Red, White, and Blue Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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. Any time I can feature book covers, you know I will do it. Today’s post is around the 4th of July holiday happening tomorrow. I prepared this post weeks in advance so I don’t have to worry about it when my life is crazy at the moment! I decided to attempt an actual flag image too because I’m fancy 😉 All of these books have been read by me sometime in the last two years. Yes, I scrolled through my “read” shelf to get all of these covers.

Series I’ve Started and Will Probably Quit Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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 tend to be a finisher, even if it takes me FOREVER to do it. There are so many book series that I’ve started and I pretty much plan to finish all of them… someday. I have a tendency of reading new books as they’re released instead of binging, even though I LOVE a good series binge… Whoops. In any case, I do have a few book series I’ve started and am currently on the fence about finishing. What do you guys think? Series I’ll Most Likely Quit    DC Icons Series by Various Authors Book read: Wonder Woman Warbringer | Reasons to quit: I did genuinely enjoy this book… but I’m pretty sure that’s just because it was (a) my girl Wonder Woman and (b) written by Leigh Bardugo. The rest of the installments in this series are by other authors that aren’t necessarily on my auto-buy list (aside from SJM’s upcoming CATWOMAN book). I don’t care a lot about DC characters in general, so I don’t see myself ready many more. I might pick and choose, like the one I just mentioned. Stormheart Series by Cora Carmack […]

Books to Read by the Pool or Beach Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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 posted my summer TBR (bingo and otherwise) last week, so I’m going to use this space to recommend some summertime books for you. I love reading fluffy contemporaries – bonus points if they’re actually set in a beach/lake town – by the pool or while I’m laying on the beach. Here are some of my recent favorites that fall into this “throw into your beach bag” category! There are always a lot of adult contemporary books that I love reading in the summer. There are books with great beach settings, people returning home to their small town for the summer, and even some mysteries to be solved. These three were all pretty addicting reads for me and I’d love to have any of them on the beach to read! THE SUMMER LIST involved two old friends forced back together to complete a scavenger hunt. There were glimpses of the past mixed in throughout, so you got a really good sense of their friendship and how it went wrong. HERONS LANDING is a promising series-starter set near Seattle in a cute small town. It had a nice […]

Recent Books That Awakened the Travel Bug In Me Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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 love books that inspire me to travel, even though I truthfully haven’t ever taken myself up on those urges. I still need to acquire a passport (yikes) but absolutely plan to have an international trip planned within the next 2-3 years. I’ve done posts like this before (some on my TBR and others outside of the US). I decided to expand beyond international travel here because there are plenty of US-based books that inspire me to travel somewhere or by some method. Ireland       Love & Luck by Welch | The Upside of Falling Down by Crane Both of these books surprised me by how much I wanted to see Ireland by the time I was done reading! I have to admit, that particular country has been low on my list. After spending 26 years in the US and spending a good portion of that time brainstorming my first international trip, that wouldn’t be high on the list. I have changed my mind a bit now! It seems gorgeous and picturesque. Trips: By Road or By Foot       Amy & Roger […]

Reasons I DNF Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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 don’t DNF very often and I usually do it with good reason. This topic is technically books I DNFed too quickly, but decided to do my own spin. I only have 18 books on my DNF shelf and most of them probably deserved the DNF. I decided instead to explain some of my reasons for DNFing recent books. Bullying / Mean Girl Trope Disliked the MC / Quit the Series Too Simplistic / Not What I Expected Too Cheesy Disliked the MC Tried Twice and Didn’t Stick Quit the Series / Frustrating Trope Too Pretentious Felt Pointless Quit the Series Finally

Bookish Worlds I’d Want to Live In Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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 love books with fun settings! I feel like cute contemporary settings are more likely to resonate with me than ANY fantasy world. I don’t know why but I think a lot of fantasy books have some kind of big war or revolution or violence involved, so they don’t seem fun for me haha. Cute small towns with family-owned shops and restaurants are definitely my favorites to read about. As you saw in the link above, there are plenty I’d live in! I also did a similar TTT topic with book settings I’d like to visit so you’ll see some repeats from all those posts. Haven Point        I’m glad this series is still happening because I’m not ready to leave Haven Point yet. It’s a community where all the characters help each other constantly and support one another whenever they’re going through hard times. There are countless cute shops and restaurants to check out and everyone comes together for the summer sailing parade, which sounds awesome. Black Dog Bay     This is arguably my favorite fake small town on the list and I’ve talked about it SO […]

Best Character Names Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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 definitely never remember character names well enough to do this topic in any extensive way. My memory is rough. I’ve noticed an uptick in unique character names but that doesn’t necessarily mean GOOD names. I have a list of some names I love in general that I would consider naming a child someday, if I decided to take that life path, so I’m going to match some books to those… and just pull a few more favorites out if I can remember them! I did a good job of not duplicating too much from this post, but I had to pull in a couple at least.

Books I Hated But I’m Glad I Read Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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 is a fun one! The topic of books I hated but I’m glad I read (even just for bragging rights) immediately brought a few to mind. I think there are plenty of books that I’m happy I slogged through just to be able to say I did it. Usually it’s because there’s so much hype surrounding a book that I feel like I MUST read it, so even if I hated it, I’m glad I got it out of the way. There are other books where I hated book one but am glad I read it for the sake of the series that gets better. And finally, there are the classics I didn’t love but am glad I read in high school! Glad I Read It… So I Can Rant About It    Fifty Shades series by EL James | Oh lord do I hateeee these books. I read them back when they were popular and didn’t see a lot of the issues that other people saw at first. I took a Women’s Studies class and learned a bit about feminism and holy moly did a lot come to […]

Books with my Fave Color Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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 books that involve your favorite color, whether that’s on the cover or in the title is up to you! My favorite shade of pink is kind of the in-between pink and purple… best described as magenta. But I’m going to bring out all shades of my fave color here because it’ll be a lot easier for me!