Top Ten Favorite New-to-Me Authors (1)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

For my first ever Top Ten Tuesday, I have the enormous task of picking my top ten favorite authors who are new to me in the year of 2012. This is particularly difficult for me because I've been playing a lot of book catch up this past year. I mostly blame college from keeping me away from my books, although some of it was sheer laziness. But I think this blog more than makes up for that, don't you think?

Anyway, after much internal debate, here are my Top Ten New-to-Me Authors of 2012 (in no particular order):

1. Rebecca Serle - Okay, Rebecca Serle's debut novel only came out this past year, but I still love. The premise of this book is really clever and, better yet, Rebecca Serle isn't afraid to use her life experience to really do the plot justice. I mean, we all knew the ending of When You Were Mine from the start and I was still crying at the end. And she talks about Gossip Girl on Twitter, proving I'm not completely out of my mind for still watching this show.

2. Lauren DeStefano - I actually met Lauren this past summer and she is as nice as her writing is wonderful. She's an amazing author and I'm so happy I had the opportunity to meet the lovely lady behind the beautiful prose! Not to mention following her on Twitter is the most entertaining thing I've ever done.

3. Jackie Morse Kessler - The subject matter of her Riders of the Apocalypse Series is enough to put Jackie Morse Kessler on this list. It absolutely helps that she donates some of the proceeds of her books to relevant charities. Oh and her writing's pretty stellar too!

4. John Green - I read The Fault in Our Stars based on a recommendation. I wasn't going to. I can't remember for the life of me why I didn't want to read such an amazing book. Anyway, since I gave in and read some John Green, my life has never been the same. 

5. Lauren Oliver - I liked Delirium and Pandemonium, but I LOVED Before I Fall. Yet another book where I knew the inevitable ending from the start but still cried and cried for the last 70 pages of the book. I clearly can't control any of the feels. The fact that Lauren Oliver is a particularly wonderful writer didn't help my emotional stability, either, of course.

6. Aimee Carter - After reading everything by Rick Riordan, I was craving some more Greek mythology based YA fiction. Aimee Carter more than filled that gap in my life and I am thankful everyday.

7. Shelley Coriell - Welcome, Caller, This is Chloe attracted me with it's cover. The inside of the book didn't disappoint either. I absolutely love the colorful cast of characters Shelley Coriell was able to pull together to make up her debut novel. The whole book just felt so real to me, so whatever it was about the cover that pulled me in clearly did me a big favor!

8. Gail Carriger - Okay, the books I've read by Gail Carriger aren't quite YA, but the Parasol Protectorate Series still makes me smile. Her books are a really fun romp through supernatural Victorian England (read: Steampunk) with the occasional hint towards naughty adult things. Definitely worth the read if you're looking for something more adult with a bit of fun fantasy built in.

9. Scott Westerfeld - I've been hearing about the Uglies series for a while but I never got around to reading it. Thankfully, I quickly caught up by reading all four books at the end of the summer. I thoroughly enjoyed all of them and I'm very much looking forward to reading more Scott Westerfeld books in the near future!

10. Veronica Roth - Divergent was probably the first of the dystopian books I read this year in my post-Hunger Games daze. It reaffirmed my faith in dystopian fiction and caused me to pick up every dystopian series I could get my hands on. For that alone Veronica Roth definitely needs to be on my Top Ten New-to-Me Authors List.

Wow. That was hard, but I did it. How did YOUR list turn out? Know any good authors I MUST check out ASAP? Sound off in the comments below and let me know!