Top Books of 2010

If you're looking for a list of books like you might find on Amazon, you're in the wrong place. As a working mom of an energetic two and half year old, I don't have time to read a LOT of books, but here's some I read this year and enjoyed.

1. The Hunger Games - a young adult book, but still very entertaining for myself and Brandon. This book follows Katniss Everdeen to the Hunger Games in the captitol where she must fight other teens to the death including Peeta, a boy from her own community.

2. Catching Fire - this is the follow-up book to The Hunger Games. Katniss and Peeta find themselves fighting again in the Hunger Games against other Hunger Games winners from years past, but things are much more politically charged in these games.

3. Mockingjay - Katniss is free of the Hunger Games, but now she must free the rest fo the country. I cried through the whole last quarter of the book. The Hunger Games is by far my favorite of the trilogy, but I liked the others as well.

4. Dies the Fire - Electrity and gunpowder stop working sending the world into the apocolypse. This book follows the creation of Juniper Mackenzie's Makenzies, Mike Havel's Bearkillers and Norman Armingers Portland Protective Associaction. Juniper and Mike become allies against Arminger, but how will they all survive? I have to say I loved this book. I picked it up on a whim from Barnes and Noble, but it's become one of my go-to recommendations. This book is followed by two other books, The Protectors War and Meeting at Corvallis. This is an excellent trilogy that will have you shedding tears at the end of Meeting in Corvallis.

5. Island in the Sea of Time - By the same author as Dies the Fire, S.M. Stirling. Nantucket goes thousands of years back in time, which is presumably why electricty and gunpowder stop working in the present day. This book is very interesting and the characters are great. This book is followed by two others, but for some reason I don't like it as much as the Dies the Fire trilogy. If you have some free time, it's a decent read.

6. The Sunrise Lands - This is the first book in the Rudi Mackenzie series. Rudi has grown up in a land without electricity and gunpowder, but now he must quest to get a magical sword to fight a rising menace known as CUT. This is also the first book in a trilogy. I enjoyed this trilogy, but it's much more fantasy than science fiction so it may not appeal to everyone.

7. Shiver - This is a young adult book about werewolves, but it's much different than you would expect. I definately doesn't have as much teenage angst as Twilight, though as with most teen books there is a Romeo and Juliet type quality about the characters. I enjoyed it, but not the sequal, which I didn't even finish reading - a rarity for me.