ones I read this year...

The Girl With Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee (Review)

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber (Review)

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas (Review)

Stoner by John Williams

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff (Review)
Scythe by Neal Shusterman (Review)

Heartless by Marissa Meyer (Review)

2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t? 

• Wildwood by Colin Meloy — I thought this would be another wonderful middle grade fantasy read, but unfortunately all it seemed to do was drag on and on with a plot that just didn't grab me.

 3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read?  

• Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey — Surprising in a fantastic way!
• Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard — Another good surprise.

 4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did)?

• Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo — Mainly because I got my mom to read this duology. I feel accomplished.

 5. Best series you started in 2016? Best Sequel of 2016? Best Series Ender of 2016?

• Best series started: Shades of Magic by V. E. Schwab                             
                               Nevernight by Jay Kristoff
• Best Sequel: A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas                    
                     Crooked Kingdom by Leight Bardugo
• Best Ender: The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma by Trenton Lee Stewart

6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2016?

• Michel Faber. Such a gorgeous writer, I can't get enough of his work.

7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?

• And the Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtagich — Horror is not something I generally read much of, so I was very pleaed with this one!
• Illuminae by Jay Kristoff — I'm not huge on space settings, but this was amazing!

 8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?

•  A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas, and
• Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas

9. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2016?

Ithaca by Patrick Dillon (Review)

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll (Review)

Heartless by Marissa Meyer 

The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart (Review)

A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab (Review)

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

10. Most memorable character of 2016?

• Lila Bard from A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. Schwab
• Mary Boleyn from The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
• Rhysand from A Court of Mist and Fury Sarah J. Maas
• Kaz/Jesper from Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

11. Most beautifully written book read in 2016?

• The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
• Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
• Stoner by John Williams
• Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

12. Most Thought-Provoking Book of 2016?

• Scythe by Neal Shusterman

 13. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2016 to finally read? 

• Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson
• The Kiss of Deception by Mary Pearson
• Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey

 14. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2016?
How do I pick just one!? This year I actually started marking and typing up some of my favorite quotes from books, so this question actually opens a whole enormous slew of quotes. To save you the time, I decided to go with only two from one particularly lovely book called The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee:

“In this world, some time long ago, far past anyone’s remembering, women as a kind had something so terrible, so awful, so fantastically cruel that they and their daughters and their daughters’ daughters were forever beyond forgiveness until the end of time - unforgiven, distrusted, enslaved, made to suffer for the least offenses committed against any man. What was remembered were the terms of our survival as a class: We were to be docile, beautiful, uncomplaining, pure, and failing that, at the least useful. In return, we might be allowed something like a long life. But if we were not any of these things, by a man’s reckoning, or if perchance we violated their sense of that pact, we would have no protection whatsoever and were to be treated worse than any wild dog or lame horse” (538).

“It was such a hard thing, this virtue, it seemed to me. Keeping it was like having to grip the knife by the blade and defend yourself with the hilt.  Ever since I’d been old enough to know about Virtue in a woman, it had seemed like a bull’s-eye painted on my head in rouge. I was sure, as I was led away, I would be better off without it. It was better to be done with it and be gone” (99).

15. Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2016?

• Shortest -  Seven Brief lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli, 96 pages
• Longest - War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, 1273 pages

16. Book That Shocked You The Most

•   Consequence by Eric Fair

17. Favorite Book You Read in 2016 From An Author You’ve Read Previously

• Haruki Murakami: Dance Dance Dance and Colorless Tsukuru and his Years of Pilgrimage (I am a huge Murakami fan)

18. Best Book You Read In 2016 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure:

• Kiss of Deception by Mary Pearson — So many book blogging people everywhere encouraged this one, I had to give it a shot!

19. Best 2016 debut you read?

• A Shadow Bright and Burning by Jessica Cluess
• The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye
• The Adventurer's Guide to Successful Escapes by Wade Albert White

20. Best Worldbuilding/Most Vivid Setting You Read This Year?

• Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey
•  The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente
• Lord of the Silver Bow by David Gemmel
• The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski

21. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read?

• Heartless by Marissa Meyer
• The Adventurer's Guide to Successful Escapes by Wade Albert White

22. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2016?

• Pit Bull by Bronwen Dickey — This might seem an odd choice, but reading about how many animals are wrongly treated and stereotyped tugged at my heart so much while reading this book. 

23. Hidden Gem of the Year?

• Kings or Pawns by J. J. Sherwood!

24. Book That Crushed Your Soul?

• The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee
• Heartless by Marissa Meyer
• Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

25. Most Unique Book You Read In 2016?

• Under  the Skin by Michel Faber

1. One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2015 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2017?

• Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erickson (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #1)

2. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2017 (non-debut)?

• A Conjuring of Light by V. E Schwab
•  Nevernight #2 by Jay Kristoff
• Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
• The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova
• Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
• Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

3. 2017 Debut You Are Most Anticipating?

• City of Saints and Thieves by Natalie C. Anderson

4. One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading/Blogging Life In 2017?
I would personally like to be a bit more active and schedule a much wider variety of posts, ranging from lists, recommendations, discussions, and much more!

5. A 2017 Release You’ve Already Read & Recommend To Everyone:

• Gilded Cage Vic James

See any books you liked or wanted to read? What does your bookish year of 2016 look like?

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