Hi all!
I was watching a YouTube video on Aprilius Maximus’ channel, ‘The April and Britney Challenge’, where April and her best friend Britney (also a BookTuber) challenge each other to read a set amount of books throughout the year which the other person has assigned them. The premise of this is to get your best friend to read some books which you adored or had strong opinions on, but they are not keen on reading. I asked my best friend Georgie if we could do our own version for 2015, and she has agreed, so I am going to post our lists of the 12 books we have challenged each other to read. Some of these we chose for each other as they are our favourites, some as they are bandwagons we think the other should jump on, and some are books that we have mixed feelings on (or in Georgie’s final case, hated) and we want to discuss it together. I’ve been particularly cruel with some of my choices, whereas Georgie’s choices are actually rather nice for me.
As some of you have seen, Georgie and I are intending to start our own YouTube channel for book reviews, and when we get around to our first batch of filming (this weekend hopefully) this video will be one of the first we do.
So here’s the lists!
Emma’s List for Georgie
1. ‘I Am Number Four’ by Pittacus Lore – This book has been one of my favourites for a long time: when it came out I wasn’t reading regularly, however I read this book within a few weeks of its release and I absolutely adored it. I hold very fond memories of this book and I want Georgie to understand why I love it. Also, she has seen the film and liked it, and also has this book on iBooks, so she has no excuse really.
2. ‘Keeper of the Lost Cities’ by Shannon Messenger – I only read this book yesterday myself, but as my best friend and I are united in our love for middle grade series such as ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Percy Jackson’, I wanted to pick a middle grade book which I loved and get her to read it.
3. ‘Blackbringer’ by Laini Taylor – Georgie and I are both fans of Julie Kagawa’s ‘The Iron King’, and while I adored that faerie book, I think that this one is better. Georgie is yet to read any Laini Taylor, and I am fast becoming a Laini Taylor fan, so I wanted her to have an experience of Laini’s writing, and where better to start than Laini’s first book and my particular favourite?
4. ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ by Mark Haddon – My favourite book of 2014, this is one which means a great deal to me, and Georgie knows it. I feel that she would understand exactly why I love it so much if she read it herself.
5. ‘An Abundance of Katherines’ by John Green – Georgie has never read a John Green book. Never. She insists that she hates ‘The Fault in our Stars’ (even though I think that she didn’t mind the movie!) so I wanted to introduce her to read John Green through another one of his books. Not only does this one seem like more her thing, what with maths running through it, but she actually already owns this, so I’m just pushing her towards cutting her TBR pile really…
6. ‘The Hobbit’ by J.R.R. Tolkien – This one was absolutely evil on my part. In my friendship group, we constantly have a war over what is better, ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘The Hobbit’. As a huge fan of both, I take a step back while the boys argue ‘The Hobbit’ and Georgie is adamant towards ‘Harry Potter’. What I find hilarious is when she insults ‘The Hobbit’ when she has never read a Tolkien. I feel that she has to read it so that, even if she hates it, she can actually use an accurate judgement when insulting it in our little fandom war situations. I told her that if she hadn’t read it by December, I may allow her to read my graphic novel and count it as half.
7. ‘White Cat’ by Holly Black – Georgie loves Holly Black as a person, but has actually never read any of her books (she has started ‘The Iron Trial’, but has not finished it). She has been saying for ages that she needed to read some of her books, so I chose my personal favourite Holly Black (with the exception of ‘The Iron Trial’) to give her a shove in the right direction.
8. ‘The 100’ by Kass Morgan – Georgie has started this one, but has not finished it! I love this series, and I want her to have experienced it before book three, ‘Homecoming’, is released in a couple of months. Also, Georgie does not read much sci-fi/fantasy, hence why this (and many other books of these two genres) are on this list.
9. ‘The Way We Fall’ by Megan Crewe – I am very fond of this Canadian dystopian/end-of-the-world series, but not many people have read it. In fact, I know no one who has, and I have not seen anyone mention it on YouTube. I just want her to read it so that someone I know can talk about it with me!
10. ‘Under the Never Sky’ by Veronica Rossi – I have just finished this trilogy, and while I was not all too keen on book one, this is a series which just gets better and better. By the end of the trilogy, I absolutely adored it, and I’m hoping that Georgie gets into it like I did, so that we can discuss this series together.
11. ‘The 5th Wave’ by Rick Yancey – This is the pick which Georgie says she is most excited for. I was reluctant to read it, but when I did for my TBR jar challenge, I loved it so much more than I was expecting to. As I am yet to read the second book, she can still catch up with me on this one, and I know that there is a film in the pipeline which we would probably go to see together, so she has to read it before then.
12. ‘Warm Bodies’ by Isaac Marion – This is the only book I chose that I did not really like. This book left me very confused: I liked bits of it and really hated other bits. Way before I read it, Georgie and I watched the film together, and could not stop laughing at how bad it was. I had a free copy of this and so decided one day to read it, but I went into it determined to hate it. I want to know if the reason I cannot decide whether I liked it or not is because this is a genuinely ‘meh’ book, or if I let my assumptions regarding the film cloud my opinions. Maybe Georgie’s views will help me decipher this.
Georgie’s List for Emma
1. ‘Broken Soup’ by Jenny Valentine – This is Georgie’s all-time favourite contemporary. I am not the biggest contemporary fan in the world, but Georgie insists that I have to read her favourite, so I will give this one a shot very soon.
2. ‘At the Sign of the Sugared Plum’ by Mary Hooper – This is historical fiction, and I do not read a great deal of historical fiction, so Georgie has chosen one or two of her favourite historical fiction books that I have not read to force me into reading more of it.
3. ‘Blood Ties’ by Sophie McKenzie – I have actually read this book before, albeit a very long time ago, so I cannot remember anything about it. It is one of Georgie’s favourites (and Sophie McKenzie is one of her favourite authors) so I have promised to reread this one so that I can talk to her about it.
4. ‘Blood Ransom’ by Sophie McKenzie – The second half of the ‘Blood Ties’ duology, I did not read this book previously as I did with ‘Blood Ties’, so this will be a new Sophie McKenzie read for me.
5. ‘Girl, Missing’ by Sophie McKenzie – As with ‘Blood Ties’, I have read this before, albeit so long ago that I cannot recall it properly. I am therefore going back to this book too to satisfy Georgie.
6. ‘The Selection’ by Kiera Cass – This series is very popular, and yet it is one that I have not yet been tempted to pick up, as it just seems a little too girly for my liking. However, Georgie loved it and mentions America, Maxon and Aspen a lot, so I should probably get in the loop, so I’ll read this one willingly.
7. ‘Dreamland’ by Sarah Dessen – Georgie reads a lot of Sarah Dessen, and this is the one which I have had my eye on for ages. It is also coincidentally her least favourite Sarah Dessen, but it sounds more ‘my thing’ than the other Sarah Dessen books, which Georgie took into consideration when choosing one.
8. ‘Heist Society’ by Ally Carter – I really did not like the first book in Carter’s ‘Gallagher Girls’ series, ‘I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You’. Georgie, of course, loved it (she seems to love everything I do not). She is therefore forcing me into starting Carter’s other series, ‘Heist Society’, which is apparently more ‘my thing’.
9. ‘I Was Jane Austen’s Best Friend’ by Cora Harrison – This is the one I am looking forward to the least. I am not really interested in it, but since it has been Georgie’s favourite since she was 12, I feel like I have to read it sooner rather than later.
10. ‘Prodigy’ by Marie Lu – I read ‘Legend’ in August , and while I did like it, and I gave it a high rating, I was in no hurry to read the sequel. Georgie has since read books one and two, and wants me to play catch up so that we can read ‘Champion’ at the same time.
11. ‘Scarlet’ by Marissa Meyer – I have read ‘Cinder’, and as with ‘Legend’, it was okay (I liked ‘Cinder’ less than ‘Legend’) but I had no intention of continuing on with the series before Lucy dictated that I did so. It is one of her favourites and she wants me to read this one so that we can discuss Scarlet and Wolf, the new characters in this book.
12. ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ by Jenny Han – This is an incredibly popular contemporary book, and it is one which everyone loves… except for Georgie. She says that this book is really rather poor, and so wants my opinion.
There is a big disparity in genres here: Georgie has nominated many historical and contemporary books for me as I do not read many of those, whereas I have selected mainly sci-fi and fantasy, as Georgie doesn’t often read those kinds of books. We are aiming to get each other to finish these particular 12 as they are books that we would not get around to in 2015 otherwise.
Are you and a friend doing anything similar? If so, tell me in the comments! If not, maybe you should give it a go!
Emma (and Georgie) 🙂
Twitter – @emmathereader
Tumblr – www.snapeisourprince.tumblr.com
Goodreads – www.goodreads.com/snapeisourprince
Mine & Georgie’s Channel – www.youtube.com/channel/UCvd88ouo8LYNAAocJAJViAA
Mine & Georgie’s Combined Twitter – @snape_is_prince
emdoesbookreviews 
What a fun idea!
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