RTW: Betcha Can't Have Just One Book, and Not Want More and More

Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors and followers post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their blogs. You can hop from destination to destination through the YA Highway site and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week's topic: What was the best book you read in January?

I usually start these "best book of" posts by bemoaning how hard it is to pick just one, but this time I'm going to skip that--and go straight to the cheating by picking more than one! Because they're series.

First up are Behemoth and Goliath, book 2 and 3 in Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan series:




I read Leviathan when it came out, but it ended on such a cliffhanger I decided to wait until Goliath was available to read them all together. And the sequels did not disappoint! I also want to give a shout out to his other series, Uglies.



I read all four in the trilogy (ha!) in a row, and although the third one left me a little flat, the series as a whole is outstanding: entertaining, thought provoking, relatable--all the things I love in a good book.

Another YA series I've just gotten into is Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins.



I read Hex Hall and thought it was charming but not particularly groundbreaking for the genre, but in Demon Glass the author really steps up the game. The second book is so much more layered, with both the internal and external conflicts sharing the stage.



The third book, Spell Bound, comes out in March and I'm eager to see what she has in store for Sophie.

I also read a great book for our YA Book Club, The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages.



It's set in the era of the development of the atomic bomb, and does such a good job of showing us what it was like in this place and time. For me, that's the essence of good historical fiction: it doesn't just plunk a character into another era, it brings it alive for us. There's a sequel to this one too, White Sands, Red Menace that I haven't read yet.

So what about you--what were your favorite books of January? Don't forget to go to the comments on the YA Highway RTW post to see everyone else's answers!