Top Ten Favorite SequelsFriends, I LOOOOOVE series books. I’m one of those people who doesn’t like to let things go, so when I find out that there’s a new series coming out that I can get good and invested in, I just get jittery with excitement. I took this week’s Top Ten Tuesday pretty literally and chose my favorite second books in a series. Let’s get fangirly!
Friends, fall is my favorite season. I love basically everything about it. EVERYTHING. The crispy air, the colorful leaves, pumpkin eats, Thanksgiving. In addition to all those awesome fallish things and more, I’m STOKED to read these books! [Read more…]
Top Ten Books I Wish Were MoviesIt’s not often that I wish for the books I read to be movies. I like to just imagine them in my mind and let my imagination go nuts. But sometimes, books are so vibrant and awesome that I want to see them on the big screen so that I can just drown in their awesomeness.
During last week’s Lit Lush chat, we talked about books we had to read in school. I was able to remember a few, but I felt like, for the most part, I COMPLETELY BLANKED. I have a better memory of the books I most definitely did NOT read than any books that I did. It goes without saying, then, that if I had been able to read these books, I’d remember things much more clearly.
Top Ten Most Memorable Secondary CharactersFriends, a book without good secondary characters just isn’t as good. As important as main characters are, the depth that comes from the best friends/foils/bad guys/etc. is too important to ignore. I’m so excited that this week’s Top Ten Tuesday gives me the chance to shout out some of my favorites who aren’t just excellent secondary characters, but some of my very favorite characters, period.
Honestly, THESE TWO. I can’t stress to you all how much I adore them and their relationship. They’re so different and yet so unbelievably adorable and perfect together. Zuzana’s personality is so huge and funny, and Mik is steady and easygoing. Karou and Akiva are intense and emotional, but Zuz and Mik are BRILLIANT and my loves.
I actually had a hard time picking between Thorne and Iko, but I gave the slight edge to Thorne because he’s so charming! Also, he makes me laugh. Also, he’s totally one of those guys who has more depth than he lets on. He supports Cinder, even when he has to know doing so is incredibly dangerous. Big fan.
So, Giddon. He makes his first appearance in GRACELING, where he’s cocky and mercurial and pushy with Katsa. By the time we see him again in BITTERBLUE, almost a decade has passed and he is quieter, steadier, and a much-needed companion of Bitterblue. There’s TOTALLY some chemistry between them, too, and it just makes him more likable.
OMG OMG YOUNG IAN. Ok. So, perhaps you all know that I love Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. It’s large, epic, and full of vibrant characters. Jamie and Claire Fraser are the biggest two, and I love them, but probably my favorite character is Young Ian, Jamie’s nephew. We don’t meet him right away, but let me tell you: If you read these books and DON’T love him? I just don’t understand. I love reading about him.
This series is one of my FAAAAAVORITES. The historical fiction angle is so appealing to me. Duchess Anne is one of those characters who I wish got more props. So many people–me included–often see these books for the couples. I can’t blame us, though: Ismae and Duval, Sybella and Beast–they’re legit. But Anne is strong and smart and carries so much weight on her little shoulders! Her awesomeness makes it REALLY easy to see why the main characters are willing to do anything and sacrifice so much.
Don’t EVEN, Jeffrey Tifton. You’re the coolest 12-year-old boy in the world. You’re friendly and adventurous and are not at all intimidated or weirded out by the fact that your bffs are a gaggle of girls. You’re my favorite, and you’re so important to those Penderwick girls that it’s hard to think of you as a secondary character in these SUPER middle grades.
THESE TWO. I could honestly put every single Weasley who isn’t Ron or Percy (YUCK) on this list. They’re all so amazing. As much as I love Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, these twins are so endlessly amusing and are bright spots of light in this increasingly dark series. Their jokes always made me laugh just when I needed to the most.
So obviously I had a hard time narrowing down Kvothe’s friends at University. I love them all. Even Fela, who isn’t one of the three here. But I positively MELT whenever Kvothe interacts with Auri, and his bffs, Sim and Wil, are the perfect friends. I just…LOVE THEM.
There are lots of memorable characters in TIGER LILY, most notably Tiger Lily herself, Peter, and Pine Sap. But the one that always struck me the most was Tiger Lily’s father, Tik Tok. He’s amazingly complex and simple at the same time, and his story is so heartbreaking and lovely, just the like the book itself. He’s wise and quiet, and loves Tiger Lily.
Top Ten Tuesday is hosted byThe Broke and the Bookish. It’s awesome. Every week, the lovely ladies over there post a topic so that book lovers like you and me can pour over our shelves and MAKE A LIST. WORD.
I actually had a hard time coming up with my list for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, friends. But I think that’s more a function of just a few things making a BIG difference, rather than lots of little things affecting me a teeny bit.
Top Ten Favorite Books That Take Place in New EnglandAs you all likely know–or, maybe this is your first visit (HIII!!!) and you have no idea–but I’m not from New England. I’m from New Jersey. But I’ve been to New England a few times and I kind of dig the whole J. Crew preppy vibe there, even if everyone is a Red Sox fan. One of my must-visit places is Maine. In fact, learning that a book takes place there puts it immediately on my radar. So for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, I decided to pop the color on my polo shirt, drop my “r”s, and shout out my favorite books set in New England.
Top Ten Books I Wish Had SequelsWhen it comes to standalones, friends, I don’t have a hard time thinking of my favorites that I wish would keep going. Although that would spoil some of what makes them awesome, no? The fully contained greatness? … That’s s nice sentiment, right? The truth is, when I love a book, I always want more of it. Sometimes the small dose I get from a standalone is part of what makes it so special, but that never means I won’t salivate over the prospect of BOOK 2, which is exactly what I would do for the books in this week’s Top Ten Tuesday (not quite 10, though).
Top Ten Best Beginnings and EndingsGREAT topic, friends. HARD, though! Every time I thought of some amazing, mind-blowing, gorgeous/intense/jaw-dropping thing in a book, I realized that it was pretty much somewhere in the middle. ALAS. But I think that these five beginnings and five endings are all pretty legit.
I love the beginning of this book because it sets such a great tone. In just a few pages, we learn that Lennie writes poems, her grandmother has an amazing garden with possibly magic flowers, her Uncle Big is an arborist and a pothead (not ironically), they’re kind of NoCal hippies, her mother is out of the picture, and her older sister Bailey died suddenly not long ago. Then, chapter one ends with this line, a tiny but wonderful indicator of the gorgeous words to come:
The very beginning of this book is so magical-sounding. I love the way it’s like the beginning of an epic tale–like this litany of awesome. Plus, it introduces us to Kote, who is as we soon find out, actually our boy Kvothe, the baddest ginger in the land. It’s basically a perfect frame for this book.
YO. The prologues in these books are always topics of much anticipation because they always, ALWAYS set the stage for what’s coming. There’s so much foreshadowing in them, but in terms of pure !!! factor, the prologue for book 1 slays all the others to bits. The stuff that goes down in the prologue to book one is still important and unfinished in book 5. SO LEGIT.
If you love fairy tale retellings and haven’t read THE GOOSE GIRL by Shannon Hale, correct yourself before you wreck yourself. It’s excellent. The writing is lovely throughout, but I love the way this opening line sounds:
It has that fairy tale vibe that just kills me.
Just a quote for you (trust me. It’s GORGEOUS, and so is the rest of this book):
Even though I was less than thrilled with the end of this series, the ending of DELIRIUM remains one of the most INSANE, emotional, gut-punch endings EVER. It was that kind of thing where the ending was gearing up to be SOMETHING crazy, so I was waiting to be thrown, but not like this.
More quotes! Listen, the last page and a half of TIGER LILY is flat-out stunning. Some of the prettiest, most emotional writing I’ve ever read. This is just the last little part of the ending, a letter that Peter Pan wrote to Tiger Lily:
Because DUH. One of the most perfect series endings ever. EVER. That epilogue just touched my heart and made me so happy.
This book is really quiet but lovely and dramatic and just a little dark. It’s MOODY, yo. And I LOVE IT. You know what else I love? SEAN KENDRICK. And I’m so very glad that the ending of this super book is such a great moment for him. I cried.
Friends, if you didn’t know before that I’m a HUUUUUGE fan of the Outlander series, consider this your notice: I’m a HUUUUUUGE fan, and I am dying with anticipation over the the fact that it’s going to be on TV soon. But before the show there were always the stories, and the end of book 2, DRAGONFLY IN AMBER is like the difference between JV and Varsity drama. It’s so good. SO GOOD.
Top Ten Tuesday is hosted byThe Broke and the Bookish. It’s awesome. Every week, the lovely ladies over there post a topic so that book lovers like you and me can pour over our shelves and MAKE A LIST. WORD.
Top Ten Words/Topics That Make Me NOT Want to Pick Up a BookTop Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. It’s awesome. Every week, the lovely ladies over there post a topic so that book lovers like you and me can pour over our shelves and MAKE A LIST. WORD.
