This is a positive rant. Agony aunts are not allowed!

I love reading, I read all sorts of books of all different genres, but lately a lot of books have been leaving a stale taste in my mouth. Where have the satisfying endings gone? Just because an ending is happy doesn't mean it's satisfying.

I just read The Host, despite how widely criticized and loathed Stephenie Meyer is on RPG-D, and I looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooovvvvvvveeeeeeed it.

Let me repeat that.

LOOOOVED!

First of all, the author has come along in leaps and bounds as far as I'm concerned. I love the Twilight series too, it leaves me kind of fuzzy on the inside. I like how, now matter how much crap her characters go through, she always leaves you with some hope.

This book had a WONDERFUL conclusion in my opinion. She didn't gift-wrap the ending or make it too easy. It's like she handed me an amazing gift that was wrapped in rubbish or a garbage bag, making the good stuff surprising despite the package.

Her writing is flawed, as are her characters, but to me it makes the books just seem all the more human. Better than the pretentious crap that's written to show off the writer's extensive vocabulary or their flawless use of semi-colons. I like her writing style, it's direct and personal to me.

*snuggles books* I can only hope to write something half as heart-warming as The Host was to me. Lurve lurve lurve.

(this is a rant/gush about your favourite stuff thread, not a bash-popular-authors thread. There are already too many of those D: Guuussshhh, you know you want to)

Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" was delicious. om nom nom.

((Only those sentences are important, but don't want to spam. XD His description and pacing were flawless. It is not a happy pick-me-up book. But God, the writing.))

1984
Mort

I would say more, but honestly no words could do either of these books justice.

I've been obsessing over Farenheight 451 Lately (which is funny because I've only read it once.)
'
I has a very bleak ending but I find it very fitting. I love it!...and I think Ray Bradbury was some sort of prophet. Our society and the society in that book aren't very differant.

I have a lot of books that I just LOVE, books that just satisfy you in a way that nothing else will or even can. There are books that just leave you feeling better and when I feel down or something curling up with some hot chocolate and reading one of them makes me feel so much better.

Jane Eyre
A Girl Who Owned A City
Anything by Phillip Pullman or Neal Shusterman
Ella Enchanted
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci by Diana Wynne Jones (AMAZING!)

These are only a few of the long list. But these books always make me smile and the authors are just...incredible.

Two books that have shot to the top of my all-time favorites list are The Lovely Bones and The Time Traveler's Wife. I can't even begin to describe how great they are; they're both insanely good (albeit depressing).

And I have to agree with you about the Host, Silvae. I think the Twilight series is loads of fun, but Stephenie Meyer really grew with this novel. The plot was excellent.

Oh man...This list could get really long xD I spend more time reading than ANYTHING.

-Deathnote. Technically a manga, and not a book, but I'm JUST getting to the good parts, and omg!
-Gone with the Wind. Best book. Ever. I adore it. So, so, so much.
-Uglies. Yay!
-Vampire Academy. Oh my God I'm so in love with vampires right now, it's ridiculous.
-Royal Diaries series. I learned more about history through this series of novels than I ever did from history class.
-Dear Canada series. Same as above.
-Mediator, Princess Diaries, Big Boned...Meg Cabot, huzzah!
-The Ground Beneath Her Feet. I admit, I picked this book on completely shallow reasons (I needed a book for a Lit class, and the books title is the same as a song by a band I adore xD) and I absolutely ABHORED it while I was reading it...but it still made me think a whole bunch, so...
-Nancy Drew. The old school ones, from the 60's-70's. My mom had almost the entire series!
-Harry Potter.

...if I could include comic books in this, we'd be here all night

Hmmm! Let's see here ..

Fight Club, by Chuck Palanuik. Amazing book, and I was fortunate enough to have read it before seeing the movie (although the movie, imo, was really really good). I wanna grab some more books of his pretty soon.

Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling. Of course.

Eragon (and the rest of the Inheritance trilogy), by Christopher Paolini. As much as he's hated on, I enjoy the story way too much to let these go, and can't wait for the third one to come out this September. <3

Winter of Fire, by Sherryl Jordan. Just kind of stuck with me. Great story. ^^

The Both Sides of Time series, by Caroline B. Cooney stuck with me, as well. I never got to read the fourth book, but the other three were looooove.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Lovelovelove. All time favourite.
Beauty - Also love love love. Her writing is so... rich and descriptive and wonderful

I love those too! I have like a whole stack of them from when I was younger. I still want Marie Antoinette's though ^^

I just read Ender's Game, some random book who we couldn't work out who owned.
It was kind of sad but nice and suprising at the end.

My English teacher read The Road and she was telling my class about it and squeeing and she told us about the cannibalism and I was going O_O.

I really like Ender's Game. It's so unique! I haven't read it for ages, but it's so good.

ANYTHING by Terry Pratchett. I love that man's writing so much. I wish that he would donate me his brain when he died (my gosh that sounds morbid). He is my most favourite writer in the entire world.

Jane Eyre. Yay for happy ending xD I like old books like this.

I...don't like to read very much. There's too much real life in them. Hence why I need to again gush about Terry Pratchett xDDDDDD

Ali, I looooved The Time Traveler's Wife and The Lovely Bones too. Even if they were sad, they were still... beautiful. I love how time travel was made so plausible seeming in The Time Traveler's Wife... When fantasy is integrated seamlessly into real life I'm garauanteed to like it at least a little.

Kat, hurrraaaah! DeathNote! :D Love it too. I can't call myself an anime fan because a lot of anime can be irritating, but DeathNote is awesome. Same goes for FullMetal Alchemist, which is my all time fave.

silent cacophony: I recommend ANYTHING by Chuck Palahniuk, he's a genius. The amount of research he must do for every book is mind boggling. I've read Fight Club and Diary and now I'm onto Survivor. I'm really looking forward to Snuff too, that one sounds ridiculous.

Emma: <3 Terry Pratchett too, it made me cry to hear he's been diagnosed with Alzheimers. Whyyyy?! He's too brilliant!

Flowers in the Attic and the rest of the series by V.C. Andrews. She's not only an amazing writter but her plot lines leave no dull moments in the book. Not only that but the controversal topics she uses give an in-depth picture to both sides. For instance Flowers in the Attic, while an amazing book, it has very mature themes like incest. Did you ever think you would ever approve incest? I sure as heck didn't - but the entire time I was reading this book I had moments of 'freaking out' because it would be "but you belong with him...no, wait that's not right he's your brother!" It's amazing how V.C. Andrews so easily can show something like incest ever seeming to be okay. The entire book has characters to me that are very human and very flawed. The series follows a family and as they grow, they way she has them mature and change their personalities with age is amazing. I used to love the main character Cathy, but as the novels grew and she aged and her personality changed I came to really dislike her.

Gail Carson Levine will always be my favourite YA writer. She is amazing, and Ella has been a constant friend to me throughout my years. I won't go into my thoughts of the filmed version...

I loved Ella and the Two Princesses of Bamarre the best, of hers. Such strong and unique female characters with great personalities and humour. I really wish she'd made some more retold fairy tales, but I will always be satisfied with just Ella.

There was actually a book quite similar to it released after, called, ironically, "Just Ella". I thought it was a sequel to Ella Enchanted, but it wasn't! They weren't by the same author, of coarse, either.

Story of my life! :lol: I LOVED Ella Enchanted, still do, and my sister is a huge fan of Two Princesses...she actually asked me to find that book for her a year or two ago for her birthday, because she couldn't remember what the title was. When I found it she told me it was 'the best birthday gift ever.' She's eighteen, I'm twenty, and we both still read them. I also bought Just Ella because it reminded me of Ella Enchanted, haha. Recently I read one of Levine's new ones, Fairest, which was good, though that one chapter near the end could have been cut out completely.

It's all Levine's fault that I'm such a fractured fairytale junkie.

Oh I've read Fairest too! I couldn't get into it as much, though. I think that it's because I'm so much older now, but I'm positive I would have loved it back in the day. I can't remember what happens in the end! I liked that it was set in Frell though, and there were connections to the plot from Ella, however minor they were. I do remember that some of it was a tad confusing, but I'll bet it'll make more sense when I read it again.

My Ella copy is so tattered and frayed, the pages are pretty much falling out. I want to get a new one, but the new cover is icky. There's one with Anne Hathaway, which is a definite no-no, and then there's another with some other girl. I'm so attached to the illustration of her on the front, with the curtain opening behind. Probably because t looks a bit like me when I was younger, bahaha.

I also liked Dave At Night and the little mini fairy tale series she has. I own The Wish, which I also thought was a sequel to Ella (wishful thinking struck again. :angry: ), though it wasn't quite my style. Cute though! I hear she's got another fantasy one out, I'll have to look for it in Chapters next time...