Beachy Book Vibes Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. This week’s topic is a Summer Reads Freebie (books to go in your beach bag, best books set in summer, books with summer-y covers, best beach reads for people who don’t enjoy contemporary/realistic reads, best beach reads for fans of X genre, etc.). I LOOOOVE summer reads – anything I can read on the beach, anything about the beach, books set at the beach… the list goes on. I decided to do something based on the book covers and beachy settings, kind of like my Cover Colors feature. Nantucket Blue and Red by bookmarklit featuring turkish cotton beach towels The Names They Gave Us by bookmarklit featuring cotton beach towels Wanderlost by bookmarklit featuring a stripe beach towel Islanders / Alex by bookmarklit featuring Missoni   Summer Days & Nights by bookmarklit featuring striped beach towels Summer Series by bookmarklit featuring turkish cotton beach towels

My Mom, the Reader Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. This week’s topic is a Mother’s Day Freebie (favorite moms in literature, books about motherhood, best mother/daughter or son relationships, books to buy your mom, worst moms in literature, etc.). This is a tough one! I’m a huuuuge sucker for father-daughter relationships in literature so I don’t keep tabs on the mom-related ones as much for some reason. However, both of my parents are huge readers of various genres. I decided to go with a mom-related reading post – the books she likes to read, maybe some recommendations, and her reading go-tos. Seriously though. My mom has said this before a lot. She doesn’t care about romance or happily ever afters. She wants murder and mystery and intrigue. Nothing true crime though – all fiction.   On a float in the pool (or next to the pool on the deck, or walking in the pool with the book held up above the water – does this sound familiar?) | My mom and I love being in or around the pool while we read. I’ve spent my whole life doing it thanks to her. She has her float that she calls the “throne.” On her swinging chair in the yard | […]

Ten Things on my Reading Wishlist Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. This week’s topic is ten things on my reading wishlist (things you want to see more of in books – certain tropes, time periods, characters/personalities, issues, plots, etc.). This topic was done in January 2014, before I started blogging, so it’s fun to work on this one for the first time! It was kind of tough because I thought it may read as similar to my read-bait TTT (and all of those posts too).

Book Covers That Make Me Want to Play Outside Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. LOLZ another blog post about covers. Of course! I live for this shit. Anyways, this week was a ~cover-related freebie~ topic, so I decided to go off of the ideas provided on the TTT master list. I was thinking of doing covers with food on them so I could show off a lot of ice cream, but decided to expand my reach! I love book covers that are outside, somewhere sunny or on a beach, during the summertime, and (of course) usually involve some kind of ice cream. Here are some book covers that make me want to go play outside in the sun once I see them!  

Things That Make Me Instantly NOT Want to Read a Book Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I had this post all ready to go for another day on the blog, but then noticed it fit right in with a TTT topic! I started this post because Michelle wrote about her instant NO’s for books (the things that make her pass on reading a certain book) made me really think. Coupled with this TTT, I decided to explore what topics are the opposite of read-bait for me? What keywords, settings, or storylines make me say NAH no thanks? Motorcycles Yes, I feel the same way as Michelle about this one. I don’t know why but it doesn’t appeal to me AT ALL. I don’t watch Sons of Anarchy and highly doubt that I ever will. The concept doesn’t appeal to me and I personally hate driving near them on the road in my real life (it makes me so nervous). Pregnancy or babies Don’t get me wrong – it’s not like I’ll never read about this, or have any actual problem with pregnancy. I just don’t enjoy the drama it can create in YA books and personally never choose to read them. It’s the main reason I haven’t gotten around […]

Things That Make Me Instantly Want to Read a Book Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I talk about read-bait all the time on my blog – the certain words, phrases, settings, and tropes that immediately draw me in. I’ll add it to my TBR and be suuuuper excited for it until I can get my hands on it. Because I talk about it so much, there are plenty of places to look on my blog. I decided to just go crazy for this TTT by listing all of my favorites and then linking where applicable. General Topics Stuck in limbo between life and death; stories set in heaven with finished business on earth Parallel universes, time travel, and parallel life/choice stories Books about fairies Reunions with old friends in the hometown they left Losing memories / amnesia Bucket lists (checking items of the list for themselves or for someone else who died) Family dynamics and drama after a death Disappearances and people returning home from being kidnapped/etc. Winning the lottery or being rich “You’ve Got Mail” secret pen pal relationships Stereotypical mean girl learns a lesson and fixes her behavior Romance Tropes (Full post here) Best-friend-to-more romance (bonus points if childhood best friend and/or neighbor) Best friend’s brother, or […]

Books with ~Unique~ Aspects (Superlative Style!) Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. This week’s topic involves the most unique books I’ve read. Because I’ve done similar posts and really can’t think of many more, I figured I would do some superlatives for unique aspects of books I’ve read. Most of them are somewhat recent so you won’t be bored of the same examples I always give 😉 Rebel Belle series by Rachel Hawkins • I haven’t read many paranormal books, but I remember being baffled by the whole Paladin thing because it’s not the standard vampire/witch/demon concept that I’ve seen. The whole trilogy was really interesting and enjoyable! Down with the Shine by Kate Karyus Quinn • Again, I don’t foray into magical realism as much as I could, but a magical wish-granting moonshine concept feels pretty unique to me. I hope to read more of this author’s books sometime soon because all of them are very different! Dreamology by Lucy Keating • Clearly Lucy Keating is another one with unique concepts! This book was about a couple who meet in their dreams and then find out that the other person is actually real. Such a great book that I couldn’t put down. Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett • The main characters worked in a really cool […]

Lots o’ Fandom Items I Want Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. This week’s topic is all about FANDOM. I decided to take it in the direction of fandom-related items I need to get my hands on. I have a lot of things for my favorite fandoms for sure, but there is always room for more! I usually track these things on my Etsy wishlist, so this was easy and fun to work on! (Clearly more than 10, ok?) Stranger Things alphabet lights bookmark | Sailor Moon dictionary page art print | Sailor Moon “Fight Like a Girl” tee shirt | The Room character buttons | Friends “I’ll Be There for You” mug It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia “What’s your spaghetti policy?” pin | Friday Night Lights character name tee shirt | It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia “The Nightman Cometh” poster | Arrested Development “There’s always money in the banana stand” cross stitch | The Office “Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.” mug | Adventure Time Lumpy Space Princess Christmas ornament Carolina Panthers dictionary page print | Luke Keuchly/Carolina Panthers portrait print

Ten Authors I’d LOVE to Meet Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. This week’s topic is about meeting authors – the ones you’ve met or the ones you’d love to meet. I have actually met only ONE author before (Leigh Bardugo at BEA 2015) and otherwise saw Sarah J. Maas at a book event (didn’t officially meet her though). So, naturally, I’m highlighting 10 authors I would loooove to meet.

Ten Recent Books I Couldn’t Put Down Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. This week’s topic is: “Read In One Sitting Theme: ten of the shortest books I’ve read, top ten books I read in one sitting, ten books to read when you are short on time, top ten books that will make you read the whole day away, etc.”  I feel like I’ve talked about the whole “read in one sitting” thing before many times! You can click on any of the pieces of the above sentences to read my posts for them 😉 SO today I figured I’d spin it off into the most recent books I read that I couldn’t put down. I have a Goodreads shelf for this very thing! Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham When I couldn’t put it down: Basically the whole book | Why I read past my bedtime: This was the kind of book where I was never really motivated to pick it up and read, but once I got started – oh man. I could not stop. The chapters alternated between past and present day, while the mystery built up slowly between both periods of time. There was such a sense of urgency while reading! I was always dying to see what […]