Run by Daisy Whitney at daisywhitney.com

I probably read a book a week in 2009 and as the year draws to a close, here are the ones that stood out the most. Though I read a handful of books this year that I adored, such as “Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks” and “The Lovely Bones,” I’m going to focus on books published in 2009 for this list. Here goes!

• Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins: A spectacular follow-up to the equally amazing Hunger Games. I am dying to know what happens next
• Twenty-Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler: A lyrical, summer romance that breaks your heart and mends it again
• If I Stay by Gayle Forman: A beautiful, powerful story about a teenage girl who must decide whether to live or to move on with her family. (I was the girl crying on the plane as I read through this and finished it in one flight)
• Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers: This book releases Jan. 5 so I’m using that to justify fitting it on this list. That and the fact that is as insanely good as it is nerve-wracking.
• Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl: A gorgeous, literary, inventive supernatural romance that’ll make you swoon.
• Beautiful by Amy Reed: I don’t think I read a better written book all year. Amy is a true master craftswoman with words.
• Far From You by Lisa Schroeder: If you’re not reading Lisa Schroeder, you’re missing out. Her books are divine.

I recently read an ARC of Kay Cassidy’s “The Cinderella Society” releasing in April and I want to send it on tour! It’s a fun, empowering story about girl power, being your best and thwarting the mean girls! If I had a teenage daughter, I would want her to read this book. Since I have a signed copy to giveaway at the end, maybe other bloggers want to join in with me and we can send this book around and then perhaps have a fun giveaway contest at the end? My goal is for the tour to center around the theme of the book — girl empowerment. I’d love to have contests at each blog for readers to share short empowering stories and then at the end of the tour we can giveaway the book and I’ll make a small donation to a girl-centric charity on behalf of the winner. Email me if you’re interested.

There are not enough superlatives in the English language to describe the awesomeness that is Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games.” This book is quite simply epic.

The story is set in a future North America where citizens are punished each year through the Hunger Games for an uprising from long ago. The games works like this — each of the country’s 12 districts must offer up a girl and boy to fight to the death in an annual televised competition. That’s right — it’s kill or be killed, all for the amusement of the Capitol. “The Hunger Games” follows in the great tradition of “The Lord of the Flies,” “Brave New World” and “1984.” It is a survivalist narrative, a love story, a philosophy, a critique and an adventure tale.

You will not be able to put it down. It is the best book I read this year.

It begins today! First of all — a big thank you to BookChick readers, New Media Minute viewers, fans and friends! I’m giving away a box of chocolate from Bittersweet Cafe to whoever writes the best ode to chocolate in the comments below. It can be a line, a poem, a haiku. Details in the video! Contest ends Dec. 23.

Travel abroad, beautiful boys, heartache.

SEA has it all. Heidi R Kling’s debut young adult novel is a story of a California girl who travels to post-tsunami Indonesia as part of a relief mission. While there, Sienna not only helps a local orphanage, she also falls for a beautiful tsunami survivor, 17-year-old Deni. The pair travel around on motor, eat fluffy rice and sneak off at night to kiss, kiss, kiss. But life’s not easy in a place that’s been devastated by a storm and both Deni and Sienna are pulled in different directions. SEA brings tsunami-torn Indonesia alive as a character itself in this novel, rich with details on the heat, the ocean, the people and the culture. They all form the backdrop for the kind of first love that can often only happen when you’re traveling and there’s an expiration date.

The book releases in June.

It’s impossible to talk about TWISTED by Laurie Halse Anderson without addressing this — it’s written by a woman and it’s told by an 18-year-old boy. OK, fine. So JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter and even though the story is told in third person, her main character is a boy. But Tyler Miller, the narrator in this story, is ALL BOY. We’re talking raging hormones and long showers and girl lust and anger and muscles. The story surely stands on its own, but it also rises above simply because of that difficult feat — TWISTED100% feels like a book told from a teenage boy. That boy has been a dork and a troublemaker until one summer when he, how shall we say, blooms! He’s now over six feet, he’s ripped and he’s in love with the hottest girl in school. Oh, and she just might like him too…

Until one night when something happens. Only nothing happens. But because Tyler’s got a rep as a troublemaker everyone thinks he did something wrong.

The novel is true to its title and with brutal honesty and vivid imagery (Tyler imagines his dad with talons), Laurie Halse Anderson — a master of the teen lit genre — takes us inside a twisted family and a twisted tale.

I’ve been a terribly bad book blogger of late owing to revisions on THE MOCKINGBIRDS sucking all the life and energy and vim and vigor out of me! But I am reading again and will be reviewing again so very soon. In the meantime, you can win a signed copy of one of the best books I have read this year and it’s Sarah Ockler’s “TWENTY BOY SUMMER.” Laura at Laura’s Review Bookshelf is giving away a copy in a contest, so go throw your hat in the ring!

Hi BookChick.com fans! This blog is on hiatus until after Nov. 13 because I’m working on edits on my novel “The Mockingbirds.” They’re due back with my editor at the end of next week so I’ll return to book reviewing shortly after. Thanks!

You know those hypothetical questions where someone asks “If you could be any character from a book who would it be?” I have my answer now that I’ve read E. Lockhart’s “The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks.” The answer is Frankie Landau Banks because she is a modern-day rabble-rouser, a provocateur, a troublemaker in the best, most playful sense of the word. Frankie Landau-Banks is a sophomore at the prestigious Alabaster Prep school in Massachusetts (think Exeter, Andover, etc.) when she learns about the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds, an all-male secret society at her school. She’s fascinated with the camaraderie of the boys in it, their clubbiness, but also their exclusivity. She infiltrates the group and begins commanding them to commit a series of fantastic pranks across the school, all without them having a clue she’s the mastermind. And yet it keeps gnawing at her that the only reason she can’t be in this group is because she has boobs. Frankie is a feminist, a malcontent, someone who will always question the social order. And that’s something we need to see from time to time in young adult literature.

The BookChick is pleased to welcome back correspondent Amanda Morgan, fresh from her coverage of the Society of Children Book Writers and Editors Mid-South Conference.

Etiquette.

We’re well-versed in it at dinners. (Keep your elbows off the table!  Don’t slurp!)  We know how to act at the office (Avoid water cool gossip and by all means don’t forward THAT email again!)  But how should one behave at a writers conference?

Fortunately, we’ve got Editor Etiquette 101–all of the dos and don’ts of getting an editor to notice you–and not because you’re slipping her a manuscript under the bathroom stall.

Kaylan Adair, Associate Editor Extraordinaire at Candlewick, conducted a breakout session on this inside info at the recent SCBWI Midsouth conference in Nashville, TN. Here are a few highlights:

• Talk to editors. Don’t be afraid to say hello! It doesn’t make you a crazed psycho to walk over and introduce yourself.

• Don’t pitch. Unless, at least, editors have a specific pitch session set up with you. Never pitch in a casual one-on-one conversation.

• Don’t hand an editor your manuscript. Do you really think they want to pay the fine for an overweight bag because they had to lug back 1,000 manuscript pages from overeager writers? No. Wait—some editors will be open to submissions from conference attendees.

• Don’t ask what editors really think of (insert famous title here). Don’t put an editor on the spot like that!

Want more? Attend a writers conference or visit our SCBWI Mid-South coverage for more highlights!