Top Ten Favorite Covers From Books I’ve Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the bloggers over at the Broke and the Bookish. Book bloggers from all around create lists based on the chosen topics, and post links to the host blog to share our love of books. This week we are looking at book covers and all the pretty-pretty that comes with them. We are all part of a the book marketing machine, and I can’t deny that I fall victim to judging books by their covers. I tried to pick from my more recent reads. We’ve hit on this topic before, so if you want to see my previous list you can check it out here.

[no explanations, just enjoy the prettiness.]

What are your favorite covers from books you’ve read recently?

Top Ten Books About Tough Topics

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the bloggers over at the Broke and the Bookish. Book bloggers from all around create lists based on the chosen topics, and post links to the host blog to share our love of books. This week we are looking at books on tough topics. As a librarian, I felt these were important to helping students learn empathy and even actual useful information about important issues. It also breaks my heart that many of my students were seeing reflections of themselves in the stories they read. Here are some of my favorite picks:

[this is not an after school special.]

All links go to my full review if you want to know more.

1.) Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher  – Suicide.

2.) By The Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters – Suicide.

3.) The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin – Living with an abusive parent.

4.) Before I Die by Jenny Downham  – Teen cancer.

5.) A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness  – Death of a parent.

6.) Hate List by Jennifer Brown – School shootings and bullying.

7.) The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney – Rape/date rape.

8.) Forever by Judy Blume – Teens having sex…and not dying/getting pregnant/regretting it/getting an STD.

9.) Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard – Witnessing the death of a friend.

10.) The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams – Escaping a polygamist cult.

What books about tough topics would you recommend?

Top Ten Words/Topics That Will Make Me Pick Up A Book

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the bloggers over at the Broke and the Bookish. Book bloggers from all around create lists based on the chosen topics, and post links to the host blog to share our love of books. This week we are looking at topics that grab our attention. We all have them. It might genres, settings, themes, but we have our bookish tendencies.

[I'm so easy.]

Which words and topics grab your attention?

Top Ten Dynamic Duos (REWIND week!)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the bloggers over at the Broke and the Bookish. Book bloggers from all around create lists based on the chosen topics, and post links to the host blog to share our love of books. This week is a rewind week — a chance to pick any topic from the past and revisit it! I picked this topic because it sounded like a fun challenge, offering up something a little different…

Top Ten Dynamic Duos

[two heads are better than one!]

1.) Fred and George Weasley in Harry Potter  – They aren’t my favorite character in the series (that honor goes to Ginny and Hermione and McGonagall), but they are pretty dynamic and defiinitely a duo. The practical jokes were always awesome, but even better was their loyalty and bravery to the Order and defeating Voldemort.

2.) Wade Watts and Aech in Ready Player One – Aech is the ultimate sidekick and loyal friend. Aech has a special place in my heart for reasons that are revealed at the end of the novel…one of my favorite characters ever!

3.) Hazel and Augustus in The Fault in Our Stars – Okay. I don’t like them as a romantic couple, but I do think they make a good dynamic duo.

4.) Straight Will Grayson and Tiny Cooper in Will Grayson, Will Grayson – Uh-oh, I feel a lot of John Green coming on. There’s something about this friendship that is both charming and extremely dramatic.

5.) Anne and Diana in Anne of Green Gables – The original bosom friends. I mean, Anne was devastated when Marilla wouldn’t let her see Diana!

6.) Amy and Elder in the Across the Universe trilogy – The only teenagers on a spaceship to colonize a new planet. They save humanity, and each other. Aw. 

7.) Doug Sweiteck and Lil in Okay for Now – How cute were these two kids? One of those cute love/hate kid friendships.

8.) Lady Isolde and Ishraq in Changeling – Sassy ladies in the 1400′s. Ishraq is my favorite!

9.) Sophronia and Soap in Etiquette & Espionage – There will be more adventures, and these two will have a lot of butt-kicking spy-action ahead of them!

10.) Elizabeth and Laurie in Invisbility by David Levithan/Andrea Cremer – My review for this hasn’t posted yet, but it was the pairing of these two siblings that stole my heart (more than then Stephen/Elizabeth romantic pairing). Laurie is a super cool kid.

What are your favorite literary dynamic duos?

Top Ten Favorite Books I Read Before I Was A Blogger

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the bloggers over at the Broke and the Bookish. Book bloggers from all around create lists based on the chosen topics, and post links to the host blog to share our love of books. This week we are looking at books we loved before we started blogging. I started reading far more books to completion once I started blogging, since I was keeping track of them all. I feel like this has raised my standards on what makes a good book! I actually opened my blogging career with a list of my top favorites at the time, so this list is just a re-work of that one. Here they are, in order:

[wow. a lot has changed in two years!]

1.) 1984 by George Orwell  – Read in 9th grade, college, and after college, and it just gets better every time.

2.) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – Read in my first year as a librarian. Even though Catching Fire had just been released, it took everything in my power to avoid reading Catching Fire until Mockingjay came out so I could read them both back-t0-back. Totally worth it, since the ending of Catching Fire is a killer cliffhanger.

3.) Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – Read in 12th grade, before I read Harry Potter. (Harry Potter isn’t on this list, since I love it more as a series than an individual book, but always compare it to Ender’s Game.)

4.) The Giver by Lois Lowry  – Read in 6th grade. It put my eleven-year-old brain into overdrive, thinking about government and conformity and the ups-and-downs of life.

5.) Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer  – Read when I taught 6th grade. It re-awakened my love for dystopia in all its many forms (including apocalyptic fiction).  I found it very relatable to my current life, forcing me to ask myself what I would do if a crisis suddenly occurred and I was stuck in my house indefinitely.

6.) Looking for Alaska by John Green – Read in a YA lit class. Not my first dance with John Green (my second, actually), but this was the moment I feel in love with John Green.

7.) The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi – Read when I was in college. I don’t know what would have possessed me to pick up this book, but I flew through it in two days and told everyone I knew to read it. Charlotte Doyle is pretty kick ass.

8.) Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli – Read in high school, at a time when I was struggling with my own identity (to conform or not to conform?).

9.) Holes by Louis Sachar – Read in high school. One of the first books I read cover-to-cover in one sitting because Sachar’s story telling blew my mind! Who would have thought a book about digging holes could be so gripping?

10.) Behind the Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassidy – Read in fifth grade, and this is still one of my favorite books simply because it is kind of obscure, weird, and creepy. I actually think about it a lot!

Has your criteria for “loving” a book changed since you started blogging?

Top Ten Character I Would Crush on If I Were a Fictional Character

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the bloggers over at the Broke and the Bookish. Book bloggers from all around create lists based on the chosen topics, and post links to the host blog to share our love of books. This week we are looking at literary crushes.

Top Ten Characters I Would Crush on If Were a Fictional Character

[ummmm....]

This is going to be a very short list. I debated on even doing this TTT, since I don’t really crush on literary characters a lot. For various reasons. I know Augustus Waters, Alex from Delirium, and Four are supposed to make my heart go pitter-patter. But they don’t. And cool lesbian characters are so few and far between.

1.) Gilbert Blythe in Anne of Green Gables  – Gilbert is so sweet and selfless. He lets Anne spread her wings and be herself without getting in her way.

2.) Warner in Shatter Me – I said crush, I’m not saying I’d act on it. I don’t normally like bad boys, but Warner has my heart.

3.)  Frankie Landau-Banks in The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks – She’s totally straight, but totally self-confident, smart, sassy, and cool.

4.) Hermione Granger  – I have a weakness for brainy girls.

5.) Nicola in Empress of the World – Brilliant, nerdy, super cute, and a little tomboyish. I wish the book had been better, but Nicola as a character is definitely crush-worthy.

So that’s it. I’d like to see a better variety of lesbian characters in books.

Which literary characters are you book boyfriends/girlfriends?

Top Ten Books I Recommend The Most

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the bloggers over at the Broke and the Bookish. Book bloggers from all around create lists based on the chosen topics, and post links to the host blog to share our love of books. This week we are talking about the books we constantly recommend. This is almost similar to my favorite books, but represents the books I think others might call a favorite, too. I probably sound a little like a broken record, but here they are:

[book evangelism.]

1.) Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – I love this book because it looks like the kind of sci-fi that might typically turn my friends off, but there is so much surprising amazing in there. I think pretty much everyone can enjoy the story.

2.) Looking for Alaska by John Green – John Green is my homeboy. I should probably walk around recommending The Fault in Our Stars, but I’ll stick with my personal fav of his, Looking For Alaska, as my go-to Green novel of choice.

3.) The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell – I like non-fiction, so if I have a friend who seems non-fiction-y, or who I think needs to start dabbling in the genre, I recommend this.

4.) Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher  – It’s such a powerful book.

5.) The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay  – More recent, but the number of times I’ve recommended it in the past three months has been insane. I usually recommend it as a YA book for people who think YA is not as complex at adult fiction.

6.) Ready Player One by Ernest Cline – Because it’s fun. It’s adventure. It’s a great “can’t put down” kind of book.

7.) Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger – Another recent book. I think books that are fresh in my brain get more “rec” cred than some of the older ones. I recommend this book because I need other people to read it so we can talk about it.

8.) Every Day by David Levithan – An incredibly thought-provoking book. I recommend it to anyone who works with teens, as it can be a great book for teaching about empathy.

9.) Unwind by Neal Schusterman– If The Hunger Games was the book I was reading three years ago, claiming it was edgy and awesome, Unwind totally has that spot in my life now (even though it’s old than The Hunger Games). Imma need the Hunger Games folks to put down that book, and walk over to the real dark side.

10.) The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart – Though Ruby Oliver is my favorite, Frankie Landau-Banks is a better introduction to my favorite author. This is a fun, funny standalone novel with a feminist twist and a good message. Plus I always hope it inspired people to try Ruby Oliver.

Which books are you always recommending?

Top Ten Books I HAD to Buy…But Are Sitting on My Shelf Unread

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the bloggers over at the Broke and the Bookish. Book bloggers from all around create lists based on the chosen topics, and post links to the host blog to share our love of books. This week we are looking at books we just HAD to buy, but we still haven’t read. I do this for a lot of reasons, and I do it a lot. The big question is, when will I have the time?

Also, with the recent “Spring TBR” and “Series I Have Yet To Start” topics, I feel like I’m repeating myself on these TTT lists lately. So…sorry.

[to sell or to keep, that is the question]

Sitting on My Shelf

1.) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – Have print copy, a digital copy, AND the audio book (thanks to classics being SUPER cheap in all three formats).

2.) Thirteen Days to Midnight by Patrick Carman – A classmate did a book talk on this in my YA lit class, and I bought it immediately. In hardcover. It’s survived multiple book purges, but remains unread.

3.) Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork – Same as #2, but add in that it also some awards when it first came on and was on my radar for that, too.

4.) A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray  – I did read maybe 2/3 of it, but never finished. I lost interest, and I’m not sure if it was the timing (busy semester) or that it just wasn’t for me. I keep it because I always tell myself I’ll restart in, and I never do!

5.) Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool  –Bought it when it won the Newbery, but I don’t think it’s for me. Still can’t stand to part with it, though.

Sitting on My Nook (darn cheap books!)

6.) The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth – Bought it cheap, but I read some reviews that turned me off from the book. I’ve heard it’s good, but slow. Best savored over time. And I’m just not in a good place to read a slow book right now. But one day!

7.) Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta – I do plan to read this one this summer, in a quest to read digital books I’ve bought cheap and never read. I’m saving it for a time when I can enjoy it!

8.) Luna by Julie Anne Peters – Bought it cheap ($1.99, I think) to save for later.

9.) One Breath Away by Heather Gudenkaff – I started it, but couldn’t get into it.

10.) Feed by MT Anderson – I have concrete plans to read this book this summer.

Which books did you buy and never read?

 

Top Ten Books at the TOP of my Spring TBR List

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the bloggers over at the Broke and the Bookish. Book bloggers from all around create lists based on the chosen topics, and post links to the host blog to share our love of books. This week we are prepping for spring! I’m spring cleaning my house over spring break, and it’s time to consider cleaning some books off my TBR list as well. I’ve got a backlog of digital ARCs that get top priority, but I’ve also got some books on the shelf that need to make their way to the nightstand.

[spring forward!]

1.) Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan  – Romance told from alternating points of view: an invisible boy, and the girl who can actually see him. Check it out on Goodreads.

2.) The Registry by Shannon Stoker  – Girls are auctioned to the highest bidder for marriage at 18, so the protagonist decides to escape to Mexico. Check it out on Goodreads.

3.) Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys – 1950′s New Orleans. Check it out on Goodreads.

4.) Life After Theft by Aprilynne Pike  – Modern retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel. A dead girl haunts a school and needs the new boy to help her with some unfinished business. Check it out on Goodreads.

5.) A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty  – A letter is discovered in a crack that opens a portal to another world. Check it out on Goodreads.

6.) Cinder by Marissa Meyer –Cyborg Cinderella. Check it out on Goodreads.

7.) In The After by Demitria Lunetta – A girl survives the attack of “them,” only to find out that her situation in the colony of survivors is not safe, either.Check it out on Goodreads.

8.) Rush by Eve Silver – Teens are sent to play a game, killing an enemy, but they believe it’s more real than fun. Check it out on Goodreads.

…and that’s all. I will probably read other books, but if I could clear those out by the end of the semester, I’d be happy! My reading list for school is twice as long, so that will have to do.

Which books are on your spring TBR list cleaning list this year?

Top Ten Series I’d Like to Start But Haven’t Yet

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the bloggers over at the Broke and the Bookish. Book bloggers from all around create lists based on the chosen topics, and post links to the host blog to share our love of books. I was very excited when I saw this week’s topics, as I love making plans to read things. I may not ACTUALLY ever get to some of these, but I’d certainly like to try:

[TBRs for the win!]

1.) The Lunar Chronicles by Marisa Meyer – I own Cinder, IN HARDCOVER, and haven’t been able to touch it yet. Le sigh.

2.) The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare – Bought the first book on my Kindle app. Want to read it, but I never seem to be in the right mood.

3.) Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead – It’s a boarding school series, and apparently quite a good one. I’m not much a fan of vampires and whatnot, but I still want to give this series a try.

4.) Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor  – Another one that I have (I think I have the e-book AND the audio book) and have’t read. Since I’m going to Prague this summer (yes, for real!) I think I need to read it sooner rather than later.

5.) Graceling by Kristen Cashore  – I bought the audio book for Graceling THREE YEARS AGO. But I tried it and gave up one hour in. I’ve always meant to try again.

6.) The Chemical Garden by Lauren DeStanfano – I’ve heard the series compared to The Handmaid’s Tale, which piqued my interest. Now this one I’ve actually been good with and haven’t bought it yet — I’m waiting to buy Wither when I’m actually committed to reading it right then.

7.) The Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness– I know I’ll like it, and own The Knife of Never Letting Go on my Nook app, but I’m waiting when I have time to potentially read the whole series. I have a feeling I’ll start and not want to stop.

8.) Legend by Marie Lu – Bought it with Cinder in HARDCOVER and it’s gathering dust on the shelf where I house my physical TBR books. It’s dystopian, what’s taking me so long?!

9.) Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi – I won the e-book and desperately want to read it, because I hear it’s beautifully written.

10.) Fifty Shades by EL James – …Just so I can snark on it. ‘Cause that’s how I roll!

In my defense, I did buy a lot of these because they are on my long-term TBR list and I found them on sale or won them. I bought them knowing that I wouldn’t get to them right away, and only paid $1.99. I only do this maybe once a month, so the pile is manageable. So based on this list, it is apparent that I need to challenge myself to read some of the books I already own, rather than getting dazzled by ARCs 24/7. While I love reading the newest books, I’m missing out on some good stuff in the process. I’m thinking a summer mini-challenge is in my future…

Which series are on your TBR list?