Top Ten YA and Adult Books of 2011

I am happy to report that, although it was touch and go for a while, I successfully completed my book challenge for 2011. My goal was to finish 201 books, but I got through 211. Hopefully, I will rise to my challenge for this year, which is going to be substantially more difficult: 225 books. I'm ahead so far, having finished 3 books already this year.

For those who don't know (and care), I'm going to explain what I count as a 'book.' Included in my definition are children's, middle grade, YA and adult books of nonfiction and fiction. Picture books do not count, although they can be quite fun to read. Also counted are graphic novels and manga, although I count each series as a single book, be it a series of 1 volume or of 50. The reason I did this was to even the playing field a little bit. If I counted every volume of manga I read, I would be reading hundreds of books a year, which does not sound quite right. This is the best system I have come up with thus far.

Moving on, I am going to share my top twenty-one favorite books read in 2011, ten YA and ten adult, along with a bonus of the top children's book I read this year. I did not read enough children's/middle grade to do a full category of it. As will quickly become apparent, these are not only books published in 2011, just the books I feel the most affection for as I look back through the years reads

Best Children's Book of the Year:
The 10 P.M. Question by Kate De Goldi

Top Ten Adult Titles of 2011:
10. You're (Not) the One by Alexandra Potter

9. Five by Fitzgerald: Classic Stories of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen

7. After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn
6. From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant by Alex Gilvarry

5. The Postmortal by Drew Magary
4. Becoming George Sand by Rosalind Brackenbury

3. The Orphan Sister by Gwendolen Gross
2. Feed by Mira Grant

1. The Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder

Top Ten Young Adult Titles of 2011:

With this category, I had a couple extras I wanted to mention, so there's an honorable mention category.

Honorable Mentions (which interestingly feature a body part theme on the covers:

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

10. If I Stay / Where She Went by Gayle Forman

9. Bumped by Megan McCafferty
8. Wither by Lauren DeStefano

7. Once a Witch / Always a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough
6. Enclave by Ann Aguirre

5. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
4. Prized by Caragh M. O'Brien

3. Legacy by Cayla Kluver
2. Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher

1. A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan