This week’s theme was supposed to be books involving time travel that I’d recommend, but I realized that I haven’t actually read very many! The only one that immediately came to mind was The Time Traveler’s Wife, which I absolutely loved but I read it more than 10 years ago now. I also listened to an audiobook version of HG Wells’ The Time Machine, but that’s already such a classic that I don’t think it really needs recommending. I was actually surprised to see how few time travel books I’d actually read since it’s a trope that I do tend to love. I love books and movies that involve characters travelling through time and having to adapt to all the differences of wherever/whenever they end up. For example, one of the things that I loved about the Austin Powers movies was seeing him waking up after being cryogenically frozen for years, and having to adapt to being in the 90s rather than the 60s. I love books that involve that kind of “fish out of water” storyline. I also tend to really like the “groundhog day” kind of story of characters reliving events to try to get them right, although those can be a little repetitive at times. Instead of offering recommendations, I decided to look for some time travel books that I have on my TBR. Not all of these are books that I’m planning to read this year, but a good chunk of them are on my plans for 2024!
Top 5 Wednesday is a meme created by Gingerreadslainey on Youtube, and is now hosted by Sam at ThoughtsOnTomes. The official GoodReads group with the weekly topics can be found here.
I always low-key dread prompts that have to do with book quotes, because I’m really, really bad at keeping track of quotes that I like! I will definitely notice specific quotes while reading if they hit me particularly hard, but I rarely remember to note them down. I’ve tried to use Goodreads’ Quotes feature to keep track, but I often find that the quotes I want aren’t already listed and, more importantly, it’s hard for me to actively remember to go back and pick quotes once I’m done with a book. I know that I could add to the Quotes pages on Goodreads myself if the ones I want aren’t already there, but again, that requires actively taking note of where they are and going back to track them or interrupting myself while actually reading to log them immediately, neither of which are likely to happen. I was very surprised to see that I haven’t had any specifically quotes-related posts in well over a year! I typically have just one or two posts of quotes each year, but in 2023 I had none! It does make my job a tiny bit easier for this week at least, since it gives me more books to pull quotes from, although that depends on if I actually bothered to track quotes from my 2023 reads, and that seems doubtful. I’m limiting myself to just one quote per book/series just to maximize variety, but here are some of the quotes I’ve liked best from books I’ve read in the past year and a half! I’ve put them in reverse order from most recent to least recent, just because that is the order I have it set to on Goodreads.
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 of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
“I believe there’s a fine line (if any) between optimism and willful idiocy, so I try to avoid optimism altogether, lest I fall over the line mistakenly” — Angie Kim, Happiness Falls
“Sometimes bad things happen to good people, so good people have to do bad things” — Alice Feeney, Good Bad Girl
“Even if the memories never come back, I’m going to love you again. I have decided to warn you in advance” — Chloe Gong, Foul Heart Huntsman
“Heroes don’t get happy endings. They give them to others” — Stephanie Garber, Once Upon a Broken Heart
“Monstrousness is a curious thing. In its barest form, its simplest definition, a monster is merely something different than you think it should be. And who gets to decide what should be, anyway?” — Hannah F. Whitten, For the Throne
“Games take us as close as is acceptable to the strategies we use in life. Games reveal our most base instinct: the instinct to survive. Under the mask of enjoyment, we reveal ourselves, and we reveal how we play at life, our methods, how we navigate others’ strengths and weaknesses” — Catherine Steadman, The Family Game
“I will always support you, even if it doesn’t look like it. Sometimes support looks like disagreeing with you or telling you that you’re on the wrong path. But your heart is in my heart, always, and all I want for you is a good, healthy life” — Sarah Hogle, Just Like Magic
“People always say that your wedding day is the happiest day of your life, but honestly, people should try solving murders more often” — Jesse Q. Sutanto, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
“People thought silence meant the absence of noise, and sometimes it did, but other times it screamed so loudly she had to fight not to cover her ears” — Darby Kane, Pretty Little Wife
“People always talk about how their love for you is unconditional. Then you reveal your most private self to them, and you find out how many conditions there are in unconditional love” — Jodi Picoult, Mad Honey
The downside (or possibly an upside?) of taking a while between Recent Reads posts is that I tend to feel the need to include more books at a time. I usually try to limit myself to around 3 books that fit a particular theme, but sometimes there’s another book or even two that seems to fit in too! I could always save it for the next round, but given how easy it can be to fall behind on this series, I don’t like to wait too long so I can still comment on the books while they are still relatively fresh in my head. I do tend to keep some notes on each of the books I read since I find it helpful when it comes to reflecting on them later, and especially when it comes to things like picking my favourites of the year, recommendations on specific topics, etc. Unfortunately, I’ve been struggling lately with finding an efficient way of keeping track of these notes. For a time, I was trying to jot down a few notes every time I finished reading for the day, but found that too time-consuming. I’ve mostly switched over to trying to write my notes once I’ve finished the whole book but sometimes find that I don’t get to it for several days (sometimes even weeks!) which defeats the entire purpose of trying to do it while the book is still fresh in mind. Luckily, these kinds of Recent Reads posts help a little in keeping me on track! For this round, I decided to focus on 4 thrillers that I’ve read over the past few months, all of which were pretty highly anticipated!
All the way back in late February, as a bit of an anti-Valentine’s Day twist, I reread You by Caroline Kepnes. Even though I’ve read this before, I considered it highly anticipated because it’s a book that I’ve been meaning to reread for quite a while since I’d never quite felt that I gave it a fair assessment at the time. I read this book for the first time back in 2016 because of a reading challenge prompt that required a book from the library. At the time, the vast majority of the books I was reading were from my library so I treated this prompt as a bit of a freebie and it was a chance to pick this book up after seeing a ton about in on Goodreads. I found the entire concept of it being told from the perspective of a stalker very intriguing and very creepy, especially because of the focus of how much information Joe was able to pick up about his victim just by social media. The main reason I felt that I’d been a bit unfair the first time around is because at that time, I still hadn’t read a ton of thrillers and I was put off by how vulgar and sexually explicit this one was, and I also remember vaguely feeling underwhelmed by the ending but couldn’t remember why. I loved the Netflix adaptation and wanted to continue with this series, so it seemed like a great chance to pick this one up and try it again. I ended up loving this book even more the second time around! All of the issues I had with the vulgarity didn’t bother me this time, and I once again found Joe’s thought process absolutely fascinating. This book reminds me so much of Lolita in the sense of it being told from the perspective of an absolutely horrible person, but wrapped under the layers of self-delusion he’s used to convince himself that he is right. There are so many times where Joe comes across almost sympathetic or even relatable (in his attitudes, not his actions), and I think that’s what really makes this book work.
Toward the beginning of April, I took advantage of one of the last snowfalls of the season to pick up The Bones of the Story by Carol Goodman, which was one of my most anticipated thrillers! It was one that I’d really wanted to read in winter and thought I’d missed my chance, but luckily that last snow made it still feel like an appropriate fit. While I did really enjoy this one, it wasn’t quite the immediate 5 star read that I’d assumed it would be based on the premise. It took me quite a bit longer to really get into it than I expected, and I also remember finding the first couple of chapters a bit weird. I found it strangely difficult to figure out who the main character was at first. I’m not sure if this was done intentionally, but there wasn’t much identifying information about them at first, so I somehow assumed that the character was a man, only to find out in the first “Then” chapter that she wasn’t. I actually really loved the chapters set in the past that showed the events leading up to the disappearance of a student and a popular professor 25 years ago, and I especially loved the toxic friendship dynamics. In comparison, I found the “Now” chapters a little underwhelming although I did like how it brought together so many of the classmates from that time. I also generally really loved the creepy atmosphere, especially with the deaths of the former students that all seemed connected to the stories they had written. I was mostly surprised by the twists toward the end, so even though the book generally didn’t hook me as much as I expected, I still ended up really enjoying it overall.
Of all the books here, I think the one that I was technically anticipating the least Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six by Lisa Unger, mostly because it was the one that I knew the least about. Strangely, this book ended up being quite different from what I expected! I went into it expecting an And Then There Were None kind of thriller, and instead it reminded me more of a JT Ellison book that I’d read last year. I’m not sure how much of a spoiler it would be to specify which one, so to be safe, I won’t name it. This is another thriller that took me quite a bit longer to really get into than expected, but that was likely because it was so different from what I thought I’d be getting. I liked the use of multiple perspectives, although there was one perspective specifically that seemed mostly unnecessary. I was especially interested in the past chapters that focused on Henry, even if it wasn’t immediately clear how those connected, and those chapters were consistently the most engaging for me as the book progressed. I was very surprised by several of the directions the author took in the second half of the book, especially one incident that was much darker than I expected. It’s a bit of a tough book to talk about without risking any spoilers, but I did enjoy it overall once I adapted to it being so different from what I’d expected. I wouldn’t say this is the best thriller I’ve ever read, but it was a solid 4 stars so still quite interesting and worth the time!
Right at the end of April, I read Good Bad Girl by Alice Feeney which was easily one of my most anticipated books to pick up this year. I have no idea how I managed to miss this one on my challenge plans for 2023, so it jumped straight to the top of my list this time! I was a little nervous going into this one because I’ve always found the synopsis a little confusing, but I had no trouble getting into it at all! This book drew me in right from the first pages, and I loved the way the author crafted such interesting, although mostly unlikable, characters. I was especially intrigued by how the author kept me guessing throughout the majority of the book. Many of the chapters involved some kind of red herring, misdirects, or even small cliffhangers that left you waiting until that character’s perspective came up again. I kept thinking that I knew what was happening but was proven wrong almost every single time, which kept the book fun and interesting for me. As I’ve mentioned before, I read a lot of thrillers so I’ve become reasonably good at guessing twists, but luckily this one was not easy to guess at all! I also liked how the chapters were all relatively short and fast-paced despite it being mostly character-driven. This was definitely one of my favourite thrillers that I read this year so far because of how fun and engaging it was for me to read. While it doesn’t quite top Daisy Darker by this author, it was still a great book and I’m definitely glad I prioritized reading it.
My natural first instinct for books I’d save in a fire would of course be all of my favourites, but I wanted to really try to limit myself to just 5 and to avoid this turning into another “all-time favourites” kind of list. As I was looking through my books to come up with some ideas, I realized that the vast majority of the books could theoretically be replaced pretty easily. Of course, I still wouldn’t want to lose them in a fire, but most of them are books that I could find and buy again if needed. That led me in a completely different direction with this prompt and instead try to think of some books that I loved that would be more difficult to replace, for any variety of reasons. In general, books have become so expensive lately, especially for hardcover copies, and it can sometimes take me a very, very long time to find the right edition. I tend to prefer hardcovers because they are more durable so it’s easier to keep them in good condition even while reading. While the books that I chose might not be my ultimate favourites in general, these are all books that I love that I’d be very upset to lose, and would be particularly annoying to replace!
Top 5 Wednesday is a meme created by Gingerreadslainey on Youtube, and is now hosted by Sam at ThoughtsOnTomes. The official GoodReads group with the weekly topics can be found here.
1) The Addams Family: An Evilution by Charles Addams and Kevin Miserocchi – This book is a collection of Charles Addams’ original cartoons with some additional information to give context such as how the characters were first created. As a lifelong Addams Family fan, this book was a must-have for me, and I got it around the time that the Broadway musical came out. I got this book as a birthday gift and although it is possible to find copies, it is quite a pricey book (around $45) and it’s one that is personally very important to me because I associate it with that experience of going to New York for the first time to see the show on Broadway! I definitely would not want to lose this one.
2) A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness – It took me a very long time to find the right edition of this book! I specifically wanted a version, preferably hardcover if possible, that had the illustrations since those were such a huge part of the impact of the book for me. For a while, all I was able to find was a non-illustrated, chapter book style edition. Eventually, the one I wanted came up on Book Outlet and it seems these versions have become a little more common again, but this is a book I’d want to save because of all the effort that went into finding it! This is one of my all-time favourite books and now that I have the exact version I want, I would not want to have to find it all over again!
3) The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern – I’m choosing this one partly on the basis of how difficult it is to find The Night Circus! I originally borrowed that book from the library and by the time I decided I wanted my own copy, hardcover versions were impossible to find. It seems the same is now true for this one, although I have no idea why! Hardcover copies are currently going for $35 or more and only through second-hand sellers on Amazon, and even more on Indigo! I was so intimidated to read this one at first but ended up loving it, even if it was a little confusing at times, and I know I’d be very annoyed if I lost my copy and couldn’t find the same one.
4) Anastasia: The Last Grand Duchess by Carolyn Meyer – This is just one of the books in the Royal Diaries series, a childhood favourite of mine that has been out of print for years! It’s always bothered me that the books went out of print before I completed my series, and I’m only missing two of them! Technically, I’d want to save my entire series since I know it would be practically impossible to get them all back, but I specifically chose this one because it’s one of my favourites. This book sparked such an interest in the Romanovs and the mystery surrounding Anastasia’s death, so I think it would be the one in this series that I’d be most upset to lose.
5) A Boy in the Doghouse by Betsy Duffey – This one is purely for sentimental reasons, but also because I doubt this one is available at all anymore. This is one of my childhood favourite books that I have such distinct memories of reading. It’s about a young boy whose parents have told him they’d have to give up their new puppy if he couldn’t be trained, and he is determined to prove that the puppy can learn. What made this book so fun is that some of the chapters were from the dog’s perspective, and it was so fun to see how teaching the different tricks seemed to him. I brought this book with me everywhere, and I still have my copy, so it’s one that I’d definitely want to save.
As a natural pair to last month’s April Showers topic, we now have one based around the theme of May Flowers! Last week, there was also a similar Top 5 Wednesday topic that called for books with flowers on the cover and at first, I was hoping to find a better way to differentiate them a little. However, the more I dug through my Goodreads TBR to see what books I had on my list with flowers on the cover, the more I kept finding! It seems like a very common cover art element lately, and most of these covers look amazing. With last week’s post, I ordered my shelf by Date Added and picked the 10 most recent additions to my list that had flowers. For this week’s, I went back a little further. I sorted my list by Date Added again, and specifically looked at books that I added just in 2023 and 2024 so far, starting from where I’d left off last time and going back all the way to January 2023. It really did not take long to find more than 10 covers that had flowers! I was actually a little surprised to see how different many of these covers were. I expected to see a lot of flowers on spring/summer-themed books, but was surprised to see quite a few on horror, thrillers, and others. It was definitely easier than expected to find plenty of books with flowers!
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 of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
In the spirit of trying to keep up with my 10th Anniversary of Reading Challenges posts, I decided it was a good time to jump back in with another author-related topic. Originally I’d planned to look back at some of the authors had been on my priority lists each year who became favourites once I’d finally tried them, but quickly realized I’d run into the same logistical issue as last month’s post: I didn’t have priority lists before 2020! Since the purpose of the series is to look back on the entirety of the past decade of doing reading challenges, I didn’t want to limit myself like that. Instead, I decided to shift the focus of the topic just slightly to look at some of the authors who have become new favourites over the years after trying them during my reading challenges. Some of these were authors that I expected to become favourites before I’d ever picked up a single book, and others are authors who surprised me! Typically, my end of year wrap-up content and/or start of the year content includes some sort of post about the best new-to-me authors that I discovered from each year of challenges, so I used those as a starting point to remind myself. I’m specifically counting authors as favourites if they are someone who I’ve read more than one book or series, enjoyed every (or almost every) time, and actively look forward to their new books. There are many authors who don’t quite meet all those criteria yet but I think easily could, so that may be a topic for another month’s post! I tried my best to limit myself to 1 new-to-me author per year to get to a total of 10, but it was pretty much impossible! Even with this list of 12, I’m pretty sure there are some that I’m forgetting! Each one is listed with the year I first discovered them, although all are authors that I’ve read multiple times by now.
1) Liane Moriarty (2015 challenges) – This author was one of the only ones that really met the criteria from my first year of reading challenges. I read The Hypnotist’s Love Story which I gave 4 stars, and Big Little Lies which I gave 5, both that year! It was really Big Little Lies that sold me on this author and made me actively look out for her future books. Nothing has quite lived up to that one yet for me, but I still consider her a favourite because I generally really enjoy her books overall and especially look forward to her new releases!
2) Marissa Meyer (2016 challenges) – I picked up Cinder in 2016 sheerly because of all the hype around the Lunar Chronicles series, and was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved it! I proceeded to read the rest of the series the following year, followed by Heartless in 2018 and absolutely devoured the Renegades trilogy during the lockdowns in 2020. I’ve even read and loved this author’s YA romance Instant Karma, with her most recent book With A Little Luck high on my list for this year. I’m a little embarrassed that I haven’t read Gilded and its sequel yet despite them being at the top of my list when they first came out! I love how this author puts a twist on familiar fairy tales, and how she writes characters in general!
2) Tiffany D. Jackson (2017 challenges) – To be honest, it wasn’t until my second book by this author that she truly became a favourite. I read her debut Allegedly in 2017 but I distinctly remember both having a bad cold while reading it and being somehow rushed to finish it which affected my experience a little, although I still gave it a strong 4 stars! When I read Monday’s Not Coming the following year, this author immediately jumped to the top of my favourites list and all of her YA books since then have been extremely high priority for me every single year. She is an incredibly talented writer for hard-hitting contemporaries, and I always look forward to seeing what she comes out with next.
3) V.E. Schwab and Sarah J. Maas (2017 challenges) and Leigh Bardugo (2018 challenges) – I am definitely cheating by grouping so many authors together, but I picked them all for the same reasons so it seemed only fair. These are all authors who had already been on my radar but I’d actively avoided them because they seemed overhyped. When I finally picked them up they all immediately became favourites because of their writing styles and very compelling characters. I have since picked up every single book and loved them all! I still need to read V.E. Schwab’s Fragile Threads of Power but I’m planning to get to that very soon. I’d heard so much about all of these authors online that I thought they couldn’t possibly live up to the hype, so I was very happy to have been proven wrong!
4) Akemi Dawn Bowman (2018 challenges) – This author had three exceptional, hard-hitting YA contemporary books in a row, which immediately solidified her as a favourite! I’m loosely interested in trying her middle grade books, mostly on the strength of author name alone since I don’t read a ton of middle grade. I also read her first two books in the Infinity Courts series and although they weren’t quite as strong for me as her contemporaries and somehow took me a little longer to get into than I expected, I ended up really enjoying those too! I may have to restart the series by the time the third book comes out, but it was very interesting to see something so different from this author.
5) Simone St. James (2019 challenges) – I definitely did not expect to love The Broken Girls anywhere near as much as I did when I read it back in 2019! I’d picked it up because I had a prompt requiring a ghost story and I’d seem some great reviews, but didn’t know much else about it. I ended up immediately loving it because it had the perfect balance of paranormal and thriller for me, which is something I’ve found consistently in all of this author’s books that I’ve read so far. At some point I’ll have to go back and read some of her backlist books, but her new releases consistently make it to the top of my priority list and almost always become favourites of the year too!
6) Riley Sager & Lisa Jewell (2020 challenges) – I am grouping these two together because I chose them for very similar reasons. Both were thriller authors who had been on my TBR for a long time before I finally decided to pick them up, and both quickly became favourites when I finally tried them! I do need to catch up a bit on some of Lisa Jewell’s backlist, and I’m up-to-date on Riley Sager and very much looking forward to his upcoming release this summer! These are authors that immediately make my priority list any time I see they have a new book coming, and I have yet to be disappointed with any of their books (although I do like some more than others).
7) Alex North (2021 challenges) – This is another author that strikes that perfect balance of horror vs. thriller for me! I first tried his books after seeing a ton of hype about his debut The Whisper Man, and absolutely loved it! I have read all three of his thrillers so far and I can’t wait to see what he comes out with next! I love this author’s writing style and how realistic his characters feel, even if the situations they are in are strange and creepy. It’s hard to choose a favourite among his books so far, but I think The Whisper Man would probably be my favourite by a very narrow margin. It looks like his next book out is due January 2025, so that is sure to be at the top of my list for my next set of reading challenges!
8) Alice Feeney & Samantha Downing (2021 challenges) – I could have grouped these two in with Riley Sager and Lisa Jewell because I chose them for the exact same reasons, but I wanted to separate them out since it was for a different year’s challenge. These are also both authors who I’d heard a lot about and added them to my priority list for the year as a result, and I have loved everything I’ve read so far! I am fully up-to-date on Samantha Downing’s books and I have just one backlist book remaining for Alice Feeney. These are also authors that I look out for every year to see if they have anything new, and who I can consistently count on for entertaining thrillers, often with very unlikable characters.
9) Casey McQuiston (2021 challenges) – This was yet another author that I tried in the first place because I caved into the extreme amounts of hype around Red, White and Royal Blue. I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I loved that book and it quickly became one of my all-time favourite romances! I’ve since read and loved both of this author’s other releases, and The Pairing is very high on my list to read when it comes out later this year. This author is the perfect example of why I should sometimes listen to the hype since it can be right! I think it says a lot that I read Red, White and Royal Blue three years ago already, and still remember the characters so vividly.
10) TJ Klune (2022 challenges) – Again, this is an author that I avoided at first because of the hype and ended up waiting almost 2 full years to finally read The House in the Cerulean Sea. I am so glad that I finally read it because it immediately became one of my all-time favourite books since it hit almost every single thing that I look for. I read Under the Whispering Door later that year and loved it almost equally as much. Unfortunately, In the Lives of Puppets was a bit more difficult for me to get into but I also picked it up at a time where I wasn’t quite in the mood for it, so that didn’t help although it still ended up being a 4.5 star read so it was in no way bad! I love the way this author writes his characters and his books have such creative concepts.
11) Ali Hazelwood (2022 challenges) – I was a little quicker to get on board the hype train for this author. I think what threw me off initially was hearing that her debut The Love Hypothesis was some kind of Star Wars fanfiction, and I knew absolutely nothing about the characters it was based on. I’ve since read three of this author’s books, and I have more quickly stacking up to be read! I’m intending to read Bride, Check & Mate, and Not in Love this year if I can, as well as the “STEMinist” novella collection. This author very quickly became one of my favourite adult contemporary romance writers. While I can see where some might find her books very similar to each other, I’ve loved them all so far and look forward to trying more!
12) Stacy Willingham (2023 challenges) – Out of all the authors here, this is the one that I feel might be a tiny bit preemptive to call a favourite, since I’ve technically read the least by her so far. I read and loved A Flicker in the Dark last year, followed soon after by All the Dangerous Things which I enjoyed almost as much! I have this author’s newest release Only If You’re Lucky very high on my list to read this year, and I’m hoping to get to it very soon. Something about this author’s thrillers just really seems to work for me, and I’ve found both of the books I’ve read so far so compelling. I’m hoping to love her third one just as much, and I’ll definitely be reading it ASAP!
I was a little thrown off by this week’s topic, only because I knew there was an upcoming Top 10 Tuesday for next week that was quite similar. This week’s prompt is specifically for covers that have flowers on them whereas next week’s Top 10 Tuesday is simply called “May Flowers” and therefore a little more open to interpretation. I was definitely intending to make that post about covers with flowers on them until I saw the May Top 5 Wednesday topics posted, and now I’m rethinking it a little. There are a ton of covers that have flowers on them so it’s not so bad to have two similar topics in a row, but it could also be good to go in a different direction with the next one. On the other hand, no other interpretation really screams “May flowers” to me quite as much as books with very floral covers. Either way, I knew I had to find some covers for this week’s post first and I decided to organize my Goodreads shelf by date added and choose some of the most recent additions that had flowers on them. I distinctly remember adding multiple books that have flowers on them lately, so this seemed like a good chance to show some of them off! In case I don’t end up doing the same kind of cover post for next week’s topic, I decided to include 10 here instead of 5.
Top 5 Wednesday is a meme created by Gingerreadslainey on Youtube, and is now hosted by Sam at ThoughtsOnTomes. The official GoodReads group with the weekly topics can be found here.
I had absolutely no idea how to tackle this week’s topic at first since I rarely, if ever, DNF books. I think I discussed this already in a recent post, but the only books that I remember actually DNF’ing are books that I picked up when I really had no business even trying them at that time. I didn’t have an active interest in reading them aside from thinking that I “should” because they were classics, and had little idea of what they were actually about. I’ll go into a bit more detail about that below since it’s definitely a reason that fits this list! Other than that, I rarely end up DNF’ing because I don’t like to count books that I haven’t finished toward my challenges, and once I’ve started something, it feels like a waste of time to spend a couple of days on it only to not finish and have to start over with something else. As it is, it can be difficult to keep up with all of my reading challenges so I don’t need an extra layer of difficulty! Once I looked again at the prompt description, however, I was happy to see that it also included a note that the list could also be of petty reasons to lower a rating instead, which is something I could relate to a lot more. I’m generally good at picking books I’m confident I’ll like so I tend to end up with mostly 4 and 5 star reads, but there are definitely some things that can drag a rating down for me! It was actually strangely fun to look back on the books that I’d rated lower and try to think back to the reasons they didn’t work for me.
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 of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
1) It just didn’t make any sense! – I have a specific book in mind for this one, and it’s to date the only book I’ve given a 1 star on Goodreads. It was a Choose Your Own Adventure kind of book but the plot threads just didn’t match up at all. I’d choose one path and it would refer to characters/events that I hadn’t encountered at all, or actions that my character supposedly had taken that I hadn’t yet. In hindsight, this probably is a case where I probably should have just DNF’d the book since it was not fun to read at all. I actually don’t think this is necessarily petty at all, since it seems like a valid reason to put a book down!
2) The villain is revealed too early – I wouldn’t DNF for this, but it often makes me lower a rating. I almost inevitably lose interest in a mystery/thriller when the culprit is revealed very early on in the book. Even if the rest of the book focuses on how and why they did it, I often find myself not caring much. I’d much rather be kept in suspense until closer to the end to find out who was responsible and why! I had one very specific Mary Higgins Clark book in mind for this, but there are other books I’ve read over the years where I can remember actively losing interest as soon as the culprit is identified.
3) The movie was already better! – This one is a little petty, but there were some books that I read long after I’d already seen the movie (ie. The Princess Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada) and they just didn’t live up to it for me. In general, it already bothers me when filmmakers make a lot of changes to the plotline of a book when they adapt it, but if I’ve seen the movie version first, I often find that I like it better than the book since I already have such a clear idea in mind of the characters, plot, etc. Again, I wouldn’t DNF for this necessarily, but it can affect my rating.
4) The main character makes dumb decisions – I feel like I need to qualify this one a bit. I have no issue with characters who are intentionally unlikable, or even characters who make poor decisions if it’s done in a way that still logically advances the plot. Where it bothers me is when the character is aware that they are doing something stupid, and goes ahead and does it anyway. There was a thriller I read several years back that I’d really hoped to love since it had one of my favourite premises, but I just couldn’t get past the idiocy of the main character. She’d keep thinking “I really shouldn’t be doing this” as she proceeded to do exactly what she said she shouldn’t. With strong enough writing/characters, I can sometimes get past this, but it can often lead to a lower rating.
5) Poorly done representation either as a plot device or just for the sake of having representation – It’s actually the exact same thriller that I’m thinking of for this one! The main character’s son was said to have autism, but literally nothing about the character actually came across as accurate autism representation. It seemed that the author shoehorned that in as an excuse for the son to have excellent computer skills and also for the sake of having an interesting setting, but there was no point including it at all if it wasn’t actually going to be done well. There are many books I’ve read where the diversity/representation of various groups seemed to be included just to check off diversity boxes, and it shows. It’s absolutely important to have diversity and representation in books, but I don’t necessarily think every single book needs to have representation, as long as there is adequate representation across the board in publishing in general.
6) The book doesn’t match my own arbitrary expectations – Sometimes I go into a book with a certain idea in mind of what I think it’s going to be, even if there’s no real reason for those expectations. For example, I might loosely read a synopsis and decide that a book is along similar lines as a favourite, and then feel disappointed if it isn’t, even if the synopsis itself gave no real indication that it would be. Most often, this happens when I expect a thriller and get a slow-paced character study that isn’t really a thriller at all. It’s not even necessarily that it’s a bad book, but if it’s not what I’m expecting or in the mood for at the time, it could lead to a lower rating.
7) I read it when I wasn’t really ready for it/for the wrong reasons – Quite literally the only books I’ve ever DNF’d in my life are classics that I tried to read before I was really ready for them. I had quite a high reading level even in elementary school and sometimes felt a bit jealous that my best friend was reading classics (in hindsight, I’m not sure he was fully reading/understanding them at the time either), so I wanted to read them too. I definitely read The Phantom of the Opera initially because of him and didn’t understand it at all. I also had some classics on my shelves that I felt like I “should” be reading and tried to get into them, only to have to put them down when I just couldn’t get into them. I also had a phase where I decided to read all the books on my shelves in order, regardless of what the book was. Luckily, that didn’t last very long.
8) I hated the narrator – This one is obviously specific to audiobooks, and I have a very specific book in mind. It’s the second book in an extremely popular YA romance series, and I thought it would be fun to listen to. Unfortunately, I really did not like the narrator on the version I had, especially the way she read the lead male character’s part. It was a female narrator trying to imitate a teenage boy’s voice and mannerisms, and it somehow made him come across sarcastic and annoying when I don’t think that’s how he was supposed to be given how much of a fanbase he has. I’ve learned that narrators can really make or break an audiobook for me, and in this case, it really didn’t work at all.
9) It’s taking “too long” to read – To be honest, I feel like this is more of a me problem than an actual book problem, but I’ve definitely noticed that I generally tend to rate my enjoyment of a book lower if I feel like it’s taken me an excessively long time to read relative to the size/pace of the book. Unless the book is particularly dense/detailed, I tend to equate reading it more slowly with not being as into it, and it can sometimes affect my overall impressions once I’m done. To a degree, it makes sense since if I’m really into a book I tend to fly through it more quickly, but there are times where this just isn’t possible for any variety of reasons that might not be the book’s fault, so it’s not always fair.
10) The cover is off-putting (too scary, or disgusting) – This is probably the pettiest thing on this whole list, and it’s actually much more likely to make me avoid a book entirely rather than DNF it or rate it low. If I can’t stand to even look at the cover of the book, I’m not going to be very interested in reading it unless I can find another version, in most cases. A good example of this would be The Silent Patient although I did ultimately end up reading and loving it even with the disturbing cover, but it took a while for me to be willing to pick it up at all! I know it’s silly since the cover has no real affect on the contents of the book, but if my first visceral reaction to seeing the book is “Eww, gross” or to find it scary, I’m not going to be very motivated to give it a fair chance.
This was yet another month where I’d initially assumed I wouldn’t have very many books to share, and then ended up adding a whole bunch at once! Over the course of the month, I added a total of 52 books to my TBR, once again mostly from lists of upcoming releases for later this year. I’m always surprised to see how many more books I end up finding this way, since I usually think I’ve already added most of what I’d be interested in! Every time, I’m surprised to find releases that I hadn’t heard of before, often by authors that I’ve already read and enjoyed or that I’ve at least been meaning to try. I also had quite a few books that I added because I saw them specifically recommended or at least mentioned by different sources, including Youtubers that I watch, the website DeadGoodBooks that my mom recommended to me, and sometimes just by browsing Goodreads! I’ll admit I’ve been spending less time than I used to just randomly browsing, but there are definitely times where I really actively look for new books to add to my list too! My Goodreads TBR currently stands at 5735 books which is an absolute ton, but I like to keep track of the books that I might want to read eventually, even if it’s not an immediate plan!
Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme all about the books we are adding to our shelves each week. It is hosted by TyngaReviewsand ReadingReality.
I specifically remember adding this book because it came up as a BOTM selection for April, and I ended up grabbing a copy! I’d heard of it beforehand and it was already loosely on my radar, but I hadn’t really looked into it in much detail until I saw it on the selection list. This book is a debut romance about a woman named Helen who has not seen Grant in 13 years since a tragic accident that bound their lives together. Now a bestselling author, Helen is focused on her career and is doing her best to overcome imposter syndrome and writer’s block by getting a fresh start in LA working on a TV adaptation of her popular YA novels. Grant is now a screenwriter, and although he wants to keep his distance from Helen, he can’t pass up the career opportunities that would come with working on her show. The two quickly realize that working together is messy but also reignites the sparks between them, except Helen’s parents have never forgiven Grant for what happened all those years ago, and have no idea that he’s back in the picture. When secrets begin to come out, Helen and Grant must deal with the fact that they may never have meant to have their own love story, even though the key to making peace with their shared past might bring them together in the present. It’s always a bit of a risk to pick a debut and one that I didn’t know a ton about as one of my selections, but this sounds like exactly the kind of second chance romance that I tend to like so I’m hoping it was a good choice!
I distinctly remember adding this one after seeing it mentioned by one of the vloggers that I watch, but I can’t for the life of me remember who it was! Whoever’s video it was immediately made me jump onto Goodreads to add this to my list, so hopefully I can figure out who it was. This book is about a woman named Claudia who has no interest in living up to her family’s expectations of finding a normal career or marrying a nice Chinese boy. As a lifelong mystery novel fan, Claudia is excited to be recruited by Veracity, a detective agency that allows wealthy clients to investigate the backgrounds of people they meet on dating sites. When Veracity takes on an unusual client who then ends up disappearing, Claudia decides to break protocol to investigate, and uncovers a web of deceit that goes deeper than she expects. The reviews for this one seem very mixed so far, but this sounds so fun! There have been so many quirky kinds of mystery/thrillers lately and they all sound so interesting. This book has been out for two years already and I haven’t heard very much about it nor does it have much attention on Goodreads, but it sounds like something that could be up my alley.
It’s rare that I actively decide to add non-fiction books to my TBR, but I just couldn’t resist this one. I heard about it from a video by the Podcast of the Lotus Eaters, a channel that I watch occasionally. I saw a video with the tagline “Can animals do crime?” and was immediately intrigued! That video ended up being a segment that involved a discussion around whether animals could be held legally responsible for crimes, and the lawyer who was the guest for the episode recommended this book. The topic in general reminded me of a project I did in high school about whether the Great Apes were capable of complex emotions, which was easily one of the most fascinating projects I’ve ever worked on, and I’ve since read more about the capabilities of many different kinds of animals. This book is written by two animal law experts who discuss the philosophy behind animal-related laws and what effect these might have in practical terms. Although I’m always a bit hesitant about non-fiction, I can easily see this one being fun to read and very interesting!
If I remember correctly, I first saw this book on someone’s list of predictions for what might be a BOTM selection for May. From the hints we have so far, it seems they may have been right although we’ll see whenever the next selections are actually released. This book is about a civil servant who has been chosen to work on a new project, where the government has gathered “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible. This woman is given the task of being a “bridge,” meaning she lives with and has to monitor one of these expats. In this case, her assigned expat is Commander Graham Gore, a man who died in Sir John Franklin’s Arctic expedition in 1845, who is startled by how much the world has changed. Soon, their dynamic shifts into love with unexpected consequences neither could ever have imagined, forcing the “bridge” to confront the past that has led her to this role and the choices that will affect her future. I’ll admit that this book is a little outside of my comfort zone, but it sounds like it could be a lot of fun. I’ve seen a lot of hype around this one over the past few weeks, and it just might influence my decision about whether to grab it from BOTM if it actually is a selection this month.
This was one of several books that I added because of the website DeadGoodBooks. I saw my mom browsing it and noticed several books that looked interesting, so I got her to send me the link so I could look for myself. I very quickly found multiple great book recommendations that I immediately added to my list. This one specifically came from a list of books that are “must-reads for true crime fans” because it is inspired by the real Yorkshire Ripper case. This book is about a 12-year-old named Miv who is growing up in Yorkshire in the 1980s, where there is a serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper targeting young women. Fearful that her family will have to move away if the murders continue, Miv decides to take it upon herself to uncover the killer’s identity along with her best friend Sharon. To be honest, I definitely misread the synopsis at first and initially assumed it had to do with Jack the Ripper, so I was very confused when I saw the setting was in the late 70s/early 80s. I don’t actually know anything about the Yorkshire Ripper case, but I still think this book could be very interesting!
This is another one that I distinctly remember hearing about on Youtube, but couldn’t remember at first who it was! After digging through my Goodreads page a little, I saw that it was from a video by Jan Agaton about her April 2024 Most Anticipated books. This is a channel that I subscribed to relatively recently after seeing a project that she did with BooksAndLala, so I haven’t dug too far into many of her videos yet. This book caught my attention because it was another one that seemed to have such a unique concept, even if it may be a little outside of my comfort zone. This book is about a shapeshifter named Shesheshen who lives as an amorphous lump in a ruined manor who is forced out of her home by hunters and forced to take on human form, and is found and nursed back to health by a human named Homily. Shesheshen quickly realizes that Homily would be an ideal place co-parent where she can lay her eggs, which will eventually devour Homily, but as they grow closer, she realizes that is not how relationships work for humans. Just as she’s about to confess her true identity, Homily reveals that she is hunting a shapeshifting monster who has cursed her family. While Shesheshen knows that she didn’t curse anyone, she decides to figure out why Homily’s family thinks she did and figure out the truth to give Homily the happiness she deserves. This sounds so weird but also has the potential to be very good! I’d definitely be interested in trying this one.
This book was an immediate addition to my list! I’ve enjoyed this author’s books ever since trying Big Little Lies back in 2015 as part of my first ever reading challenge, and I was excited to see that she has a new book due out later this year. This book is about a group of six passengers on a domestic flight who meet “The Death Lady,” a woman who predicts how and when they are going to die. No one on the flight later recalls noticing her get onto the plane and there was nothing seemingly exceptional about her, but when one passenger dies exactly as predicted a few months later, followed bye two others, the rest of the passengers start to realize their time may really be limited too. I had no idea what this book was about when I first added it to my list, but now that I’ve actually seen the synopsis, I’m even more excited to try it! I’ll have to see if there’s any room remaining on my challenge plans for this year to squeeze it in, but if not, it will be very high on my list for 2025!
This book immediately caught my attention because of the social media focus that the title implied. This book is about a Black college student named Sydney Ciara who is excited for her first year of college, even thought she’s going there on her own after her best friend chooses a different college and she also has no idea what path she wants to take. As Sydney Ciara tries to find her place on campus, she takes solace in blogging and spending some time on Twitter, where she soon connects with someone who goes by the screenname YoungPrinceX and develops a crush on him while also navigating her first ever relationship with a boy she met on campus. This book is told through a series of blog posts, social media messages, and Tweets, which is something I tend to love! I’m not completely sold on the synopsis of this one since the plot seems relatively generic, but I’d still be very interested in trying it. This book is not out for another year, so I’d be interested to see a little more about it closer to the release.
Kimberly Belle was supposed to be one of my top priority authors last year, and embarrassingly enough, I didn’t end up reading a single one of her books yet! However, that didn’t stop me from immediately adding her upcoming release for this summer. This book is about a woman named Stella whose secure life comes crashing down when her husband Adam goes missing after an explosion in the city square. As the French police begin to investigate, Stella learns that Adam was already on their radar as a dealer of stolen antiquities with a long list of criminal clients, and she is determined not to leave Paris until she uncovers the full story. I’m not usually that interested in books that involve thieves or these kinds of cons, but for some reason, this one intrigues me anyway. I do enjoy books that involve family secrets and characters trying to uncover what someone close to them was really involved with, so this could be very good if it’s done well. I’m not sure it’s the first book I’d want to try by this author, but I can see myself picking it up at some point.
This book immediately caught my attention because of the creepy yet strangely amazing cover art, as well as recognizing the author’s name from other books I already have on my TBR. This book is this author’s first horror novel about a teenage girl named Ruby who has always excelled at school and at keeping her younger sister Tina on track for her college admissions. When a ghost from the spirit world attacks the sisters in Vancouver’s Chinatown, Ruby’s life is upended and her usually sweet sister seems to have been replaced by something dark. Suspecting her sister has been possessed by a demon, Ruby is thrown into an ancient battle with an evil temple known for making dark wishes come true and intent on breaking down the gateway between the neighbourhood and the underworld. In order to survive, Ruby must confront the horrors taking over her community as well as within herself to find a way to stop this evil and save her sister. This sounds absolutely amazing! I’m starting to think this author might be a good contender for my priority authors list for next year, since I already have two other books of hers on my TBR!
This was another author on my priority list for 2023, but luckily in this case, I actually did read one of her books! To be fair, I meant to read multiple of them, but at least it’s a start. This book is her upcoming release due out this December, so it’s unlikely I’ll grab a copy in time to read it before the end of this year. It is about a renowned pediatric surgeon named Dr. Dougherty, a national hero and infamous survivor of a tragedy who has suddenly died after falling down the stairs. His neighbours are quick to blame his newest wife, Addison, whose marriage to him lasted only 97 days and he’d had two suspicious “accidents” in that short time. As the police begin to look into Addison and the town starts to become increasingly hostile, every seems to be choosing sides, especially Dr. Dougherty’s first wife Kathryn. Determined to unravel the doctor’s legacy, Addison decides to forge ahead with the path she’s been on for years until she becomes a target herself, but she is determined that not even anonymous threats will stop her ruining Dr. Dougherty, even if he is already dead. This sounds a little on the convoluted side but also very interesting. I will definitely be adding this to my 2025 challenge plans!
This book immediately caught my attention because I loved the unique concept! As soon as I saw it was based around Wordle, I added it straight onto my TBR without even really looking at the synopsis. This book is about a young woman named Emily whose life is not going particularly well, except for her running 300+ day streak on the New York Times Wordle puzzles. One day, when she has just one guess left and no clue what the answer is, she is forced to turn to one of her most annoying coworkers, John, for help and soon realizes that he may not be as irritating as she though. As they work together toward a full year-long streak, Emily is drawn into a romance that pulls her out of her comfort zone, and challenges everything she thought she knew about happiness and success. I was very into Wordle for quite a while, although I’ll admit I haven’t played at all in quite a while. I like the idea of this game being part of a romance, since it seems like a bit of a different spin on the kind of social media-focused books that I tend to like. I’m not quite sure how much the author will be able to weave the game into the story, but it still sounds like a fun read!
I’ll admit I’ve been guilty of not using my library anywhere near as much as I should over the past few years. Prior to the COVID lockdowns in 2020, I used to use my local library branch all the time since it’s just a short walk from my house, and my mom also used to work there. I always loved searching for books on my challenge plans for the year to put in my holds, and especially putting in requests for the library to buy some of the books for me when they didn’t have them. I found that books by British thriller authors especially tended to be lacking, for some reason. Once the lockdowns hit, I switched over to buying books from Book Outlet and from Indigo or Amazon so I could keep up with my challenges, and haven’t quite made the transition back to mostly using the library yet. Part of it is just that I like having access to the books I want whenever I want, and a part of it is also that it can be tough to get to the library at certain times of year due to weather, especially most winters (although this winter really wasn’t bad)! I am pretty careful to only buy books that are either by authors I’ve already read and loved, or at least books that I’m pretty confident I’m going to enjoy. If I borrow a book from the library and love it, I tend to end up buying myself a copy anyway. When looking for books for this week’s list I thought back to some of the authors whose books I’d had to ask the library to get for me in the past, and did a quick search to see which books were available now. Some of these are books that are in my challenge plans for this year, and others are authors that I’ve already enjoyed and would love to read again, so it would be great if my library would keep up with their releases!
Top 5 Wednesday is a meme created by Gingerreadslainey on Youtube, and is now hosted by Sam at ThoughtsOnTomes. The official GoodReads group with the weekly topics can be found here.
Abyssal Librarian 