Fantasy-ish Recommendations for Non-Fantasy Readers 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 is a more open topic under the umbrella of ten recommendations for ____. I love the idea of fantasy books… often more than I enjoy actually reading them. Unfortunately, they have a tendency to take me much longer than contemporary books (even if they’re not that long). I struggle with world-building and pacing, but it doesn’t stop me from adding them to my TBR. I wanted to share this list of fantasy (and fantasy-like) books I’ve enjoyed, so non-Fantasy-readers can possibly dive into the genre a little more. The Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray | Historical fiction readers get the best of both worlds with this one! I loved learning about the Realms AND what it was like to live in the 1800s. I don’t read a lot of straight up historical books, so adding in fantasy elements to older time periods can make things really fun. People who enjoy historical fiction will hopefully love this series; its one of my all-time favorites! Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine | I loved this book when I was younger, even when I was still a contemporary girl back then. Because it’s younger YA or maybe even middle […]

Best Books I’ve Read So Far in 2017 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. Yet again, another quick and easy TTT for me! I keep up with my Excel sheet about my books, so I went in and did some sorting by rating. Ta-da! Here are the best books I’ve read so far in 2017, with links to my reviews where applicable. (I didn’t include rereads or novellas.) 5 Stars    What I Lost / When Dimple Met Rishi / The Names They Gave Us   The Hate U Give / Juniper Lemon’s Happiness Index 4.5 Stars Geekerella / Alex, Approximately / The Forgetting Confessions of a HS Disaster / The Adjustment / What to Say Next My Not-So Perfect Life / Once Upon a Wine / The Best Man   Hello, Sunshine / Always and Forever, Lara Jean / The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Ten Series I’ve Been Meaning to Start 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 needed an easy TTT this week, so thanks for helping me out on that one. I’m famous for starting series and not finishing them, but I do have a LOT that I haven’t started yet somehow. Here are the top ten I hope to start at some point… maybe… someday… Splintered series by AG Howard | I was really obsessed with the cover for this book for some reason but I’m not 100% sure it’s for me. We’ll see if I ever get around to it, but I do love Wonderland retellings. Every trilogy by Ellie Marney | A looooot of people love this series, so I’ve always been looking forward to reading it. I hope to binge them in a row when the time finally comes! Blythewood trilogy by Carol Goodman | I feel like this series is right up my alley (hello, magical boarding school) but definitely flew under the radar. I own the first book and wanted to wait for the rest. Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series by Louise Rennison | I’ve owned this book for YEARS and have never gotten around to it. I’ve heard its hilarious though, so we’ll see. Heist Society series by Ally […]

My Dad, 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 Father’s Day Freebie (favorite dads in literature, best father/daughter or son relationships, books to buy your dad, worst dads in literature, etc.). I wasn’t sure which direction to use last month for the Mother’s Day freebie, but this week was even harder. I’m a huge sucker for father-daughter relationships in books because mine has been very important to me. I ended up going with the same theme I did for Mother’s Day, except about my father this time. He’s a big reader too! In his recliner | Every night after dinner and before bed, my dad will read and/or watch TV in his recliner. My stepmom has a matching one next to his and does the same thing. They’re fairly busy some nights and weekends because they’re heavily involved with my sister’s school/band stuff, but they always come home to chill in those recliners. On the breezeway in Maine | They go to Maine multiple times a year for vacation and to see my grammie. My dad always sits in the same chair on the breezeway (three season room) with his book. There are some days where we could spend alllll of our time out there reading together. […]

Ten Contemporary Books Recently Added to my TBR 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 ten books (from a genre of your choosing) that recently made it onto your TBR. I usually read a lot of contemporary romance and add waaaaay more of those than anything else, so I had two options – go with my norm or break out of it. I decided to be lazy and count down the ten contemporary reads I recently added to my TBR. As I sometimes do, I’ll include a brief quote from the synopsis of the book that led me to click the add button. Upcoming Releases Here, There, Everywhere by Julia Durango & Tyler Terrones | “As the afternoons spent going on local adventures pass into nights discussing their deepest hopes, Zeus knows that he doesn’t have long to convince Rose that what they have is more than a summer fling…” The Date to Save by Stephanie Kate Strohm | “The word is out… BROOKS MANDEVILLE, quarterback: Friday is the homecoming game and dance. It is a very big deal… This is what happens on the wildest day in the history of high school!” (Paraphrased but it shows multiple points of view) I Hate Everyone But You by Gaby Dunn & Allison Raskin […]

Most Anticipated Books for the Second Half of 2017 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 the top ten books you’re anticipating for the second half of 2017. As always, I am very technical about these posts and usually choose books publishing after July 1st. As usual, I went above ten books because I’m an overachiever who is overly excited about booooooks. Gimme the Sequels!    These Dazzling Heights by Katharine McGee {August 29th} I definitely can’t wait to see what happens next. I couldn’t put the first book down and didn’t stop thinking about it for days! I love the futuristic Gossip Girl vibes and there was a definite cliffhanger to get resolved. The Broken World by Lindsey Klingele {August 29th} I don’t read a lot of portal fantasy books (if any??) but this one reminded me a little of The 10th Kingdom as a result. I may even try to reread the first book because I have a terrible memory. I really enjoyed it though! Haunting the Deep by Adriana Mather {October 3rd} I was really intrigued when I learned where this series was headed, plot-wise! The first book was really interesting and perfect for October, so I hope this one will be the same for me. AND TITANIC! […]

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!