Tag Archive for: top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Book Series I’ve Decided to Quit

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Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!

This week’s TTT topic is Books I’ve Decided I’m No Longer Interested In Reading.  I tweaked this topic a bit because even after I made a list of ten books I was pretty sure I no longer wanted to read, I still kept rethinking my decision.  (In case you haven’t heard, we Libras can be an indecisive bunch, haha!).  I could, however, pretty easily come up with 10 series that I’m not interested in continuing (or in some cases, even starting) at this point.

 

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Top Ten Book Series I’ve Decided to Quit

 

  • FIFTY SHADES by E.L. James – In this case, it’s not so much quitting a series as it is deciding not to even start it.  I bought a copy of the first book back in my pre-blogging days when the hype was so high for this series.  Everyone I knew was telling me I needed to read it.  The more I heard about it, the less interested I was until I finally sold the book the last time we had a yard sale, lol.

 

  • OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon – I liked the first book in this series well enough, but I started reading the series right about the time I got completely burnt out on reading romance so the chrmistry of Claire and Jamie just didn’t do much for me.  I do keep this one in the back of my mind in case I ever do get solidly back into reading romance.

 

  • THE NEOPOLITAN NOVELS by Elena Ferrante – My Brilliant Friend, the first book in this series, was actually one of my most anticipated reads for 2016.  With its post-war Italian setting and its focus on the friendship of two school-age girls, I thought it just sounded like such a wonderful read.  Unfortunately, it took me nearly 3 weeks to slog through the first 40% of the book and I completely lost interest in finishing it or in continuing the series.

 

  • STEPHANIE PLUM by Janet Evanovich – I think with this series, it’s a case of too much of a good thing.  I actually really love the series and all of the characters, but I got as far as book 12 and just had no interest in continuing because at a certain point, the books all start to sound the same. I could see myself revisiting this at some point, but for now, we’re on a break.

 

  • SOOKIE STACKHOUSE by Charlaine Harris  – Another good series that I just lost interest in because it started to get too predictable.  I noticed that I was starting to rate each book lower and lower so I decided it was time to stop reading.

 

 

  • THE WOLVES OF MERCY FALLS by Maggie Stiefvater – I’m not entirely sure why this series is no longer of interest.  I think maybe because I had such a mixed reaction to All the Crooked Saints, which was my first Stiefvater read.  I’m still interested in reading The Raven Cycle so maybe if I like that one, I’ll reconsider this one, but for now, it’s coming off my list.

 

  • RED QUEEN by Victoria Aveyard – I spent so much time yelling at Mare when I read the first two books of this series.  I know I’m the unpopular opinion when it comes to this series, but I just don’t think I can take a third book of her trying to decide what’s more important, boys or saving her people…

 

  • MISS PEREGRINE’S PECULIAR CHILDREN – I read the first book and thought it was pretty good, but then just lost interest in continuing with the second book.  My sister read the second book recently and said she thought it was a disappointing read even though she loved the first book.  She and I have similar taste so my gut says not to continue.

 

  • GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson and now David Lagercrantz – I read and loved all of the books in this series that were written by the original author, Stieg Larsson.  When he passed away and David Lagercrantz took over the writing duties, I decided I wasn’t interested in continuing the series.  It just didn’t feel right to have a different author at the helm of Lisbeth’s story.

 

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Question:  Do you think I should give any of these series a second chance?  What series have you decided to quit?

Top Ten Literary Couples I Fell in Love With Even Though I’m Not a Fan of Romance

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Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!

This week’s TTT topic is Love Freebie (Romances, swoons, OTPs, kisses, sexy scenes, etc.).  I have to admit that I almost skipped this week’s topic since I don’t typically read romance novels and didn’t know if I would be able to come up with anything to share.  The more I thought about it though, the more I decided it would be fun to share some literary couples that I do love in spite of my aversion to romance novels.

I’m not up on all of the various tropes that are romance-related, but I think based on my list that romance fan or not, I am a HUGE fan of the HATE-TO-LOVE trope.  I’m all about two people being super snarky with one another and the sparks are just flying and then boom, all of the sudden they realize perhaps what they feel isn’t hate at all.  My other favorite trope is FRIENDS-TO-LOVERS.  I just love watching a relationship naturally grow beyond just a wonderful friendship into so much more.  I’m not much of a romantic, but those two tropes just really get to me.

That said, below are some of my favorite literary couples and I think it’s safe to say that all of them fall under one of these two tropes.

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Top Ten Literary Couples I Fell in Love With Even Though I’m Not a Fan of Romance

 

BENEDICK & BEATRICE from Speak Easy, Speak Love by McKelle George  (and from MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING by William Shakespeare)

MR. DARCY & ELIZABETH BENNETT from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

NINA & MATTHIAS from Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

LILAC & TARVER from THESE BROKEN STARS by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

CELIA & MARCO from The Night Circus by Erin Morganstern

FEYRE & RHYS from A COURT OF MIST AND FURY

SIMON & BLUE from Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

RON & HERMIONE from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

ELEANOR & PARK from Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

LOUISA & WILL from Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

 

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Question:  Who are some of your favorite literary couples?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Have Been On My TBR the Longest and I Still Haven’t Read

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Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!

This week’s TTT topic is Books That Have Been On My TBR the Longest and I Still Haven’t Read.  I’m a little embarrassed to say that all of these books were added to my Goodreads ‘Want to Read’ shelf back in 2012 and I still haven’t touched any of them.  There’s something about each of them though that still appeals to me, so even when I do occasionally go in and purge, these books still remain.  Considering they’ve been sitting there for six years, it seems doubtful that I’ll ever actually make the time for them, but we’ll see.  Maybe 2018 is finally the year…

 

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Top 10 Books That Have Been On My TBR the Longest and I Still Haven’t Read

 

NECESSARY LIES by Diane Chamberlain

PRODIGAL SUMMER by Barbara Kingsolver

SHADOW OF THE WIND by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST by Anne Tyler

OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham

INFERNO by Dante Alighieri

BURIAL RITES by Hannah Kent

THE STREET SWEEPER by Elliot Perlman

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO by Boris Pasternak

SOPHIE’S CHOICE by William Styron

 

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Question:  What books have been on your TBR the longest?

Top Ten Tuesday – Top 10 Books I Can’t Believe I Read

 

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!

This week’s TTT topic is Top Ten Books I Can’t Believe I Read.  I imagine there are lots of different ways I could explore this topic, but looking around at my bookshelves, I’m going to go with ‘I can’t believe I read these…because they’re literally the size and weight of bricks!‘  That’s not to say they were bad reads — most of them were incredible and didn’t feel like they were anywhere near as long as they actually were, but there were a couple (I’m looking at you, Moby Dick!) that I thought I would never finish.

 

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TOP 10 BOOKS I CAN’T BELIEVE I READ

 

1. LES MISERABLES by Victor Hugo  (1,463 pages)

 

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2. A STORM OF SWORDS by George R.R. Martin (1,177 pages)

 

 

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3.  BLEAK HOUSE by Charles Dickens (1,017 pages)

 

 

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4. MOBY DICK by Herman Melville 

(728 Pages, but felt like it was about 3,000 pages.  Way too many chapters about whale blubber for my liking!)

 

 

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5.  JOHN ADAMS by David McCullough 

(751 pages – I don’t even usually read Nonfiction, much less over 700 pages of it, but this was riveting!)

 

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6. GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell

(1,037 pages – As much as I complain about romance, I still can’t believe I read and adored this one, lol.)

 

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7. UNDER THE DOME by Stephen King (1,074 pages)

 

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8. MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot (904 pages)

 

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9. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1,072 pages)

 

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10. ANNA KARENINA by Leo Tolstoy (1,008 pages)

 


 

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Question:  What are some books that you can’t believe you read?

Top Ten Tuesday – 10 Books I Really Liked When I Read Them…But Remember Nothing About Now

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Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!

This week’s TTT topic is  Books I Really Liked but Can’t Remember Anything/Much About.  Scrolling back through all of the books I’ve read over the years, it was actually a little disturbing how many of them I have no recollection of reading.  Sure, there are plenty of books that I’ve read and re-read and could probably quote passages from memory, but there are far more that I just draw a complete blank on when I look at them and even when I read the synopsis.

The ones I decided to mention today were especially surprising to me because I rated each of them at least 4 stars when I read them and also saved copies of them for my library, which I never do unless I love a book. So I know I loved them when I read them, but if you were to ask me what any of these were about, I couldn’t begin to tell you.

 

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10 BOOKS I REALLY LIKED WHEN I READ THEM BUT CAN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOUT NOW

 

ONE PLUS ONE by Jojo Moyes

MUDBOUND by Hillary Jordan

THE THIRTEENTH TALE by Diane Setterfield

THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver

THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE by Thomas Hardy

DECEPTION POINT by Dan Brown

PAPER TOWNS by John Green

THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE by Neil Gaiman

CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese

THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS by M.L. Stedman

 

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Question:  Does it bother you when you can’t remember anything about a book you know you read and loved?

Top Ten Tuesday – My Top 10 Bookish Goals & Resolutions for 2018

 

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!

This week’s TTT topic is Bookish Resolutions/Goals for 2018.  This is a topic that has been on my mind a lot lately since we’re at the start of a new year. I did pretty well with most of my goals last year, but there’s definitely always room for improvement.

Here are some areas that I hope to work on for the upcoming year…

 

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MY TOP TEN BOOKISH RESOLUTIONS/GOALS FOR 2018

 

1.  GET BETTER ABOUT SCHEDULING AHEAD (I.E. STOP PROCRASTINATING!)

Procrastinating is probably one of my worst habits as a blogger and it’s something I really need to work on.  I finally started using the built-in Schedule Posts feature on my blog late last year, but thus far, I’ve not been very good at scheduling more than a few days ahead.  I’d like to work toward having at least 2 weeks’ worth of posts scheduled at all times.  I’m a procrastinator at heart but if I can improve on this, it will make my life so much easier.

 

2.  MAKE A DENT IN THE ENORMOUS PILE OF UNREAD BOOKS THAT I ALREADY OWN.

Between the physical books in my house and the e-books on my Kindle, I probably have enough unread books to keep me busy for at least a couple of years.  It’s time to really do something about that, both in terms of reading more of them and in purging the ones I’m just not interested in reading anymore.  I’ve joined the Beat the Backlist Challenge again this year in hopes that it will keep me motivated to achieve this goal.

 

3.  WRITE MORE DISCUSSION POSTS.

This was one of my goals last year as well and while I did okay with it, I’d like to do better this year.  Part of my issue last year in addition to the eternal struggle to come up with topics to write about is that because of my extreme procrastination (see Goal 1), I never seem to have enough time to actually sit down and write discussion posts.  If I can get Goal 1 under control, hopefully there will be more time to work on discussion posts.  I also joined a discussion challenge in hopes of facilitating this goal.

 

4.  FINISH MORE SERIES.

This goal kind of ties in with Goal 2.  I have so many series where I read the first book, loved it, purchased the next books, and then nothing…  Since I am also constantly starting new series, it’s time to finish up some of those that have been lingering for ages.

 

5.  REQUEST ARCS MORE SELECTIVELY.

Now that I’ve been consistently reviewing for almost 2 years, I have been getting approved for a lot more ARCs than I used to.  I’m starting to reach that point where I have too many sitting in my queue waiting to be read and because I don’t want my ARCs to turn into the same problem I have with older books, I want to work on being more selective about the ARCs I request.  I’d love to be able to keep my Netgalley percentage at 80% for more than 10 minutes, lol.

 

6.  READ AND PROMOTE MORE DEBUT AUTHORS.

I guess this one is self-explanatory but I also signed up for a challenge to motivate me to achieve this goal.  I’m hoping to read at least 12 debut authors this year.

 

7.  CONSISTENTLY POST AT LEAST 5 TIMES A WEEK.

I’m pretty confident that I will never be one of those bloggers who is able to post everyday.  I’m just not a good enough planner for that, and I know I’d be setting myself up for failure to even attempt it.  I managed to post at least 4 times a week all last year and sometimes even made it up to 5 or 6 posts on weeks where life wasn’t too chaotic.  I’m aiming for 5 posts every week this year. Fingers crossed!

 

8.  STOP COMPARING MYSELF TO OTHER BLOGGERS.

This is probably as much a mental health goal as it is a blogging goal, but I want to really focus on just doing my own thing and not comparing myself to other bloggers.  My favorite part about blogging, aside from the community itself, is that there really is no right or wrong way to blog.  When I first started blogging, I remember reading comments out on social media from fellow bloggers “I don’t understand why some bloggers do __________.” (fill in the blink with the nitpick of your choice).   Comments like that used to stress me out and make me second guess everything I was posting and feel like a failure.  After almost two years of blogging, however, I’m getting better about ignoring comments like that.  Once I was able to do that, I started enjoying blogging so much more.  I want to continue that trend this year.

 

9.  REMEMBER REAL LIFE IS GOING TO GET IN THE WAY OF BLOGGING SOMETIMES & THAT’S OKAY.

This goal ties in with Goal 8 and not stressing over my blog.   Even though I know real life comes first and that it’s occasionally going to get in the way of whatever I’m doing with my blog, I still have those freak out moments when I don’t get to post as often as I had planned or if it takes me a few extra days to visit all of the blogs I want to visit.  My goal for this year is to really stay mindful of the fact that blogging is a hobby.  If I have to step away from it to attend to real-life issues that come up, it will still be here when I come back.  The blogging community isn’t going to forget I exist because I had to take a few days off.

 

10. EMBRACE MY INNER MOOD READER.

I had a few moments last year where reading felt like a bit of chore.  I won’t call it a slump because I was still okay with the books I was reading, but even though I enjoyed them, sometimes I felt like I was forcing myself to read popular books even if I wasn’t really into them at the moment.  This year I want to make a point to listen to my inner mood reader.  If my inner mood reader has no interest in reading a popular book that has been super-hyped, but would rather I pick up my old copy of Pride and Prejudice and re-read that instead, then I’m going listen to the mood reader rather than force myself to read something I’m just not feeling at the moment.

 

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Question:  What are some of your bookish goals for 2018?

Top Ten Tuesday – Top Ten Books I Totally Meant to Read in 2017…But Didn’t

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Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.  This week’s topic is Ten Books We Meant To Read In 2017 But Didn’t Get To (and totallyyyy plan to get to in 2018!!)

Boy, this had the potential to be a VERY long list since I always have such great intentions of reading all of the books on my TBR each year.  So many books, so little reading time!  Anyway, to make the list a little more manageable, I decided to limit it to 2017 releases that I had fully planned to read in 2017 but somehow just didn’t quite make it happen.  Rest assured though…they are all on my reading list for the Beat the Backlist Challenge and I will read them this year no matter what!

On a bittersweet note, this is also the last week that Top Ten Tuesday will be hosted at The Broke and the Bookish as they will be closing their doors (hopefully not forever).  Thanks for all of the effort you ladies put into hosting TTT each week.  It has been one of my favorite features ever since I started blogging.  That said, on a much happier note, starting next week Top Ten Tuesday will start being hosted over at That Artsy Reader Girl.  Thanks so much to Jana for taking on the hosting duties!

Now, without further ado, here’s my list…

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Top Ten Books I Totally Meant to Read in 2017…But Didn’t

 

OUR DARK DUET BY VICTORIA SCHWAB

LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE BY CELESTE NG

TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN BY JOHN GREEN

THE DRY BY JANE HARPER

SPEAK EASY, SPEAK LOVE

HISTORY IS ALL YOU LEFT ME

GIRL OUT OF WATER BY LAURA SILVERMAN

THE CHILD BY FIONA BARTON

DAUGHTER OF THE PIRATE KING BY TRICIA LEVENSELLER

THE PERFECT STRANGER BY MEGAN MIRANDA

 

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Question:  What are some books that you totally meant to read last year but didn’t quite get around to?

Top Ten Tuesday – Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read In 2017

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Welcome to the first Top Ten Tuesday of 2018, everyone!  Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.  This week’s topic is Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read In 2017.  This was an easy topic for me because I read so many amazing authors for the first time this year.  I’m probably the last person on the planet to have read a few of these, but late to the party or not, I thoroughly enjoyed their works in 2017 and look forward to reading more from them in the coming year.

 

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Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read In 2017

 

LEIGH BARDUGO

LAINI TAYLOR

MARIE LU

EMERY LORD

PATRICK NESS

TAYLOR JENKINS REID

CLAUDIA GRAY

MINDY MCGINNIS

CATH CROWLEY

JANE GREEN

 

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Question:  Who are some of your favorite new-to-you authors from 2017?

Top Ten Books I Resolve to Read in 2018

top ten tuesday

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Books I’m Looking Forward to In 2018 (These could be new releases, or books you resolve to read, ten debuts we are looking forward to, etc.)

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Now that the end of the year is upon us, it’s time to start thinking about those New Year’s resolutions.  Normally I don’t make many because I almost always fail at them, but I’m thinking I might actually have a good chance of succeeding at a bookish-themed resolution.

In that spirit, I’ve come up with a list of Top 10 Books I Resolve to Read in 2018.  These are all books that I have heard nothing but wonderful things about but somehow still have not managed to make the time to read them.  It’s actually embarrassing how long some of them have been on my TBR and how long I’ve talked about how much I’m dying to read them but then never following through.  So now it’s time to make a real effort to do something about it.

 

TOP 10 BOOKS I RESOLVE TO READ IN 2018

 

1. SHADOW AND BONE by Leigh Bardugo

(Find out what it’s about…)

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2. EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU by Celeste Ng

(Find out what it’s about…)

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3.  NEVERNIGHT by Jay Kristoff

(Find out what it’s about…)

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4. A FEAST FOR CROWS by George R.R. Martin

(Find out what it’s about…)

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5. REBEL OF THE SANDS by Alwyn Hamilton

(Find out what it’s about…)

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6. DARK MATTER by Blake Crouch

(Find out what it’s about…)

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7. INK AND BONE by Rachel Caine

(Find out what it’s about…)

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8. THE RAVEN BOYS by Maggie Stiefvater

(Find out what it’s about…)

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9. SALT TO THE SEA by Ruth Sepetys

(Find out what it’s about…)

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10. TO THE BRIGHT EDGE OF THE WORLD by Eowyn Ivey


(Find out what it’s about…)

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Question:  Do you have any books that you are determined to get off your TBR list in 2018?

Top 10 Books I Hope Santa Brings Me This Year

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Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.  This week’s topic is Top Ten Books I Hope Santa Brings (If you celebrate a different Winter holiday, adapt this topic to fit it!).  This wee’s topics was pretty easy to complete since I seem to always have an endless list of books that I would love to own but haven’t gotten around to buying for myself yet.  Here are some that I would love to wake up Christmas morning and find under my tree.

 

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Top 10 Books I Hope Santa Brings Me This Year

 

HUNTING PRINCE DRACULA by Kerri Maniscalco

THE LANGUAGE OF THORNS: MIDNIGHT TALES & DANGEROUS MAGIC by Leigh Bardugo

SIEGE AND STORM  by Leigh Bardugo

THE FIREMAN  by Joe Hill

THE CHILD FINDER  by Rene Denfeld

GEMINA  by Amie Kaugman, Jay Kristoff, and Marie Lu

GODSGRAVE by Jay Kristoff

BEFORE WE WERE YOURS by Lisa Wingate

WONDER by R.J. Palacio

HALF A YELLOW SUN  by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

 

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Question:  What books would you like for Santa to bring you this year?  Happy Holidays, everyone!