I’m taking a pretty loose definition of the word “soon” on this one! I always find it difficult to judge series length at this point. There have been multiple cases in the past couple of years where I had series on my priority list because I assumed they were fully published, only to learn that there were still more books due! I’ve had series that I thought were duologies that ended up being trilogies or more, and even series that I thought were trilogies that got extended. It can be very frustrating sometimes, especially when trying to binge-read a series that you’ve assumed is done! For example, last year I read the first two books in the Legendborn series because I was convinced that it was supposed to be a duology, only to reach a cliffhanger at the end of the second book! Upon looking it up, I saw that there is at least one more book coming but not until 2025. For this week’s prompts, I decided to look through my Goodreads TBR to see series that just ended or are due to end this within this year. I am hoping that these books are actually the last in the series so I don’t get tricked again, but you never know! Most of these are series that are on my list to pick up this year so I’m hoping to read
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 have so much fun putting together seasonal TBRs, although I’m not always the best at sticking to them! These lists completely contradict my unofficial goal to be less hung up on reading seasonally this year, but there are some books on my list that just scream summer to me. It didn’t take too long to scour through my challenge plans for this year and find some books that were obvious choices for summer. The one new thing that I’ve been considering for this year which might shake things up a bit is the possibility of trying to participate in Summerween. This is a weeklong readathon hosted by Gabby (@GabbyReads) and the idea is to read a few spooky books in the summer. Weeklong readathons are a bit challenging for me logistically, but I really like the idea of trying Summerween, even if it’s my own version, because I often find that I trap myself by saving all my spooky books for October/early November and then don’t have time to get through them all. It would be great to have an excuse to pick up a few early without feeling like I’m too out of season! This year, Summerween is scheduled to run from July 5 – July 12 which coincides with one of my weeks of staff training, so there’s a chance I can make it work. I may share a separate list of some Summerween options late, but for the rest of the summer TBR, I decided to choose books that seemed to be set in summer, involved vacations or tropical settings, or have some kind of connection to beaches/pools/water since those feel like summer to 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.
This was one of my most obvious choices for summer! This book is about a man named Justin who believes he is cursed because everyone he dates goes on to find their soulmate immediately after they break up. When he meets Emma, a woman who seems to have the same problem, through her response to his Reddit thread about it, they decide to date each other in hopes of their curses cancelling each other out when they break up. What is supposed to be a summer fling soon becomes much more serious when both find themselves navigating difficult and unexpected family situations. I’ve started reading Abby Jimenez’s backlist already and I’m especially looking forward to her more recent releases. I didn’t realize that this one was technically connected to Part of Your World and Yours Truly. I’m sure I probably could read them independently, but I think I’d rather stick to publication order which means I need to get to these as soon as possible so I can read this one in the summer!
I’ve fallen a little behind on this author’s recent releases, but I’m especially excited for this one! This book is about a woman named Lyla whose life seems to be in a rut until her aspiring actor boyfriend Nico gets the opportunity to audition for a reality show. After a whirlwind audition, Nico and Lyla are sent to the tropical Ever After Island, where they must compete against four other couples to win the cash prize. Not long after they arrive, things start to go wrong. With the first challenge leaving everyone angry and scared, an overnight storm makes everything worse. Cut off from the mainland and without any way to contact the production team or anyone at home, the cast must work together to survive when the stakes become life or death. I’ve been really interested in books dealing with reality shows lately, for some reason, and this just sounds so fun. This kind of island setting seems just perfect for the summer!
Not only are both of these books screaming summer, but Dahlia Adler is also on my priority list to read this year so there really shouldn’t be any excuse not to pick at least one of these up! Cool for the Summer is about a teenage girl named Lara who has spent her entire time at high school wanting to date Chase, a football star who is finally showing interest in her. Everything should be perfect, except Lara keeps remembering a confusing, strangely perfect romantic summer spent with a girl named Jasmine. This only becomes more confusing when Jasmine shows up at their school causing Lara to question what she really wants. Going Bicoastal is about a teenage girl named Natalya who has only 24 hours to decide if she wants to spend her summer with her dad in NYC and hopefully get the courage to ask out the girl she has a crush on, or with her estranged mom in LA in hopes of fixing their relationship and meets a guy she never saw coming. Both storylines play out in a “sliding doors” kind of story with alternating timelines. Both books seem like great ones to read in the summer since they are so heavily focused on the season, and both could potentially be great options to squeeze in toward the end of Pride Month.
This is another case where I couldn’t choose between the two options by the same author! My Summer Darlings is about three women who have been close friends since childhood, who become obsessed with a mysterious new man who comes to their town. They are all completely unprepared for how much he disrupts their lives especially after he abruptly pulls away, leaving them wondering what happened until what they uncover is much more sinister than they expect. A Likeable Woman is about a woman named Kira who fled her affluent town never to look back after her mother’s mysterious death. She reluctantly returns to attend a frenemy’s vow renewal party, and soon finds there are certain things calling her back to her hometown including her childhood crush. When Kira’s grandmother gives her a memoir her mother was writing before her death, she is pulled back into the past and gets closer to finding out what really happened to her mother. Both of these books seem like the perfect summer thrillers, and the titles/cover art are a big factor in that! Unfortunately, I don’t yet have a copy of A Likeable Woman so I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to read that one, but I’m hoping to snag a copy soon so I can read both!
This is the last pair of books I have from the same author for this list, which is great because for some reason it’s been giving me a hard time formatting when there’s more than one picture in each chunk. The Layover is this author’s debut and it is about a woman named Ava who is going on her last trip as a flight attendant before giving up the career, and is irritated to learn that former pilot Jack Stone, whom she’s had a grudge against for years is on her flight. When mechanical issues cause them to be stuck together at a luxury resort in the Caribbean, Ava begins to question everything she thought she knew about this man and about what she wants for her own life. From the Jump is about a woman named Liv who decides to finally start saying “no” to things, leading her to quit her job and jump on a plane to join her friends in South Africa. Instead of the easy and relaxing time with her friends that she expects, Liv finds the constant proximity makes everything more complicated, especially with the emotionally unavailable Lucas. Liv vows to do whatever she can to keep the group together, but once they get home to LA, she discovers her life is in freefall, and she must decide whether she can take another risk and pursue what she really wants. Both of these sound very cute and fun to read, and they seem like they will make quick summer romance reads!
I completely misunderstood what this book was about when I first added it to my list! I somehow assumed it would be similar to Beach Read and focus on authors, but it is actually quite different. This book is actually about a woman named Samantha who is hoping to revive her career as a chef, and instead is forced to spend her summer chaperoning her younger half-brother who is spending his summer at the library for a local robotics competition. Samantha is dyslexic and hates the library, and even moreso when she learns that the library’s interim director is the same man whose book she accidentally destroyed on the ferry ride over to the island. This man, Bennett, is there to find the father he has never known, taking a temporary job at the library to research the summer his mother spent there. Bennett isn’t interested in a relationship right now, but finds that he can’t stop thinking about Samantha, and the two of them soon begin to help each other toward their goals and realize that their summer fling may be heating up into something more. I’m a little more on the fence about this book now that I know it isn’t quite the storyline I expected, but it still seems like it could be really cute!
This book feels like summer to me mostly because of the cover art. I tend to associate anything that has any kind of pool or beach scene naturally with summer. This book is about three woman, Jessica, Norah and Alicia who were all rescued from family tragedies and raised by a foster mother Miss Fairchild on a farming estate where they were given a second chance for a happy family. However, their childhood was not the ideal family life that everyone assumed due to Miss Fairchild’s unpredictability and strict rules. In a moment of desperation, all three managed to break away and thought they were free of that home forever, even though Miss Fairchild was always somewhere in their minds. When a body is discovered under their foster home, the three foster sisters find themselves back in the spotlight as key witnesses and potentially even suspects. I have really enjoyed all three of the books I’ve read by this author so far, and I still have a few backlist titles to catch up on. This book sounds especially intriguing and I was very excited to get it through BOTM, so I’m hoping to get to it very soon!
This is a book that I really should have read last summer, but somehow I didn’t get to it! I did read the first in the series last summer and I liked it although there were aspects of the writing that didn’t quite work for me. This one follows Hannah Bellinger, the sister of the main character from the first book, who insists that she is just friends with Fox, a notorious ladies’ man and even seems immune to his usual charms. When she turns to Fox for some tips on how to win the attention of the coworker she is crushing on, Hannah soon realizes that she may actually want him instead although she does not want to be just another notch on the bedpost. Hannah and Fox’s friendship was one of my favourite things from the first book in this series and I’m very excited to see more of them! One of my main issues with the first book is that I found the main character Piper annoying so I’m hoping I’ll like this one even better when it’s characters that I already like more!
To be honest, I chose this one as a summer read mostly because of the very tropical-looking cover, but it does not quite seem to match the synopsis. It is about a young woman named Anna who married Liam for access to subsidized family housing in college, assuming that they divorced right after graduation. Three years later, Liam is on the verge of inheriting his family’s corporation if he can prove that he has been happily married for at least 5 years. With pressure mounting from his family to meet his wife, Liam has no choice but to ask Anna for help, but soon begins to worry that his family’s privileged world might corrupt her. I definitely assumed that this book would be more along the lines of The Unhoneymooners, which is still my favourite by this author duo aside from their YA book Autoboyography. I’m not quite sure how the title or cover really relate to the rest of the book, but those two elements scream summer to me.
This book actually just came up on @GabbyReads list of thriller recommendations, where she said it was perfect for summer so that’s already encouraging! Personally, I chose it because of the focus on the lake on the cover and in the synopsis, although it’s not necessarily as summer-y as some of the others here. This book is about a young woman named Hazel, the daughter of Mirror Lake’s longtime local detective, who unexpectedly inherits her childhood home and gets drawn back into the town she left almost a decade before. Soon after she returns, a drought hits the area causing the lake levels to drop and reveal long-buried secrets, some of which may even explain Hazel’s mother’s mysterious disappearance. This is another book that I was very excited to get from BOTM recently, and yet another author where I’m quite behind on her releases! I definitely need to get caught up and this book may be a great place to start.
I think “Recent Reads” might be a little bit of a misnomer at this point, since it often takes me a little while to have the chance to mention some of the books that I’ve read! My attempt to organize each post around some kind of theme sometimes means that it takes some time to get to the next book that really fits. In this case, I specifically wanted to group together some of my highly anticipated fantasy books, all of which were books that I was a little intimidated by for various reasons. I tend to go through phases where I read a ton of fantasy books, and others where I find myself struggling to pick them up even when I know that I’m likely going to enjoy them. Even when I was younger, I had a pretty big window of time where I struggled with fantasy in general because I often found it confusing (probably because I was a bit too literal-brained at the time), and I think that sometimes gets into my head a bit. I rarely have trouble understanding fantasy books now but sometimes that fear creeps in that I’ll pick up a fantasy book and not understand anything, and it makes me anxious to even try. I also tend to prefer not to read too many fantasy books close together to avoid getting the different characters and worlds mixed up. Luckily, I have a lot of very highly motivating fantasy books on my list this year so even though I spaced them out quite a little too much to necessarily be “recent,” it still felt right to wrap them up together.
All the way back in mid-March, I read House of Flame and Shadow, which was by far one of my most anticipated books of the year! I was very much intimidated to pick this one up because Sarah J. Maas’s books are very lengthy and tend to have a lot of details to keep track of, and it had been almost a full two years since I read the previous one in this series! I did end up reading a very detailed summary to refresh myself before delving into this, and it was definitely helpful and needed especially since several of the characters go by multiple different names/titles. Given that this is the third in the series, I don’t want to go into too much detail about the plot and risk spoilers. However, I will say that I think I enjoyed this one a bit more than House of Sky and Breath overall, although not quite as much as House of Earth and Blood which was one of my all-time favourite starts to a fantasy series! That’s not necessarily saying much since all three books were ultimately 5-star reads for me, so all three were still amazing. I just remember feeling like Bryce and Hunt took a bit of a backseat in HOSAB and was happy to see them more prominent again in this one, even with so many other characters to balance. Lidia very, very quickly became my new favourite! I also loved how this book wove in so many characters from this series as well as some of Sarah J. Maas’s other books, although there were some references that I definitely missed. I did find some of the plot a little confusing but ultimately really liked how it all came together even if it was unexpected. I was a bit surprised that this book felt a bit more “conclusive” to me than expected, since I had assumed there was still at least one or two more books in the series coming, so I’m curious to see what (if anything) the author does next with it.
About a month later, I read both books plus the novellas in the Foul Lady Fortune series, which is a follow-up to Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights duology focusing on Rosalind. Just like I was with These Violent Delights, I was strangely intimidated to pick up this duology. I think something about it being in a historical setting makes me assume I’ll have trouble getting into it, but just like with her first series, I was drawn in by the writing immediately. This author’s writing style is not dense at all and she writes very compelling characters, so her books are always fun to read. I absolutely loved the relationship and banter between Rosalind and Orion, and also enjoyed the storylines following their sisters Celia and Phoebe, respectively. Occasionally, I had a little trouble keeping track of all the different plotlines especially since the characters were all so interconnected, and I think that was especially the case in the second book the series. I definitely remember having a tough time at first really getting invested, but it didn’t take too long for it to recapture my attention! The character dynamics were definitely the highlight for me! I wasn’t 100% sure when to fit in the novellas so I ended up reading both after I had finished the rest of the duology, and thought it was a fun addition. I’m so glad I didn’t intimidate myself out of reading this series!
Last month, I read The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo, which was another of my most anticipated books of the year mostly by author name alone! This book was such a departure from this author’s usual style, and I was so nervous to even try it at first because I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the synopsis, but I ultimately thought that the synopsis didn’t quite match in a way. It does technically describe what the book is about, but the way it all played out was so different from what I’d expected based on that summary. More than anything, I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book and how quickly I got invested in it! I found the historical setting fascinating, and, as expected for this author, I especially loved the characters. I was also very surprised by the direction that the plot took since there was an entire major element that was not mentioned at all in the synopsis. I’m not entirely sure whether it would be too spoiler-y to discuss it here, but I will just say that I absolutely loved this aspect and the dynamics that it introduced between Luzia and several of the other characters. I was especially intrigued by the relationship between Luzia and Santangel, which gave me very similar kind of vibes to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue in a way. The one thing that bothered me a bit was there was one seemingly minor character that was repeatedly mentioned throughout the book, enough that my attention was drawn to it, but I could never quite figure out why. Despite that, and although it was so different from what I thought it was going to be, I absolutely loved this book!
This was a surprisingly very interesting prompt! I often find characters in books that I relate to in some way for a variety of reasons. When I was trying to think of books that I related to, however, I mostly tended to think of comic collections such as those by Debbie Tung, Sarah Andersen or Catana Chetwynd, many of which deal with introversion, social anxiety/awkwardness, etc. It took a little more digging to look back at the books I’d read and find some characters that I remembered relating to, although a lot of that was because some of them were books I read a long time ago. Often, I relate most to characters who have a strong interest in reading/writing and who have some kind of social anxiety. There are also some characters that I relate to partially, but not necessarily fully. For example, I’ve always related strongly to Jo March’s love of writing and devotion to her family, but not with how outspoken that she can be. I was a bit surprised to see that there were fewer characters in all my notes on the books I’d read over the years about relatability than I’d thought. I can definitely remember thinking that characters were similar to me more often than my notes seemed to indicate! Luckily, it still did not take long to find 5 characters who I could definitely see myself in.
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) Cath from Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell – This was the first character who immediately sprung to mind because I related so incredibly strongly to her! Unlike Cath, I remained at home for college so I didn’t live in the dorms like her, but I definitely would have reacted in the same ways that she did. It’s been literally about 7 years since I read this, but I still distinctly remember her anxiety and awkwardness even about simple things like finding the cafeteria. I also strongly related to her passion for her favourite series and her interest in writing her own fanfiction about it.
2) Molly from The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli – Even years down the line, this book and Fangirl are still inextricably linked in my mind for some reason. Unlike Molly, I was definitely not constantly crushing on people or actively looking for a relationship at that age, but I generally related to her anxiety and tendency to jump to conclusions about everything. I also related to her fun hobby of making cookie dough jars! I haven’t actually tried that myself, but it’s something that I definitely would be interested in trying since it sounds delicious. I actually really want to reread this one soon-ish since I loved it but don’t remember it well.
3) Hermione Granger from Harry Potter by JK Rowling – This is another character who immediately sprung to mind because she was one of the first fictional characters, aside from Jo March, that I remember strongly relating to. I was an overachiever like Hermione and took my schoolwork very seriously. I was also a huge rule-follower, arguably more than she was since Hermione actually broke a ton of rules in her time at Hogwarts. Like Hermione, I also had two very close friends who were both boys for my entire time at school. I also physically resemble Hermione to a degree because I spent most of my life with very bushy brown hair (that finally calmed down a bit as I got older).
4) Zachary Ezra Rawlins from The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern – I remembered relating to this character immediately, but I had to double check my notes to recall exactly why since it’s been about 4 years since I’ve read this! At the time, I noted that I related to Zachary because of his introversion and his strong interests in reading and gaming. I definitely think I would have been just as intrigued as he was to find out what was going on with the book he found. This was not necessarily a character that I expected to relate so strongly to, but I connected with him immediately!
5) Prudence from Instant Karma by Marissa Meyer – This one is quite specific, but I related very, very strongly to Prudence’s attitude toward group projects! I don’t think I’d be quite as bossy as her because I have more social anxiety, but I was very much a perfectionist when it came to my schoolwork and I would have wanted to control the projects to make sure they were done “right” (while also being frustrated that all the work was on me). I related very strongly to her annoyance about her grades relying on someone else, since I’ve always found that a little unfair!
This is always a fun prompt for me, and it is relatively well-timed since it is coming right after my most recent book haul! On the other hand, the challenge I always have with this prompt is differentiating it from my upcoming list of most anticipated books for the second half of the year! This prompt always seems to come out some time in June just before the Most Anticipated one, and naturally many of the books on my wishlist would by most most anticipated releases! I very recently went to updated my wishlists both in Indigo and Amazon to match each other (mostly for the sake of price comparison) and to add some more upcoming releases including a few that aren’t due out until 2025! The other potentially fun part of this prompt is the suggestion to link to your wishlist, but while I really like the idea, I’m still not sure how to do that without making my address publicly available, nor do I really expect anyone to buy me anything so there isn’t much of a purpose. To minimize the chance of repetition with other upcoming prompts, I decided to mostly include books that are already out or coming out before the end of June that are currently on my wishlist! I ended up going over 10 because I delved back a bit into the end of 2023 for some of the books too.
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.
It’s been quite a while since I last posted a book haul and with good reason! This one was a bit of a struggle because I had to remember where I put all of the books to make sure that I captured them all. I normally try to keep all books received in the same order together as much as possible until I photograph them because it’s an extra safety measure to help me remember which books I’ve already bought, especially when it comes to Book Outlet! I’m generally pretty good at remembering off the top of my head which books I already have, even though there are so many, although even in this stack I discovered one that I’d bought even though I already had a copy! I somehow forgot that I’d already bought The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware a while ago, so when I saw it on Book Outlet again, I thought I still didn’t have it and grabbed another one. At least it was at a relatively low price! This time around, I found it harder to round up all of my books because some of them were preorders that came one by one over several weeks. I’m pretty sure I managed to grab everything without overlapping my previous haul, minus one book that I know for sure that I forgot (which I’ll get to further down), and I hope I didn’t forget any!
This first photo is three months of Book of the Month orders, which included a nice mix of some of my most anticipated books of this year and many that I’d never heard of before! I normally have no trouble filling my box with the maximum number of books, but the past couple of months I was a little surprised by some of the selections. In June specifically, there were several other books, mainly thrillers, that I was assuming would be selections and instead it was mostly books that I hadn’t heard of. Luckily, Peter Swanson’s A Talent for Murder was a main pick so that made it an easy choice! I think April was an especially great month of selections/add-ons for me since it had so many books I was already so excited for. May was a little more questionable since I didn’t know much about most of the main picks. I chose The Return of Ellie Black since that was already on my TBR, and ended up picking a couple more based on the seeing the hype/reviews as well as two backlist titles. I’m really hoping Riley Sager’s new book is either a selection or an add-on for July! I fully expected it for June, but it comes out relatively late in the month so I guess there is still a chance.
This next photo is a pretty huge stack of books that I picked up from Indigo and Amazon, the vast majority of which were preorders. Almost every single one of these books is so high on my priority list to pick up this year, so I’m hoping this will give me a bit of a push to actually follow through and ready them. I’m a little intimidated by a couple of the longer books in this stack! Some of these were books that I expected to be BOTM selections (ie. Funny Story) and went on to buy immediately after seeing that they weren’t. On the other hand, others were books that I had already preordered, and then saw that they were available through BOTM! It’s become a real challenge to preorder sometimes now because I never know what’s going to come up. I love looking at other bloggers predictions lists, but it’s impossible to know which ones will actually make it. I really can’t wait to get started on reading so many of these!
The last two photos are a bunch of books that I bought from Book Outlet over the course of three months, as well as 2 of the 3 books that I bought from BetterWorldBooks, which are the two on top in the second photo. I completely forgot to add the third book because I had it on my desk in a pile of books that I’d recently read and had also recently posted about it on my Instagram, so I don’t feel too bad about leaving it out. For anyone curious, that book was Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent. I wasn’t really planning on buying so many books from Book Outlet, but they had quite a few more recent releases that I was already interested in buying, including some authors who might become future priority authors. I actually ended up buying Homegoing twice but gave away one of the copies. I bought it first from BetterWorldBooks because I’ve spent years looking for a hardcover copy, and wasn’t that happy with the quality of the one I received. Even though it was described as “excellent” condition, I found it was more banged up than I wanted. Almost immediately afterwards, hardcover copies came up on Book Outlet for the first time in literally years, and I decided to take a chance and buy a second one in hopes of getting a better one. Luckily, I did! The books are organized here in no particular order this time. I usually try to arrange them either by genre or by keeping books ordered together in the same stack, but this is a bit more of a mix of all the different orders together.
If anyone would like to follow along with my reading challenges and see what I’m currently reading in addition to book hauls, please follow me on Instagram here.Â
I cringe a little every time I see this kind of topic come up, and it seems to come up relatively often! I always have such a hard time coming up with jobs that I’ve seen in fictional books that I’d be interested in having. In part, it’s because I’m a little picky about what kinds of jobs I’d want. In real life, I have no interest whatsoever in working retail or at a restaurant unless I absolutely had to. I also tend to get a little stuck on whether I’d actually be “qualified” for the job in the book, even though there’s no need to go that far since it’s not like I’m actually going for it! More importantly, however, I think my biggest challenge is that it’s pretty rare for me to consciously remember jobs that are mentioned in books after the fact, unless there is something particularly unique or interesting about them. It’s the kind of detail that I might notice while reading but I’m not so likely to think about it after the fact, which makes it tricky to go back and figure out what to pick. Luckily, this time I only need to find 5 jobs as opposed to 10 like last time, so hopefully it won’t be too hard!
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) A communication therapist like Anjeli in Happiness Falls by Angie Kim – I don’t know that I’d specifically want to try the same kind of communication techniques as Anjeli does, since there has been some controversy around it, but I am very interested in communication strategies for people with autism and other similar disorders. I actually do work at a day program for adults with special needs and one of my main focuses in the programs I run is developing functional literacy and communication skills, so this seems like a very realistic (although not the most creative) choice for me.
2) Working at The Butch Oven from Kiss Her Once For Me by Alison Cochrun or Pietra’s Sweet Tooth from Counting Down with You by Tashie Bhuiyan – I was going to separate these out but I chose them both for the exact same reason so it only seemed fair to group them together. As much as I’m not interested in food service jobs and I’d much rather visit these places to eat, they could be fun to work at too! Both seem to be run by very cool people, and both offer a wide range of delicious treats that I hope I’d be able to sample or maybe get a staff discount to buy. I’m sure anyone who works in that kind of environment gets tired of sweets after a while, but I think it could be fun at least for a short-term job!
3) A digital archaeologist like Mickie in These Toxic Things by Rachel Howzell Hall – The whole concept of this job just seems so interesting, although I don’t know if the book quite explained it well enough to do it justice since some reviews referred to it as just “snapping a few pictures and writing a caption” which doesn’t quite cover it. This job involves creating “digital scrapbooks” to helps compile important memories and moment’s from a person’s life, piecing them together into a story that can be used to help the person or others who knew them remember significant moments, memories, etc. I love to hold onto items of sentimental value myself and I also love the idea of documenting someone’s life through their memories, especially in such a visual format. I think this would be such a fascinating job to have!
4) A ghostwriter like Chandler in Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon – I feel like I’m cheating a little with this one since I also had ghostwriter on my previous list, albeit from a different book! I kind of like the idea of being able to write and get things published, but without all the fame and scrutiny that goes along with it. On the other hand, I also think I might face a similar struggle with Chandler in this book where it could be a little frustrating to have my work out there and never receive any credit for it at all while someone else does. It definitely seems like a tough one to balance, but I still think it could be an interesting job.
5) A video game developer like Sadie and Sam in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin – This is a good example of a job that I think would be interesting, but I definitely do not have the skillset for! I have always had an interest in video and computer games, although mostly very popular ones like Mario, Pokemon, Minecraft, etc. I theoretically love the idea of being able to come up with my own game concepts that I think would be fun to play, but I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to make them actually work or to find that balance between being challenging without being too frustrating. Luckily, the prompt is asking for jobs I’d like to have, not jobs I’d actually be able to do, so this still fits!
I liked that this week’s topic was left open to any emotion, and not limited to just one! My first instinct with this kind of prompt is always to go for books that made me sad, since those are the ones that tend to leave the most lasting impact. I don’t necessarily feel like I have very strong emotional reactions to books that often. I’m a lot more likely to react strongly to TV or movies since seeing other people upset makes me upset too. For example, I recently watched the end of Young Sheldon and cried through most of the second-last episode. There are several movies and shows I can remember literally making me cry, but it’s not so often the case with books for some reason even when the book is very sad. Luckily, this week’s prompt wasn’t specific to sadness so I had the chance to think of books that triggered a variety of other emotions. I did find that sadness was still the one that I defaulted to most since those are the strong reactions that felt the most memorable, somehow. I did my best to find some books that reflected a variety of emotions, where I distinctly remember having a very strong reaction.
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) A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness – This was the first book that immediately came to mind, and it is one of the few books that has quite literally made me sob every time I read it! I’ve read this book twice and cried, both times at a very specific part of the story. I actually cried at the exact same part of the movie as well. This book is just amazing, and so emotional!
2) Sandy Hook by Elizabeth Williamson – This book made me so mad! I’ve read a few books that deal with different school shootings, but this was the one that I found the most upsetting because of the focus on all the conspiracy theories that surrounded it. It was so upsetting to see how many people bought into the theories and harassed the families of the victims, trying to claim that the shooting wasn’t real!
3) Know My Name by Chanel Miller – This is another non-fiction book that made me so mad because of how this case was handled. It was so frustrating to see the way Chanel was treated during the trial and how biased it was against her as the victim. This case was so upsetting because it seemed like it should have been such an easy one to prosecute considering he was caught in the act, and it was so frustrating to see how even that didn’t help.
4) The Way I Used to Be by Amber Smith – This is a book that I remember having such a strong, visceral reaction to in the first chapter that I literally had to put it down and almost DNF’d because I didn’t know if I’d be able to continue. This book is about a high school student who is sexually assaulted in her own bedroom by her brother’s friend, and that scene unexpectedly triggered me very badly and made me feel sick. I’ve since read multiple other books that were even more graphic (ie. Karin Slaughter’s thrillers) without issue, so I’m not sure why this one got me so badly.
5) White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson – This is one of the few books that had extremely vivid and memorable scary scenes! I always struggle a bit with ghost stories because I like them but they tend to freak me out, and this was no exception. I read this book in late 2022, and I still distinctly remember several scenes in detail because of how creepy they were! This is definitely one the scariest YA books I’ve ever read, but it was so effective because of it. It’s even more creepy to know that it was loosely based off a real event that happened in Japan, but I won’t give detail since that could be spoiler-y.
6) Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston – I wanted to throw in one or two books that made me happy amidst all the ones that were scary or upsetting, and this was an easy choice! This book was so cute and so much fun to read. It was literally a book that I went into with such low expectations because I assumed it was overhyped, and it quickly became one of my all-time favourite romances. It’s been three years since I’ve read it, and I still think about it. “I love him on purpose” is one my of favourite quotes from any book I’ve ever read!
7) Sadie by Courtney Summers and Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds – Does tense count as an emotional reaction? These books were both heartbreaking in their own ways, but one of the things I remember most about them is how tense they both were! In both cases, I was so compelled to see what happened next and what decisions the characters were made. Long Way Down was a very quick read since it is told entirely in verse, but I devoured Sadie almost equally as quickly! Both really captured the experience of a young person battling with the possibility of taking revenge, and they were just incredible.
8) Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson – I was going to leave this book off initially because I already had something else by this author here, but it didn’t seem right to exclude it! It’s hard to sum this book up with just one emotion, but it was definitely very upsetting (in the best possible way). This book was so impactful and it was another book that I literally could not put down. It’s been 6 years since I’ve read this now, and it is one of the YA books that still completely sticks with me. This is by far one of the most impactful books I’ve ever read, and I really wish it had more buzz at the time.
9) House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune – Like Red, White and Royal Blue, this was a book that I actively avoided for a long time because it seemed ridiculously overhyped, but the second I picked it up, I loved it! This book it essentially my perfect book, with all of the elements that I tend to love and that I never really expected to see all together. It felt like a cross between Harry Potter and the Addams Family, my two absolute favourite things, with some of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children mixed in, and all without feeling in any way like a rip-off of any of those. The characters were incredible, the writing was beautiful, and the humour was perfect. I can’t wait for the next book in the series, and really hope it lives up to this one.
10) Bang by Barry Lyga – This is another incredibly underrated book, and I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else mention it. It is about a teenage boy who accidentally shot and killed his infant sister back when he was only 4, and is now considering suicide after living with the guilt of what he did his whole life even knowing it was just an accident. This book was heartbreaking and very, very powerful especially toward the end. I really wish more people knew about this book, although I’m sure it would be a difficult one for many to read.
Somehow, it feels like this month went by super quickly! It feels like I just sat down to do my last Stacking the Shelves not too long ago, and it’s somehow already the time for the next one. This was another month where I wasn’t really paying attention to adding books, so I was a little surprised to see how many I had added! This month, I added a total of 64 more books to my TBR, most of which came from looking ahead to 2025 releases. To be fair, I think a couple of the books I added are duplicates that came from Goodreads Giveway entries, however I distinctly remember spending some time browsing Goodreads’ lists of Most Popular releases coming in different months, and I noticed multiple new releases by favourite authors that I just had to add to my list even though they are still a long way off! A good chunk of the books I added don’t yet have any cover art or much detail, but I wanted to add them when I saw them as a reminder to look out for them. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more upcoming releases as this year goes on, especially toward the end of this year when it comes time to plan for my next set of reading challenges, although right now that is still quite a while away! I also have quite a few books that I came across while looking at Book of the Month predictions lists, most of which unfortunately did not make the cut. I always have so much fun looking back on the books I added to my list each month!
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 actually can’t remember where I first saw this book, but I suspect it may have been on a list of BOTM predictions. It caught my attention at first because of the cover, and shortly afterwards I realized that it was by the author of The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder, a book that has been high on my list to read for years now which I embarrassingly haven’t gotten to yet! Apparently this author also had another book out 3 years ago as well that I’d never even heard of. This one is her new release that just came out today! It is about a woman named Julia who meets the man of her dreams, only to learn that he had actually died one year ago. The synopsis is extremely vague, but it seems that Julia has the ability to travel back in time and change their paths so that she can meet this man in real life. It reminds me quite a bit of The Seven Year Slip, which I haven’t read yet but I’m very excited to try. I have a few of these kinds of time travel love stories on my TBR and they always seems so fun, so I’m looking forward to giving this one a chance.
This is another book that caught my attention mostly because of the author name. I’ve already read and enjoyed two other books by this author. She seems to be one of many who initially started with “women’s fiction” and has been veering more toward thrillers with her more recent releases. This one is coming out in just a few days, and it is about a woman named Harriet, who is determined to figure out who killed her as she lays dying, with her devoted husband one of the main suspects as well as Karen, another school mom who seemed to have it all until Harriet persuaded her to play Two Truths and a Lie one night. I was intrigued by this one because it seems to have an element of “playground politics” based on the emphasis in the synopsis on bullies, games and jealousy. I tend to love books that have this kind of plotline for some reason, although I’m not quite sure how it will work if I’ve understood the synopsis already that the main character is dying. I would assume it will involve some kind of flashbacks/chapters set beforehand, but I’m very interested to see how the author can make it work.
I actually saw this author announce this book herself on her social media pages, and immediately rushed to add it to my list! This is another case where I’m embarrassed not to have read anything by this author yet, despite both of her books being very high on my list. I am planning to read them both before the end of this year, and I expect this one will be a top priority for 2025! This book is about a young man named Thomas, a hearing child of a Deaf adult, who jumps at the opportunity to become an interpreter for an heiress who uses sign language exclusively, since he knows this job will help support his gravely ill mother. Despite being tasked with accompanying Vivienne everywhere, she is determined to get rid of him, and to break her parents’ strict rules that prevent her going anywhere without permission and to never be out after dark. Selectively mute after she went missing in Red Rock Canyon at age 4, no one knows what happened to Vivienne but they do know that the sound of her voice is now as deadly as poison, and she has been desperately searching for a way to regain control of her voice and her life but only if she can get Thomas out of her way first. This sounds absolutely incredible, just like this author’s other two books, and I’m really hoping I love them all as much as I’m expecting to!
It seems Alice Feeney is going all-out with those titles containing antonyms with her latest releases! I discovered this one not too long after finishing Good Bad Girl, and was surprised to see that she already had another book announced for early next year. This book is about an author named Grady who calls his wife Abby to share some exciting news, only to hear her slam on the breaks, get out of the car, and then he can’t hear anything else. He eventually finds her car by the cliff edge with the door still open and her phone still inside, but no sign of Abby. A Year later, overcome with grief and desperate to find out what happened, Grady decides to travel to a tiny Scottish island to get his life back on track, where he is surprised to see a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife. Like all of this author’s books, this sounds amazing and is sure to be high on my list to read next year! Alice Feeney has very quickly become one of my favourite thriller authors, and I’m always looking forward to what she will come out with next.
This book was another immediate addition to my list as soon as I saw it on the list of upcoming 2025 releases! This author’s adult debut What Lies in the Woods was one of my top books of 2023 and I’m planning to read her most recent release very soon too. This book is another adult thriller that is due out right at the start of February, and it is about a woman named Theodora who meets Connor Dalton, a man from a wealthy and powerful family, with whom she instantly falls in love. After six months, he brings her to his family’s isolated winter retreat in an attempt to win over his skeptical relatives, where she is shocked to find a photo of herself as a child taken right there in the cabin. Theo has almost no memory of her earliest years, but this photo causes her to begin to piece together what she can about her past, but someone there has a secret that they would do anything to keep hidden, putting Theo in danger if she gets too close. This is yet another book that I expect will be high on my list to read in 2025, given how much I loved her first adult thriller. I still need to catch up on this author’s newest book as well as her backlist YA thriller/horror books, but I really can’t wait for this one!
This is an author that I’ve been meaning to try for quite a while, especially with her most recent adult fantasy releases. I bought her two most recent books both from BOTM because they sounded absolutely amazing, but haven’t read either of them yet. I also have several of this author’s YA books to pick up at some point too. This book is her upcoming fantasy book due out next January, and it is about twins James and Johnny who have always had such a deep connection that James knows instantly when her brother is killed in a tragic accident. Arriving in a small town in California to settle his affairs, she is forced to rehash their past and face Micah, the only man she’s ever loved and the only person who knows about her past. Soon, James discovers that her connection to her brother isn’t quite gone and the more she becomes immersed in his world, the more she realizes that he may have had more secrets than she thought. Like all of this author’s recent releases, this sounds absolutely incredible, but for some reason I’m always a little intimidated to pick them up!
I have to admit, I’m a little upset with myself for falling so far behind on this author’s releases! Tweet Cute was one of my all-time favourite YA books and I picked up You Have a Match pretty quickly, but I have somehow not read anything else despite collecting them all! This book is this author’s upcoming YA romance due out in January about a girl named Sadie who thinks she has finally “defeated” her academic rival and next-door neighbour Seb by getting the one spot available at her dream college. However, when Seb is unexpectedly pulled off the waitlist and admitted to the school too, Sadie finds herself competing with him all over again to get a place working on the school’s famous zine. The more they compete, the more Sadie and Seb start to notice the flaws in the school’s system and find themselves working together and realizing they may have more in common than they expected. I love books that deal with academic rivalry, so this seems absolutely perfect for me. I also like YA books that focus on slightly older characters and offer something a little more than just a straightforward romance, and it seems likely that this book will deliver on those aspects as well!
This book was more of a random find that I came across on Goodreads lists of Most Popular new releases. I didn’t even realize I’d heard of this author before until I double-checked if I had anything else already on my TBR, and realized she’d also written The Chateau which was also loosely on my radar. This one caught my attention because it is a thriller about writers, and that’s a trope that I just love! This one is about a reclusive mystery author named Ginevra Ex who is famous for having an unusual approach to writing in which she hires real people and fictionalizes them based on extensive interviews. Her latest “main character” Rory is thrilled to have the chance to take a trip on the newly renovated Orient Express for a trip across Italy’s Mediterranean coast, but is surprised to find that Ginevra has also invited her brother, her best friend and even her ex. With each stop, it seems that Ginevra has orchestrated some kind of real plot involving Rory, and as the lies start to pile up, she begins to worry that her trip will become a real-life murder mystery, forcing her to race to untangle why all of these people were invited on board before it’s too late. This reminds me a bit of The Writing Retreat, although I’d imagine it wouldn’t get quite as wild as that one.
This book was another random find from that same list! It is a debut thriller that just came out in May, and as always, the house on the cover attracted my attention somehow. I still can’t figure out why I’m always drawn to books with houses on the cover! This book is about twin sisters Cassie and Lenora who have always been inseparable, living together in Cabin Two on an isolated campground where they can avoid journalists and true crime junkies and live in peace after an incident in their past. However, when a teenage girl camping at a nearby cabin goes missing, their memories of the fateful night come back and each begins to suspect that the other may know more than she’s letting on. Trapped together in the wilderness, Cassie and Lenora must piece together what happened to the girl as well as in their own pasts before it is too late. While I’m not that big on books that focus on wilderness or survival, this one seems intriguing since it seems the main focus is on the parallels between the twins’ past and the girl that goes missing. I’m definitely interested to see more reviews for this once people pick it up, and although it may not be the at top of my list right now, I can definitely see myself picking this up at some point.
I saw this book mentioned repeatedly as a BOTM option on Youtube and was disappointed to see that it wasn’t available here in Canada! This book just sounds like such a fun concept. This book is about a woman named Lauren who returns home to her flat in London where she is greeted by a man named Michael, who says he is her husband. Lauren knows that she is not married, but according to her friends and all the photos on her phone, she and Michael have been together for years. As she tries to figure out where he came from, Michael goes up into the attic and abruptly disappears, only to be replaced by a different man who also says he is her husband with her entire life reforming around her. Each time a husband goes into the attic, he is replaced again, causing Lauren to question how to know when you’re on the right path and when to stop trying to get something better and just enjoy what she has. This sounds so good and I’d love to grab a copy of it at some point! I’m hoping it will become available on BOTM in Canada at some point, but if not, I’ll just grab it elsewhere.
This book was all over people’s BOTM prediction lists for June, so I was pretty surprised that it didn’t end up being a selection! I recognized the author’s name because The Most Fun We Ever Had has been loosely on my radar for a while, although I haven’t been particularly motivated to pick it up either. This book comes out toward the end of this month, and it is about a woman named Julia whose life has finally seemed to have stabilized now that she is in her 50s. Just when she is starting to feel that she has things under control, she finds herself facing a surprise announcement from her son, an impending separation from her teenage daughter, and a resurgence of her past, all of which threaten to upheave her life once more. Based on that synopsis alone, I can’t quite say that this book is the highest on my priority list either, but I’ve heard such great things about both of this author’s books that I’m sure I will get to them eventually.
This was another BOTM discovery, and one that I only just decided I was interested in a couple of days ago! I’d seen this book in the add-on section but knew absolutely nothing about it, so I’d mostly ignored it at first. When making my selections the other day, I decided to spend some time looking into each option and some of the recent add-ons, which instantly made me realize that this book is right up my alley! This book is about a neurodivergent young man named Joe-Nathan, who relies on his mother’s advice notebooks to guide him through his life and help him leave his comfort zone. The synopsis does not really offer much information, but it sounds like something very much along the lines of The Maid without the murder mystery or possibly The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr. I tend to love books with this kind of storyline so this book became an immediate addition to my cart! I’m so glad I decided to actually look into what it was about, since I definitely would have missed out on it otherwise.
I found this book in Goodreads’ New Releases section which shows me upcoming releases by authors who are already on my list, and I was a little surprised to see a new book by this author coming so soon! This book is set in 1955, about a white-passing Black family who moves into a “Whites Only” neighbourhood in hopes of finding a better life. The main character is Calvin, a teenage boy whose father wants the family to embrace their new lifestyle, but this only becomes more difficult as Calvin starts unraveling dark secrets about his town and its inhabitants that could put him and his family in real danger. I really enjoyed this author’s debut when I read it a couple of years ago and I also have Invisible Son on my list to pick up soon. This new book sounds like a very strong and hard-hitting YA historical fiction and I’m looking forward to trying it too!
This book was a mostly impulsive addition to my BOTM order this month! To be honest, I was a tiny bit disappointed initially with the selections because there were several highly anticipated books that I was expected that weren’t there. I ignored this one at first because it wasn’t even on my radar, and in fact I’d never even heard of it before! However, when I decided to look into all of the options before making a decision, this one quickly caught my attention. This book is set in Tehran in the 1950s, and it is about a young girl named Ellie who is forced to move to a tiny home downtown with her mother after her father dies. When she starts school, Ellie quickly befriends her classmate Homa and they quickly become inseparable until their lives are disrupted again by Ellie and her mother getting the opportunity to return to their life of luxury. Now a popular student in Iran’s best school for girls, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade until she suddenly reappears in her privileged world, changing the course of both of their lives. The two young women come of age and pursue their futures until a betrayal with enormous consequences amidst the political turmoil in their country. As soon as I looked into the plot of this one, I added it to my cart since it seemed so interesting! It reminds me quite a bit of Khaled Hosseini’s books even though the setting is different, and will be a great fit for a reading challenge prompt I was struggling with.
This is another author who has been very loosely on my radar for a while, and whose name kept coming up on BOTM predictions for June with her new release One Last Summer. I ended up going back and adding both of her books to my TBR as a result. This book is her debut from 2022, and it is about a woman named Franny who is having awful luck until a handsome stranger comes to her rescue, although he can’t seem to get away from her fast enough. Franny soon realizes that someone posted their entire encounter online and the post has gone viral, making her and Hayes Montgomery III the newest social media sensations despite their differences. Franny assumes they will never meet again, but they somehow keep running into each other and quickly find that they actually enjoy each other’s company. When Franny’s life threatens to be turned upside down once again, she must find a way to trust in herself and find the life she’s always wanted. This just sounds fun and adorable, and I like the social media element to it. I have a ton of romance books currently on my TBR, but I may need to find somewhere to squeeze this author in.
Abyssal Librarian 