Favorite Book Covers

Question: What are some of your favorite book covers?

I could make a list twenty pages long of my favorite book covers. There are so many beautiful and interesting book covers out there. These are just a few of my favorites.

The Tiger’s Curse Saga all have beautiful covers. Really this picture doesn’t do them justice. They are much more beautiful in person.

 

         

I love how the wings on these books turn into the Russian architecture below. They are so beautiful and creative. I love them.

 

This book I actually have no idea what it is about. But I am going to be honest. I absolutely am obsessed with elephants and I want to have this book so bad so I can stare at it all day. It doesn’t hurt that the synopsis sounds interesting as well.

 

This cover is equal parts beautiful and creepy. I think it fits the darkness of this book perfectly. I can’t wait to read this book.

 

I love this cover so much. It is so colorful and I love the constellations that you can just barely see through the clouds of color.

 

              

These two I love for much the same reason… the font. I love how the words swirl into each other. I also love the color scheme on both of these words.

 

When I combined a list of my favorite book covers I decided these were my top favorites. I will add the rest of the books below. I guess you could call them my honorable mentions.

Honorable Mentions…

                         

 

Eliza and Her Monsters – Book Review

Title: Eliza and Her Monsters
Author: Francesca Zappia
Series: Standalone
Genre: YA Contemporary
Goodreads ♦ Amazon

I would give this book 100 stars if I could. This is the best YA contemporary I have read since Fangirl. I absolutely loved it. Eliza and Her Monsters is about a girl in high school who creates an online comic called “Monstrous Sea.” It is extremely popular and millions of people read it. However, nobody knows that she is the one who writes it. A new boy transfers to her school who just happens to be the most popular “Monstrous Sea” fanfiction writer. They form a relationship but Eliza continues to keep her secret from him. What happens when the world finds out who she is?

I absolutely loved Eliza as a character. She reminds me so much of myself when I was in high school. She would prefer to just hang out in her room on her computer or reading a book. One difference is that I actually would hang out with friends from school every once in a while. I love her friendship with Emma and Max. Even though they were online they were always there to help Eliza and get her through a situation. When she starts making friends in real life, she starts to come out of her shell.

When Eliza meets Wallace it is nowhere near insta-love. In fact, Eliza does her best to avoid him at first. When she finds out he is Rainmaker, her comic’s most popular fanfiction writer, and that he is turning her comic into a book, she is completely surprised and is not sure what she thinks about it. I love their little not writing back and forth thing. It was really cute (if it was also a little weird). I don’t blame her for not telling Wallace her secret but I also don’t think I would have made the same decision.

One of the things I loved most about this book is how it handles deeper issues. When I first started reading this I thought it would be a cute light-hearted contemporary but the more I read, the deeper it became. I don’t want to talk too much about it since there would be potential spoilers, but this book tackles issues such as anxiety, depression, suicide, ptsd, grief, and family issues. Not only did it tackle these, but it did a good job as well.

I highly… HIGHLY… recommend this book. I can’t express in words how much I loved this book. I am so glad I got this is my Owlcrate box. I am now greatly looking forward to reading Francesca Zappia’s other book Made You Up.

Question: Do you have any recommendations like this book? I really want to read more like this but I don’t read a lot of contemporaries so I need some help.

“I Dare You” – Book Tag

I don’t do a lot of tags but I saw this one that The Well Thumbed Reader did and it looked  like a lot of fun so I thought I would give it a shot. Well, here I go!!

Rules…

1) You must be honest
2) You must answer all the questions
3) You must tag at least 4 people

Questions…

Which book has been on your shelf the longest?

This is a hard question to answer since I tend to trade my books into a used bookstore if I have had them for so long and lose interest. I guess of my books currently I have had Divergent by Veronica Roth the longest.

I got this book as a Christmas gift from one of my best friends in College. I think it was Sophmore year, about four years ago.

Actually I just remembered that I still have the first book I ever read all they way through by myself. I think I was either seven or eight or nine.

Ramona Forever by Beverly Cleary was the first book I ever read. My mom would make me read a chapter every night. It has the date I started and the date I finished written into the cover.

What is your current read, your last read, and the book you’ll read next? 

                                                          
    Current Read                                            Last Read                                            Next Read 

 

What book did everyone like but you hated?

I think “hate” is a strong word, but there are several books that I didn’t really like. I would say a few of these are Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, And I Darken by Kiersten White, Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, and Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff.

   

 

What book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read but you probably won’t?

There are actually two books on my shelf that I could put for this answer.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I got this book to read it for a book club or buddy read or something and only got through the first three or four chapters (so not very far). This book is so popular that I feel like I should give it another try but I don’t know when or if I will ever get to it. Mostly because it is not something I normally enjoy.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I got this book for $5 at Walmart and had every intention of reading this. But the longer I own it the less I feel like picking it up…

What book(s) are you saving for retirement?

None. Life is too short to not read as much as you want, as much as you can, and whatever you want.

Last page: Read it first or wait until the end?

Is this a serious question? Do people actually purposefully choose to read the last page first? I guess you know my answer.

 

Acknowledgements: waste of paper and ink, or interesting aside?

I like the acknowledgements. I hope to write a book one day and one of the things I am actually looking forward to is mentioning all the people who have helped me there. Also, some authors have really fun acknowledgements.  (Sarah J. Maas)

 

Which book character would you switch places with?

There are a lot of fantasy characters that I think would be really cool but I would probably end up dead in most of those considering I can’t fight worth a damn (pardon my french). Let’s go with one of my favorites… Kelsey from the Tiger’s Curse Saga by Colleen Houck.

 

Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life? (Place, time, person)

I was a little confused about this question. Does this mean that something that happens in the book reminds you or your life or the actual act of reading a specific book reminds you of your life? I’ll answer both.

The Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer

I remember in Junior High we had a week long camp and I would sneak off to my cabin during free time (and whenever else I could) to read these. Now every time I think of these books it reminds me of camp.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Never before have I related so much to a main character. I read this when I was in college and it reminded me so much of my own personality. I loved this book and it will forever be one of my favorites.

Name an interesting book that you acquired in an interesting way.

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James. This was actually an ebook version. We were on our way to Florida for vacation and my mom asked to borrow my Kindle so she could get this book to read on the way down. Her plan was to read it then delete it or something (she didn’t really want me to read it). What she didn’t know what that all books that were bought on my Kindle automatically downloaded on my Kindle app on my phone. We were actually reading it at the same time and she didn’t even know.

 

Have you ever given a book away for a special reason to a special person?

Not really. I did give one away to someone but I had another copy so I don’t think that really counts. Maybe I just haven’t had a special reason or a special person?

 

What’s the strangest item you’ve found in a book?

One time at a used book store I found a picture of a man in jeans and cowboy boots. He was wearing a fake mustache and a cowboy hat. It was so weird.

 

Any required reading in High School that wasn’t so bad two years later?

I’m gonna say no but that’s mostly because I haven’t tried to read any required reading for a second time.

Used or brand new?

Mostly used because I don’t have a lot of money to spend on new books. I do try to find the best conditions that I can though.

 

Have you ever read a Dan Brown book?

I have read the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and it was okay. I don’t know if I will read any other books by him though. I actually liked the movie better (don’t judge me.)

 

Have you ever seen a movie you liked more than the book?

See previous question… Also, I think I liked Gone Girl better as a movie as well. Mainly because the first half of the book was really drawn out and it didn’t get good until the second half while that part in the movie was better.

 

Have you ever read a book that made you hungry (cook booksincluded)?

Not really… I don’t read a lot of books with food in them. At least I can’t think of any.

Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?

I don’t really have anyone as into books as I am in my life. However, there are a few people on booktube that I will take recommendations from. abookutopia, emmabooks, polandbananasBOOKS, and Piera Forde 

Is there a book you think never should have been published?

No, I think all books deserve to be published because there is someone who will enjoy it. There is someone who will be happy that it exists.

 

Is there a book out of your comfort zone (e.g., outside your usual reading genre) that you ended up loving?

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

My normal types of books that I read is YA fantasy or contemporary. I don’t normally choose to read classics for fun but my roommate in college said she really liked this book so I gave it a try and ended up loving it.

 

Wow this tag was really long. I hope you enjoyed it!

 

I tag…

This tag was a lot of fun and I tag anyone that would like to do it too. Have fun with it!

 

 

City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments #3) – Book Review

Question: I am in a dilemma. How should I read the Infernal Devices trilogy? Should I stop after this book and read them? Or should I read the rest of the Mortal Instruments, then read the Infernal Devices? Help!

Title: City of Glass
Author: Cassandra Clare
Series: The Mortal Instruments #3
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Goodreads ♦ Amazon

 

If you were not aware, The Mortal Instruments is a six book series but the way it is written is divided into two trilogies. It’s a little confusing to explain but this book wraps up the first three books with a good conclusion.

This is by far my favorite of the series so far. I can’t wait to see how the next three books go.

If you haven’t read this book/series yet, I also have a review for the first two books in the series: City of Bones and City of Ashes. 

(Warning: Spoilers Ahead)

This book was so thrilling from the very beginning. Poor Simon has almost died like three times by now and his luck is just too amazing. But I absolutely love Simon so he better never actually die or I might throw the book into a fire (not for real, don’t shun me).

The part at the beginning where Clary shows up at the Penhallows and Isabelle is doing everything she can to not let Clary go see Jace and Clary goes anyway and Jace gets really angry and says a bunch of hateful things to Clary to try to make her go back home… you know the scene. I have a feeling that this made a lot of readers mad a Jace. But honestly, I believe that Clary deserved it. All they want is to keep her safe and all she seems to care about at this point is that she get her way. Sure, Jace could have said all that in a different way but it was the truth. Even at the end when he was apologizing, I was like, don’t do that, she deserved it! But I digress.

Clary was awesome in this book. She discovers she has this amazing new ability that I think is crazy. Especially when they found out how she got it. And even Jace is stronger than a normal shadowhunter. I can’t even.

(Sidenote: I’m trying my best not to spoil too much for the rest of the series in case you do decide to read this review first so a lot of my thoughts are going to be vague and scattered. Sorry, not sorry.)

Lastly, let’s talk about Sebastian. Who else saw that coming? I feel like it was pretty obvious but especially when Clary was like, ‘oh yeah, he was the only one who knew about that, I should have known it was him…’ Sometimes these characters can be completely naive. (But that’s why we love them.) Clary has such a kind heart I’m not surprised she was fooled.

Oh my gosh, Magnus and Alec. Can we discuss that last scene with them for a second. That kiss! I can’t handle all my fangirling right now. So basically all my babies are in relationships with the right people except for Simon. I can’t wait for him to find his person.

Okay, I am going to stop rambling now. I don’t even know if this review was coherent, or if this can even be considered a review but nonetheless, it is what it is.

Question: What did you think of the first three books? Which one is you favorite? I would love to know!

Book Review – Concourse by Santino Hassell

Title: Concourse
Author: Santino Hassell
Series: Five Boroughs #5
Genre: LGBTQ/Romance
Goodreads ♦ Amazon

 

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own opinions.

I actually think I shot myself in the foot with this one. I really need to do better about checking if books are part of a series before requesting them. Concourse is the fifth book in a series that I haven’t read any other books of and that hurt my reading experience of this book. Don’t get me wrong, I still really enjoyed this book, which is why it still received 4/5 stars.

This was my first ever Santino Hassell and I am so glad I finally picked up one of his books. He is definitely going on my list of awesome MM authors. This story was so cute and fun.

The relationship between the main characters, Ashton and Val was so beautiful and real. It’s not often that we get books that aren’t insta-love. I absolutely love when we can see the feelings for each other build and build until they realize their feelings.

”I think I’m in love with you. And I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t know what to do either. No one has loved me before.”

Ashton as a main character broke my heart and made me feel all my feelings. All he wanted was for someone to notice him for who he truly was and see past all his show of being a shallow ‘play boy.’ Val was that someone and it was just beautiful.

And when I was drunk and lonely and falling apart, Valdrin was the only one I needed. The only one I wanted. In the darkest part of the night, when I was raw and on edge, after the parties wound down and everyone else went home with a partner, that reality hit me hard.

This book was so quote worthy and beautiful (how many times can I use that word?) I could go on and on about it. If you haven’t read this book, or if you haven’t read this series then I highly recommend it. You won’t regret it.

”I do want you. And it’s all going to go to hell soon enough, but I can’t help it. The idea of you being with anyone else drives me insane.”

City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments #2) – Book Review

Title: City of Ashes
Author: Cassandra Clare
Series: The Mortal Instruments #2
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Goodreads ♦ Amazon

If you haven’t read the first book then I highly recommend stopping here and reading my review for City of Bones.

(Warning: Spoilers Ahead)

This is my least favorite of the series so far. That basically means I like the first one better than this one. I still really enjoyed this one though.

I think there are two things I didn’t really like about this. The first is that the plot twist from the first book continues through this one. This means that throughout this entire book Jace and Clary still believe they are siblings. All this accomplished was that there was so much angst in this book that it drove me insane. I think its pretty obvious that they are not siblings. I mean, the author tried too hard to make us believe they were really related. Every other character suddenly realized how much Jace looked/acted like Valentine. Seriously, just because you suddenly find out two people are related, doesn’t suddenly change what they look and act like…. seriously.

The second thing is the Inquisitor. Almost the entire book consisted of Jace telling the Inquisitor “this happened,” then the Inquisitor saying “I don’t believe you.” This happened over and over again. All because the Inquisitor was jealous or something. She just wanted revenge. This makes me really dislike the clave (but we’ll get more on that in my next review). She even went so far as to throw Jace in jail where they keep the worst criminals just because she didn’t believe him. It makes you wonder.

Other than these two aspects, I absolutely love this series. With each book it makes me more and more excited to keep reading. I highly, highly recommend it.

Down the TBR Hole #2 Books 6-10

Down the TBR Hole is a meme hosted by Lia @ Lost in a Story. It is dedicated to uncluttering your TBR pile, going through each book and choosing which one should stay or go. I know that there are some book on my TBR pile that I’m never going to get to, so this tag is a nice solution to my never-ending TBR pile! So, here goes nothing!

How it works…

• Order on ascending date added.
• Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books
• Read the synopses of the books
• Decide: keep it or should it go?
• Down the TBR Hole #1

The Books…

 

The House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones

This is the third book in the Howl’s Moving Castle companion trilogy. I loved the first two books and plan on reading this one at some point. While I’m not in the mood for this currently, I absolutely want to read in the future. I also have this on my bookshelf. Verdict: Keep

 

Languish by B.E. McLaughlin

I actually bought this book to support one of my friends from college. This was her first book she self-published and I wanted to read it. While I do have a copy I’m not sure if I will ever actually read it. It’s not really my thing, at least not at the moment. So, for now Verdict: Go

 

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

When I first put this on my to-read shelf, I was so interested in this and wanted to read it so badly. But I never got around to it and now it is no longer so high up. I don’t read very many contemporaries and I am just no longer interested in reading this. Maybe in the future I will eventually want to read it and can add it back on but for now I don’t see it happening. Verdict:  Go

 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I have had this on my bookshelf for a while. I actually have the anniversary edition. I definitely want to read this but I am waiting for the time when I can sit down and just immerse myself in them. Verdict: Keep

 

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

I can’t wait to read this book. I just haven’t had the chance to go pick it up. This book is right up my alley and I hope to be able to read it very soon. Verdict: Keep

 

Took off two books this time… I’m on a roll!!

City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments #1) – Book Review

Title: City of Bones
Author: Cassandra Clare
Series: The Mortal Instruments
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Goodreads ♦ Amazon

 

This was a strong first book for a series in my opinion. I have actually read this book three separate times and each time I read something that catches me off guard. I’m glad this time that I actually continued on with the series.

One of my favorite things about this series are the characters. I don’t know if you’ve ever read a book where the female protagonist is suddenly thrust into a fantasy world. She is usually two types of characters. The first is the super weak, afraid girl who relies completely on the male protagonist to save her. The “damsel in distress” if you will. The second is the suddenly kickass character after training for like one week. This one even ends up stronger than the male in most cases.

In this book, Clary is like the happy medium. She doesn’t suddenly gain super awesome fighting skills or some inexplicable super power right off the bat. Neither is she a super weak damsel in distress.

Jace is also an awesome love interest. Cassandra does a good job of finding the balance between a “bad boy” jerk and being able to actually shows his feelings. I also love the relationship between Isabelle, Alec, and Jace. (And Max but he comes in later.)

(Mild Spoilers Ahead)

I also love the fact that there isn’t a love triangle, well not really. If you read this book and honestly believe there is a love triangle, you are fooling yourself. Also, can we talk about Magnus and Alex? That is just the best. I absolutely love them together and all I want to do is fangirl about them.

Lastly, the plot twist in the book throws all others out of the water. Not that I particularly liked it. In fact, that may the the main reason I took off on the rating.

All-in-all, I really enjoyed this book and I absolutely recommend it. I have a feeling this is going to become one of my favorite series of all time.

 

UNSUB Review

Title:UNSUB
Author: Meg Gardiner
Series: UNSUB #1
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
Goodreads ♦ Amazon

 

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Group Dutton for giving me this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own opinions.

This was my first book by Meg Gardiner and I have to say that I was not disappointed. This book kept me on the edge of my seat and wanting to know more. It was really interesting how they incorporated aspects from the infamous Zodiac Killer into this book. I have always been interested in reading and learning about serial killers so this was right up my alley.

I really enjoyed the characters in this. The relationship between Caitlin and her father. I also really liked the dynamic between Caitlin and Sean, they seemed to work really well together. Caitlin was a really strong main character and I liked how real she seemed. Actually, all the characters seemed to be real and authentic. I really appreciate that in a novel, especially one like this where the main characters/detectives are super smart or never get tricked, etc.

If you like mysteries that will keep you in suspense until the very last page then I definitely recommend this one. While it does have its predictable moments, it will keep you hooked from the very beginning and not let go.

June TBR

I know we are already a week into June but in my opinion its never too late for a TBR to keep you motivated to stay on track. I have really been on a reading streak lately. I read twelve books last month and hope to read at least half that many this month.

Finished: 

 

Currently Reading: 

   

 

To Read for Review: