Top 5 books I read in 2016

Hello fellow readers. I will not make my Goodreads goal this year of 75 books. And I'm considering lowering the goal for next year as there are some projects I'd like to take on instead of keeping it at the 75 book mark. But here are the top 5 books I read this year.

 5. 

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson was a fantastic book. I loved the magic system in this book, and the idea of each metal having different properties and magical aspects. I'd have gotten to the next book already if I could catch it at my library. I've been trying to keep myself from buying more books since I have more books than I realized. 

4. 

Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull made a surprising appearance on this list. This is a non-fiction book about the start up of Pixar. Even today I'm still thinking back on the book. The most memorable part was a lesson of how Pixar took up a mentality of not going after the problem causer and just wanted to find a way to fix the problem. The example was with one of the Toy Story movies, I think it may have been the second movie. They didn't use Windows or some other operating system where they could go find the actual folder they were looking for, they had to know the path. And there was a path that would delete everything from the servers. Someone accidentally typed in this code one night while Ed was looking at something. He saw what was happening and called the guy in the server room to immediately unplug everything. Even with the fast reaction, many days...weeks even of work had been lost. Thankfully, an employee working from home had most of the files saved on her computer at home and saved the movie.

3. 

Born of Legend by Sherrilyn Kenyon...any book from this series is an automatic buy for me. This latest has to be my new favorite though. Sherrilyn took a character we had been taught to hate with all our soul, then turned him into a hero. I loved the many twists in the book and don't know that I could count them all if I tried.

2. 

A Court of Mist and Fury (ACOMAF) by Sarah J Maas...this book left me speechless. I listened to the audible audiobook and didn't want to hit pause. Working full-time made it difficult not to hit pause; but if I could help it, I didn't. Like most who picked up this book, I am over here on bated breath waiting for the third and final book of the trilogy.

Before I get into the top book, I'd like to mention a few honorable mentions. The Death Note manga series by Tsugui Oba. It took me a while to finish, but I did make it through all 6 books this year and loved all of them overall. Each book received either 4 or 5 stars. Brotherhood in Death by J D Robb was another interesting mystery our favorite tell it like it is Lt. Eve Dallas had to solve. The Shadow Throne by Jennifer A Nielson, was the final book in the Ascendance trilogy. This trilogy overall I think doesn't get enough attention, and it was close, but the other books just edged it out of the top 5.

1. 

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff I think surprised everyone. This book in hardcover not only looked intriguing, but seeing that the book was told in CIA file type format was even more so. I don't know of any other book that does that. I listened to the audiobook file, and could not concentrate even the slightest on anything else. I tried, but the book was too engrossing to do anything else. Before you realized, you'd be there with the characters fighting the ship's computer to keep everyone alive. This book by far, is my top book read in 2016. The only thing more amazing is that I haven't started listening to Gemina, the second book of the series, yet even though it is in my Audible library.

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NaNaWriMo Wrap Up

Once again, I've failed at NaNoWriMo. Not for lack of trying. I'm starting to think the word count is what is working against me. Working a full-time job and writing 50,000 words while still having time for friends, family, and the unexpected is next to impossible. This is especially true because I don't want to just write whatever on the page.

I want it to make sense, and yes I do delete. If I write a scene and then change something later which affects that scene, I'll go back and rewrite it so everything flows and makes sense. This makes hitting the 50,000 near impossible since I keep actively trying to improve the story. It just doesn't work for me to write through, and not change as I go then wait to finish and go back.

It does help to have some kind of goal though. As soon as I knew I wasn't going to come close to 50,000 words, I lost almost all motivation to write. Of course this didn't however stop my brain from playing through some of the scenes I was trying to write out.

I also had issues finding time to write each day. Sometimes work would just require too much time, and I'd come home eat, and go straight to bed because I was so exhausted. A goal for time each day would not work either; so I'm pondering time for each week. I just haven't decided on a time to give to writing each week.

2017 will definitely have some different goals, but I have become more aware these last few months of what I want. What I want to be doing. Stay tuned :-) .

You can find me on Twitter, Goodreads, YouTube, and Facebook. Or email me at sarah_telling@outlook.com.