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[lrlamauthor]

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#Repost @cakeandvikings (@get_repost) ・・・ Came home after a week away to @lr_lam's newest, Shattered Minds. Love the artwork - @panmacartdept really knocked it out of the park - and looking forward to diving back into Pacifica, Laura! For those who are interested, this is a near-future thriller set in the same world as last year's False Hearts, which I couldn't put down. (Although it stands alone: it's not a sequel!) @panmacmillan #lauralam #shatteredminds #diannareads

[metalbended]

In need of great book recommendations!! What should I read? Could you please tag this under diannareads so I can find it later? Thanks!!

Hey! Of coure I can tag it so you can find it later. :)

Definitely I would recommend reading The 100 by Kass Morgan (and then watching the TV show that's currently airing on The CW). The book starts out kind of slow, but it has a good plot and is very dystopian-themed in focusing on a hundred juvenile delinquints who are sent down to Earth from the space station they live on to see if the environment is livable after a nuclear apocolypse wiped out life there. It has strong female characters, a look into their government, and a lot of survival of the fittest. The show, however, differs in a lot of aspects, but we won't talk about that right now.

I would also like to recommend Gone by Michael Grant (and the books that follow in the series: Hunger, Lies, Plague, Fear, and Light). The series ended last year I believe (or it was earlier this year; I can't remember), and the plot involves everyone fifteen and older vanishing into thin air in the fictional town of Perdido Beach, California, and how the kids who are left in the town deal with life without their parents, how they construct a government of their own and how they deal with the kids who pose a threat to them from the nearby boarding school. Some of the residents also develop supernatural powers, and there's a lot of power struggle going on. There are also a ton of strong female characters and it's chalk-full of character development throughout the series. As you get further on the books get to be a little more confusing, and Hunger especially is really dark, so if you like stuff like that it's up your alley. Michael Grant's writing is also very straightforward and simple.

Another series I would recommend is the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead (and its spinoff series, Bloodlines, which ends this coming February). It's about a princess who goes to a secret school for vampires (Moroi, the good ones) and is also taught alongside her guardian-in-training, a dhampir (half-human half-vampire) who will protect the princess because she's the last in her line and there are also these bad vampires (Strigoi) who kill people. It incorporates a lot of folklore and has strong female characters, and I just really love it. The first series has six novels, while the Bloodlines spinoff is releasing its sixth and final installment in February of 2015. Richelle Mead is also a really great author; this is the only series I've read by her but she also does other boks meant for adults, such as the Age of X series (Gameboard of the Gods and The Immortal Crown), the Dark Swan series (Storm Born, Thorn Queen, Iron Crowned, and Shadow Heir), and the Georgina Kincaid series (Succubus Blues, Succubus on Top, Succubus Dreams, Succubus Heart, Succubus Shadows, and Succubus Revealed), some of which have been nominated for awards and such.

Another book I really loved is Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin. It's classified as a "magical realist" novel and focuses on this girl named Lizzie, who is killed in an accident and ends up in this place called Elsewhere, which is kind of a Purgatory of sorts, and it focuses on her acceptance with what happened and the various people she meets and relationships she has in Elsewhere. It's really neat and I actually think I might reread it.

I also have a page on my blog where I list a bunch of books that I really like in no particular order (link!). If you have any questions about the books listed there, let me know and I'll be happy to answer you. :)

I hope this helped! I tried to summarize the books I listed with as minimal spoilers as possible, so hopefully that was successful. :3