Best Books of 2017.

I'm a little late in making this post BUT I still wanted to give it a go because I've read some incredible books this year, and I wanted to put in my recs for everyone. This is just what I've read this year, not ones only published this year. Some were, some have been published a while ago! It's that time of year where us book bloggers have to narrow down the best books we've read and try to (and fail) to calmly explain why we liked them!

Sooooo~

A CONJURING OF LIGHT - V.E Schwab

- Fantasy YA
- Last book of the main trilogy!
- Explosive!
- MAGICIANS
- Badass females who fight dirty and for what they want.
- Two words: Lila. Bard.
- Bisexual prince and captain who have so much sexual tension throughout the series.
- Apparently we're getting spin-off books!
- Alternate Londons!
- Amazing taunting characters who secretly love each other

A COURT OF WINGS AND RUIN - Sarah J. Maas

- Fantasy YA/Borderline Adult (I think)
- Again, last of it's trilogy
- But novellas to come next year!
- Writing style is basically a DREAM.
- Please read just for tiny, fierce Amren.
- Actual squad goals in this series - The Night Court cannot be beaten.
- Seasonal courts!
- Feyre becoming badass and having an amazing character ARC.
- *CONTAINS A LOT OF SMUT THROUGHOUT THE THREE BOOKS, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED*
- (Some) diversity; could definitely be better though.
- Stabbing hearts, tearing through flesh, SJM writes violence so well.

A QUIET KIND OF THUNDER - Sara Barnard

- Beautiful Contemporary YA.
- So soft
- Male MC is deaf; female MC suffers with anxiety
- Mental health at it's most raw
- Beautiful friendship
- Trying, trying, trying.
- Steffi is so inspirational, I love her.
- Shows relationships at it's most new and awkward point
- The author doesn't hold back in how real life is and that's why I adore her.

CARAVAL - Stephanie Garber

- First of it's series!
- THANK GOD LEGEND IS OUT NEXT YEAR.
- Beautiful writing. If you truly want escapism, read this book!
- THE NIGHT CIRCUS meets ALICE IN WONDERLAND (for me, anyway)
- Incredible, mysterious villain
- SO MANY PLOT TWISTS
- I have so much love for this book
- Sister bond, sisters looking out for each other (Well, one does, at least)
- MAGIC. MAGIC. MAGIC.
- High stakes, high tension, nicely-paced
- Every chapter has something new to fall in love with.

HISTORY IS ALL YOU LEFT ME - Adam Silvera

- Contemporary YA.
- Openly gay characters
- So much grieving
- All hope is lost before it's found
- If you want to cry and have your heart torn apart and stitched slowly back together, read this!
- Has flashbacks to the past and it's so soft and beautiful and awkwardly lovely at the same time.
- Hint of a love triangle?? I think?? I'm actually not too sure if it can be classed as that

HOLDING UP THE UNIVERSE - Jennifer Niven

- Contemporary YA
- Just like ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES, this book will tear out your heart.
- Inspiring, empowering, beautiful
- Chubby protagonist being the amazing person she is.
- Will not take no for an answer, dances like nobody's watching when everyone is.
- Misunderstood male protagonist
- Anxiety is fought
- Standing up for oneself (Female protagonist literally punches the male when he's being a d*** and he stands up for her too because he can admit he was disgustingly wrong)

MY HEART AND OTHER BLACK HOLES - Jasmine Warga

- This book saved my life
- Beautiful, inspires hope and determination to go on
- Suicidal theme
- About finding reasons to live when you want to die
- Jasmine Warga writes so literally but so amazingly
- Contemporary YA.
- So much pent-up anger and guilt and blame
- Inspired me so much

REBEL OF THE SANDS - Alwyn Hamilton

- Desert fantasy setting!
- Badass Amani
- GIRLS WITH GUNS - NO MORE IS NEEDED
- Incredible dynamic between characters
- Rebellion against royalty is my favourite trope
- Has a stunning sequel out now and the third book is out early 2018!
- Alllll the magic, of all sorts.

THE CROWN'S GAME - Evelyn Skye

- I like my fantasy books HEAPED with magic and this does not disappoint
- Rogue characters
- Alternate Russia!
- Soft Pasha
- Seriously, I love Pasha
- Tailoring magic!
- Vika is a beautiful person, please love her.
- Amazing secondary characters
- MAGIC COMPETITION, DEATH, VIOLENCE.
- Enemies-to-lovers, basically.
- IS A DUOLOGY, THE CROWN'S FATE IS ALREADY OUT!
- The ending is soul-destroying so you will want that next book.

THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR - Nicola Yoon

- Probably the best Contemporary YA I've ever read
- I read this eight months ago and I'm still not over it
- Diversity!
- So much!
- South Korean male protagonist who is super quirky and loves poetry; cynical, Jamaican female protagonist who is a realist I can get behind
- Clash of beliefs and passion
- Love experiements!
- All told on the ONE DAY.
- Perfect, beautiful writing
- Has so much cultural history in it!
- Chapters for side characters so we can actually understand who everything ties in together.

TOWER OF DAWN - Sarah J. Maas

- THRONE OF GLASS SERIES AS A WHOLE

- Unleashed magic

- Magic training

- Sassy, burdened, sacrificial protagonist

- Identity crisises

- SHAPE-SHIFTERS

- Fae

- Assassins

- Dark magic

- Pure magic

- Dorian Havilliard

- WITCHES.

WHEN DIMPLE MET RISHI - Sandhya Menon

- The soft, Indian romance you've been waiting for

- Cutest book EVER.

- Nerdy, quirky Dimple and soft, traditional Rishi!

- Indian culture!

- Summer camp setting

- Tech interest!

- Please read this book; it's a masterpiece.

WING JONES - Katherine Webber

- Another of my favourite debuts this year!
- Diversity!
- What you need.
- If you're feeling lost or a bit underappreciated, read this and know there's always something more inside of you
- Running females
- Track team
- Younger protagonist Wing is amazing
- Family angst
- Amazing Grandmas who literally rule.

All About Querying.

As I'm currently in a bad loop of building myself back up with my confidence with writing, I thought I'd write a post about the very thing that knocked me, that knocks a lot of other new, fearful, hopeful writers: querying. Those dreadful, daunting eight letters that strike fear into even the coldest of hearts in writers. We may kill our softest characters, play with readers' emotions, battle winds and ice through magic, and create literal worlds, but querying. Now, that's a DIFFERENT story.

So you write a draft. You perhaps send it to a beta-reader that you trust to see it in it's bad glory (that's how I prefer to process, anyway, so I can begin to compile an "Edit List"). You edit and edit; your voice gets hoarse from the many read-aloud sessions you do. But eventually you have a (hopefully) shiny draft which may not be as shiny as you want but it's still considered ready. Now the work starts, some would argue. Not only do you have to compose a delicate, informative but not overloading query letter, but you also have to go back to polishing some sample pages. And think again if you think you can use the same material for each agent. Nope. It has to be tailored; it has to be exact to them, even down to a simple thing of agents wanting to see a longer or shorter sample. Some even only want five pages--that is a challenge in itself. Whilst polishing, whilst writing that letter, whilst working out what your story is actually about in your synopsis, you then begin the thought process of, "But is this good enough?" "Is my story good enough to hook this amazing agent in only five pages?" You comb through your sample material, knowing you've read it seven times but you still find a "so" instead of "do" somewhere in there, or a silly spelling mistake.

Take it from my experience, in which I've actually queried agents whilst having seasonal continuity errors in my sample, and very detailed ones! Also sent whilst a line said "she crossed her eyes" instead of arms when there was major sexual tension building. That mistake just zapped the whole atmosphere, lemme tell you.

So you do all that. You get critique partners to read both your manuscript and sample material, right? If you don't have one, I suggest looking for one via a simple Google search for forums and websites. They're so, so helpful! You compose your query beautifully and attach or copy and paste into emails, as needed. You smile to yourself, breathe a sigh of relief as you click send. Think it's over? Nope. Now begins the horrid lapse of waiting. For me, this time includes second-guessing my work; it includes getting as far from that project as possible so I'm not tempted to scrap and rewrite the entire thing on empty doubts. Realistically, I know my story is good but is it enough for these people who may as well be gods to us lowly human writers for all the faith and need we put into them? Like, these people are the kick-starters to careers for becoming an author traditionally. We need them, and so the desperation to find the one that says, "Yes! I LOVE this! Can I see the full manuscript?" to then go on to accept your whole thing, is MASSIVE.

And after allllll that, all the mental strain and work and effort you've put in, you get a lovely rejection email. I'll admit I've never had a rude or blunt one. It's always been a nice message but at the end of the day, they're still turning down your work and that hurts. Comfort is somewhat found in the whole, "You just need to wait for the right one. You want one that feels so strongly for your story" but at the end of the day, you can't escape the "oh god, my story wasn't good enough for these ten agents, at least."

I'm in that part now. I'm querying via events like Pit Mad and SFFPit, and even those agents who were interested at the pitch stage don't want the full thing. I had an agent interested in my SFFPit pitch, so I queried them riding on hope and delight, but they didn't fall in love with it as much as they'd hoped. I'm disheartened because I wasn't told what was missing for them. It may be missing for others but I am so in love with this story myself that I can't see it clearly. I can't ask what was wrong. I have to graciously accept the rejection, and move on. But right now, I can't even look at that story. Every time I do, the story I have adored writing is crumbling around me, wondering why it wasn't good enough. I know it was just one agent but it's the why that gets me. I always want to know why it wasn't good enough, what I can do to improve it for my future querying tries. After that rejection, I got another one five minutes later and that was a massive double-hit to my confidence. I've pulled back on any projects for now, until I have the confidence to return maybe in the New Year. Most may argue this is bad behavior but I get disheartened easily; I've never been an open writer in the sense that I share a lot of things from the actual thing with people directly. I draw into myself. I can accept criticism, of course, but two rejections in such a short time, especially when one came from someone liking my pitch of their own accord, was hard and I can't write anything new or fix things just yet.

Querying is terrifying. Non-writers don't really seem to grasp how intense it is; how much we have to put in to give it to someone else to consider offering representation for it. So, here are some tips. I don't know what works with queries but this is just standard, because there are so many conflicting reports on what to include in queries:

• Always read their guidelines. Font size, type, and page size. Do they want it in the email of the body or as attachments? - This is so important. If they're attached when specified otherwise, some agents state that they go straight into the bin.
• If they don't have instructions, email them if you're unsure (I've done that! They're usually fine with inquiries like that). If they don't have font specifications, just assume it's 12 for size, and double-spaced. It looks easier to read that way.
• Read, read, and read over your sample again. Even your letter and synopsis need to be professional and without mistakes. Read it aloud to family or friends to see if it sounds intriguing enough, or if it sounds too wordy.
• Read again - note things like setting, the time it's set in, the season it starts in, the time progression of your sample.
• Sometimes it's hard to know whether your first chapters are good enough to hook. Just think: if you read this as a reader with a massive TBR pile, would you continue? If not, find out why and get fixing.
• Start with the hook in your query letter. That's the biggest advice I've ever had.
• Include some themes, and definitely the title, in an ending paragraph after the story has loosely been told. Usually, the word count goes in there too.
• Writing credits are only usually desired if they relate to your project. I've learnt the hard way that they don't care if I won some writing competition last year simply because it's not relevant to the story I'm telling.
• Don't say your book is the new Throne of Glass unless you're trying to pitch it on an event on Twitter, or elsewhere, and getting across the feel. But in a query letter, your story is your own.
• Thank them for their consideration. End the letter politely.
• Your synopsis is a simple (hah!) timeline of your story; that's it. It's just a bit more detailed, and some agents specify the length they want it to be, either one or two pages. I suggest looking on Writers' Digest for tips on a synopsis, or on Marissa Meyer's blog, where she wrote a good article about writing a synopsis!
• Cry, get chocolate, load yourself with coffee. Do whatever you need to do to get through this process, and good luck!

If you want to see me go through my own writing/querying journey about (Disney) Assassins (not Princesses, okay? That's the point of the story) follow me on Twitter: @ShaneDReid!

Diversity (Part One)

In YA, diversity is stepping into the spotlight, and it's wonderful. Instantly, books like WING JONES, THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR, A QUIET KIND OF THUNDER, SHADES OF MAGIC (series) come to mind, all for different reasons.

A lot of people think that diversity only means cultural, that inputting a random character of a different race makes their book diverse. (If you're going to have a POC, don't just put them in the background where they have one line or only show for two chapters just to say you have diversity in your book.) But it's not just having POC in their work. It's having LGBTQ (honestly there's so many letters on that phrase now so I'm sorry if I missed any out, please correct me) characters, it's exploring asexuality because there's barely any representation of that. For me, A QUIET KIND OF THUNDER, was the first contemporary YA where the two protagonists were diverse. Rhys was deaf; Steffie dealt with severe anxiety and was a selective mute. As someone who can identify with deafness and anxiety, that was important. It wasn't just a side character with these issues; they took the story in their hands and owned it.

As a reader, I've noticed that diversity is more embraced in contemporary YA in terms of same-sex couples. So reading Victoria Schwab's SHADES OF MAGIC series and seeing characters like Rhy and Alucard made me feel hope that a lot more fantasy writers will be inspired by that and embrace wider sexuality in their books. I think that a lot of people think that only diverse authors can write diverse stories, because they know first-hand. It helps, I'm sure, but with that logic, there would only be a lot of white characters and stories, which would get boring and ignorant. Not all books need to feature blond haired, blue-eyed females, and ripped, white males with over-described beautiful hair. Many more diverse authors themselves are being embraced in the author world--and not just culturally--and Twitter events like DVPIT get to bring that to light. For me, one of the best books I read this year was WHEN DIMPLE MET RISHI, written by Sandhya Menon, and I was asked why I wanted to read a book that was about Indian characters and their culture, when I'm from the UK and I'm white.

Here's the simple answer: because I'm not closed-minded, and I'm not ignorant when, embarrassingly, too many white people are. Because I want to see and learn about other cultures, and I want that to be embraced widely not only in fiction but in general. I got told that diversity should be earned, like it's not just a humane thing. But we live in this world that's so hell-bent on disliking anything different and it's such a destructive, hateful to live. So little by little, I like to think at least the world of YA can start inspiring a change in looking at the world and becoming equals, no matter what colour a person is or whether someone likes men or women, or whether they identify with one gender or another, or none at all.

Too many people are more focused on being closed-minded rather than appreciating the opportunities diversity brings. Some people would rather ignore a book because the main character is  a POC than think about the writing inside, than think about the amazing exposure this brings so many people that have been waiting for their chance to have characters they can relate to.

Where are all the books about shy teens discovering their sexuality in high school where everything is scary and awkward, needing help or support to lead the way by example? Sometimes fiction is self-help; sometimes it's a teacher that people seek out not just for enjoyment. Sometimes, it's a comfort when readers are scared and they need a book to help them, to advise when nobody else will. Even down to mental health, some new writers are scared to include it to the extent most mental health issues are, because too many people sneer at the imperfection of it, "why would you want to read things like that? Don't you want happy stories?" (What, so people with mental health issues can never feel a sliver of happiness? Okay, whatever.) Yet this should be embraced because it's human. Too many people mentally suffer to not have relatable characters in books, too many people are beautifully different to go without representation.