Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Today’s topic is which books top our wish lists (because every review blogger has one miles long, I’m sure).
So here’s a funny story. I was cleaning off the top of the dresser yesterday (It’s been a while, but let’s not talk about that.) and I totally struck gold. I found A BARNES & NOBLE GIFT CARD. Unused. For forty dollars!
Which of course translates into only one thing: book shopping!
My book wish list is ridiculously long and full of loads of books I am pining for, but here are the books which will be competing for purchase on my shiny new gift card. While some of the books I’m pining for most are still only available for pre-order, you’ll only see books already released on my list. I’ll save the pre-orders for another day. (Note: Sadly, basic math says I can’t buy all of these books with my gift card, so I’ll have to narrow it down from ten to the ones I want most up to the ceiling of my card. First world problems.)
Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury – I read a sample of the first few chapters of this book and definitely want to read the rest. In fact, I don’t know why I haven’t bought it already or at least tracked down a copy through the library.
The City of Ember (The First Book of Ember ) by Jeanne DuPrau – I know almost nothing about this series, except that one of my closest friends (and one of my only friends in real life who reads YA and admits to it) LOVES this book. And that, my friends, is good enough for me. I trust her. Even though she did not like Cry, the Beloved Country, which made me cry inside just a little bit.
Mindwar by Andrew Klavan – Strangely, I’ve only read the third book in this series, but I really enjoyed a lot of things about it. It gave me things I wanted from Ready Player One. I liked the characters, too.
The Shadow Hour by Melissa Grey – I’ve been absolutely pining for this book since I read The Girl at Midnight. And it’s finally here! The Girl at Midnight definitely reminded me of Daughter of Smoke and Bone with its other-world and girl-out-of-her-world things it has going on. I loved the characters. Loved the story. Can’t wait for more.
Jepp, Who Defied the Stars by Katherine Marsh – this book hit my radar when Katherine Marsh released another book called The Door By the Staircase, which also sounds great. Jepp deals with issues of fate, and I find myself desperate to know how his quest resolves.
X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon – I forget where I first noticed this book. I think it might have been in a BuzzFeeds list or something. This is a novelized story about Malcom X, co-written by his daughter. Definitely interested in this one.
The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz – I might be the only person who hasn’t read this book. At least, that’s what I think whenever I see it, like, everywhere on the interwebs. Every time I read a historical novel I tell myself I should read them more often. I love the idea of reading a story set in the early 1900s about a girl who dreams of being more than a hired girl. Looks awesome. Must read.
Starflight by Melissa Landers – I think I saw this one advertised on Facebook, and actually, I can’t recall reading any actual reviews of it. Reading the book description makes me think Firefly meets These Broken Stars, which sounds like a great pairing to me. (If I had you at Firefly, we should be friends.)
This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab – I’m a huge fan of the type of fantasy-scape described in the marketing copy. Also– the copy claims this is perfect for fans of Holly Black, Maggie Stiefvater and Laini Taylor? That’s me! (Okay, confession: I need to read Holly Black. Haven’t yet. But I will. Hopefully soon. but Stiefvater and Taylor are pretty sure bets for me.) Also I read some cool stuff on Victoria Schwab’s twitter page. That might be where I first learned about this book, actually. So, yay Twitter.
Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson – I saw this on several must-read-type Top Ten Tuesday posts, and the description made me laugh so hard I almost had tears. Yes, please! There is never enough furious happiness in my life.
Top Ten Tuesday is a Weekly Meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s theme is about books that inspire us to learn new things, or at least make us wish we could! Here are some of the books that made me want to take up new hobbies.
Reading about Inej’s amazing spider-like abilities made me wish I was athletic and brave enough to learn some parkour. It looks like so much fun. Well, until you watch all those reels of fail videos. Ouch!
Okay, this one is only slightly cheating because I’ve always wanted to learn glass-blowing anyway. Fun fact: a girl I grew up with actually has an arts degree in this. Anyway, reading about Lucy and how she feels about and connects with her art really made me wish we had local classes that I could take.
Both the protagonists in these books are painters, and I loved the imagery and descriptions of how painting made them feel and how they expressed what they were feeling in the things they painted. I dabbled with painting while I was in school, and I’ve always wanted to continue with more classes. This made me really hungry for it.
I love poetry. I love that a talented poet can use only a few words to paint an incredibly vivid picture and communicate powerful emotions to a reader. This book made me want to write poetry, even though my attempts are often cheesy and hopelessly abstract in a bad way.
(Honorable mention: Good Grief by Lolly Winston, which isn’t YA, but definitely made me wish I was a baker! I would love to have Sophie’s cheesecake recipes. Yum!)
I don’t know if anyone could read this book and NOT want a slice of pie. The best part about this? The author anticipated this and includes recipes in the back of the book! I love cooking, but I’m horrible at baking. This book made me want to give it another try. Like, now.
Despite the fact that I took ballet lessons for years of my life, I’m not the most coordinated person. (I think the idea that dancers are graceful is a bad stereotype anyway. We spend most of our time in wide open spaces where there’s nothing to trip over/bash into, so put us in a room with breakables and floor height changes and see what happens.) I stood on a skateboard one time. I liked it. That’s about as far as that went. I would love to learn to actually do even some of the most basic skateboarding moves. While the skating isn’t a HUGE theme in the story, the ease with which Riley moves and how soothing it is to him definitely made me envious.
I took ballet classes for lots of years, and even though it’s been a long time, I do still miss it. I loved reading about a dancer. It’s always fun for me to read books about ballerinas because I actually know what the names of the moves are and have done them. It’s like reading a book with some Spanish dialogue and being able to trot out your high school Spanish and follow along without needing the interpretation.
Books about punk rock kids hold a special place in my heart because for the last let’s not talk about how many years, I’ve been writing about a trio of punk kids myself. Music is another hobby I’ve dabbled in– once upon a time someone handed me a guitar and a chord dictionary, and I went from there– but I’ve never really taken lessons or learned anything complex. Both these books made me want to take up music again.
What about you?
Have you read any books lately that tempted you to pursue new hobbies? If you’ve read any of the books on my list, did you like them?
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s theme lists underrated books, or books with fewer than two thousand ratings on Goodreads. I’ve talked about a lot of these books before. Some are indie or small press novels. Others remain largely undiscovered for reasons I can’t quite figure. All are books I would happily pick up and read all over again.
You know when you find one of those books where the writing itself is as beautiful as the story? Glass Girl is like that to me. Big emotions, great characters, and a totally swoon-worthy romance. I’m no cowgirl, but I totally loved this Wyoming story.
This one took me by surprise. After reading the back cover copy, I wasn’t totally sure what I’d be getting into. Something about best friends and a cross-country trip? Reuniting with an estranged parent? It sounded a little Hallmark-y to me, in all honesty. Bischof won me over with her straightforward writing. She kept it real when it came to Riley’s relationship with his dad. I liked the way she set up the relationships – the history between Riley and his parents, and his developing relationship with the girl.
Seriously. If you have a girl in early teens and you’re looking for clean, funny books with a lot of heart, and you haven’t read anything by Stephanie Morrill, just stop now and fix that. I always laugh. I always cry. I always wish for another chapter. Good stuff. (Did I mention she has a historical mystery coming out next year?! I. Can’t. Wait!!!)
Every time I read historical fiction, I think I should read more of it because I enjoy it so much, especially when it’s as done as well as Christy Award-winning author Cathy Gohlke’s novels. This novel goes deep and paints the Civil War in stark detail. For history fans interested in a clean read, this is a must.
I love when authors tackle difficult subjects with poise and honesty, and that’s just what Carla Stewart does in her debut novel Chasing Lilacs. Twelve year-old Sammie faces her mother’s mental health issues and suicide during a time (the 1950s) when these things were hushed up. It’s a bit darker than some of my other selections here, but still a worthy read.
Okay, don’t read the Goodreads copy because it’s really confusing. This book is a continuation of Tyers’ Firebird series, so it’s probably best to start there. I read this one first, and I promise it’s not as confusing as Goodreads makes it sound. Wind Haworth was my favorite character. She’s a young diplomat trying to find her place in a very tense politically volatile situation. I really liked the marriage of politics and sci-fi in this novel.
This is a light, fun sci-fi story that I think would appeal to fans of Firefly. A quirky crew and a space mission. What’s not to like? Definitely worth checking this one out.
Update – sorry. It looks like this one is currently out of print!
I remember being really impressed with the fact that the characters don’t whine when they’re faced with really tough choices. (I mean, let’s face it. Whining can ruin a great story. Even Luke Skywalker’s whining got old, right?) I found the whole can-do attitude and the story itself really intriguing and refreshing.
I love fairy tales retold, so as soon as I saw this retelling of Cinderella, I was intrigued. This isn’t a classic Cinderella. Davidson’s heroine finds herself recruited to spy for an unknown Lord who promises, in exchange, the one thing she wants most: freedom from her step-mother’s domain. What will she do when completing her task requires her to betray the prince with whom she’s falling in love?
I read this book months ago and I still wake up thinking about it sometimes. I loved the story-within-a-story element to this novel. What is it about a boy with wings that I find so intriguing, too? Gah. I loved it. If you’re a fan of dystopian stories or steampunk, you definitely have to check this one out.
Have you read these books?
If you’ve read and enjoyed any of these books, help the author out. Take a few minutes and rate them on Goodreads and post a quick review! You don’t have to do anything fancy. Think of two things you liked and a book or genre that you found similarly enjoyable whose readers might also enjoy the book. Post, and you’re done!
Doing this really helps an author out. Amazon and other sites have goofy rules about what promotional tools authors can access based on the number of reviews posted for their work.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Today, my spin on the topic is this: middle grade reads. As the parent of an enthusiastic middle grade reader, I’m always looking for books that will spark conversations, explore interesting ideas, or generate all those deep emotions as only a well-written book can. Here are the best of the middle grade books I’ve read in the last couple of years.
I loved the way the author used information about jellyfish in this story, but what was ultimately most powerful was Suzy’s voice. This story packed a big emotional punch, and I love that.
While I haven’t made it to posting this review yet, this is another must-read, in my humble blogger opinion. I completely identified with Anna’s struggle to connect with her friends and find peace in her identity.
Quirky characters were the big win for me in this novel. I mean, seriously?! A shape-shifting mouse? So cute. And the team of unlikely allies reminded me of the team of odd part-dragon characters helping Seraphina in Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman.
This was another unexpected find. When the author, who’d been a missionary to this part of the world, approached me with Escape from Sudan, the subject of the story definitely interested me. Books like this one are great ways to start conversations about world events and to introduce those ideas in ways appropriate for middle readers.
This is another tale with a powerful punch. In the wake of the hostage crisis in Iran, an Iranian-American girl navigates a suddenly hostile California town. She’s smart, funny and immediately goes for the heartstrings. I want this book in classrooms everywhere.
Too often simple kindness gets overlooked in our fast-paced modern world. In this story, Benny wrestles with being kind to others in the midst of troubling family circumstances: his father suffered an accident and may never be the same. I loved Benny from page one.
As part of a school history project, Deja discovers the truth about what changed the New York skyline on September 11, 2001, and the connection it has to her family. While this one got a little preachy– a side effect of the classroom setting for many of the book’s scenes– I really appreciated the honest but not graphic look at another big moment in US history.
I’m cheating a bit, since my review for this book won’t be posted until the middle of July. But seriously. Another great, really relevant book. A young girl is forced to leave her island town with her family to live in a Japanese Internment camp. The details are all gentle– it’s very middle grade level stuff– but it absolutely captures the message about how traumatic and wrong that moment in American history was.
I love the blend of noir and humor in this wacky mystery. This was one series that had both my daughter and me watching for release dates and rushing to the bookstore to get the copy of the latest release.
I had the pleasure of meeting this author on vacation a few months before her book came out. My grandmother’s death was a hugely significant loss in my life, so when she described her novel about a boy and his family rediscovering one another after his grandfather’s death, I was instantly intrigued. I’m super excited that I got to read it!
What are your favorite middle grade books?
You’ve read my list. Have you read any of them? What did you think? Which books top your favorites for middle grade literature? (Thing ages 8-12.) Leave a comment with your answer!
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s theme is a fantastic one: the best blogs to follow. I tend to follow several different kinds of blogs. I like finding other blogs that review clean books or which list content information. I think in part it makes me feel validated, and it’s always interesting to see the ways other sites break down the content information. I also like to follow what I’ll call a specialty blog, one that steers readers toward specific types of books– books about characters with disabilities, books by minority authors, etc. Then there are the good old trusty review sites where I find myself reading the reviews of books I’ve read and saying, “I know, right?!” and reading reviews of books I haven’t read and immediately adding the titles to my reading list. I should add lots of others to this list, but these are the ones far and above all others that I find myself returning to for inspiration, recommendations and ideas:
I’ve probably been following this blog the longest out of all the others on this list. I’m not sure how I found Reading Teen, but I really love this site. I guest-posted a review of Panic by Lauren Oliver which you can find here. One of my FAVORITE posts by Andye is this one about sex in teen fiction.
Compass Book Ratings
When I first discovered this site, it was called Clean Teen Reads. I don’t visit as often as I’d like, but I’ve recommended it several times to readers who are looking for more specific content than I tend to give. For instance, regarding profanity, this site will tell you which words and how many times they’re used whereas I tend to give a more general overview.
Brown Books and Green Tea
This is a recent favorite of mine. I love the focus on multicultural books, but also the way the blogger breaks down her reviews and thoughts on books. She makes me think, promotes really interesting books for deep reasons, and when she recommends something, it’s top notch.
If I’m going to be honest, I have a real love/hate relationship with this blog. I LOVE the idea: books featuring characters with disabilities reviewed by someone diagnosed with the disability. This gives a really insightful look at what a story looks like from a very specific angle. And a lot of the time, I find myself thinking, oh, wow. I never considered that. However, sometimes I get frustrated because it feels like so many of the reviews are very negative and really expect authors to capture these disabled characters with absolute perfection, and the hammer falls hard on those who fail. I think it’s truly important that we have stories that feature disabled characters, but as an aspiring writer, sometimes I wonder if blogs like this might scare writers out of trying to include them in their stories? I don’t know. Honestly, I love having the perspective the bloggers bring to the table. I think it’s a really important perspective, and I think authors should strive to accurately represent their characters, disabled or not.
I often find myself encouraged and inspired by these posts. Like her writing, Laura’s posts are very authentic, but they still manage to pull us toward beauty and wonder. I love that. I need that in my life. She’s awesome. Go read her books, too!
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is a list of the hottest books on my To Be Read List for this spring. I’m not sure if this means books coming out this spring I can’t wait to read or books I am most eager to read in the next couple of months, so I’m going to include both, because I’m a rebel like that.
Books Actually Coming Out This Spring That I’m Crazy Eager to Read
1. The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater: This series is probably my guiltiest pleasure. I review a pretty broad range of YA here on The Story Sanctuary, but I don’t often make my way through every book in an entire series (notable exceptions: The Tales of Goldstone Wood by Ann Elisabeth Stengl and The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer.) but Stiefvater’s writing has held me captive. Also, dude. I NEED Blue and Gansey to kiss. Seriously must have this. Except not keen on the part where he’s supposed to die after. So… fingers crossed for a loophole there! Also, Ronan. <3 <3 <3
2. Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare: Okay, so I may have fallen disastrously far behind in reading The Mortal Instruments (see above note about series reading…) but I’m excited to get into this one. I’ve heard great things about it from other bloggers oh-so-fortunate as to get review copies, and I’ve already got me a glossy new ebook version which I can’t wait to get into.
3. The Siren’s Song by Mary Weber: Apparently I should take back my above comment about series reading, because here’s another series I might actually finish! Yay! I’ve enjoyed the story world and characters of the first two books, and I’m super excited to see how things play out in the final chapter. (Thanks, BookLook Bloggers for my review copy!)
4. King’s Folly by Jill Williamson: I’ve read several books by Jill Williamson, but this one is bound to be something special. It’s a return to a beloved story world Williamson created in the Blood of Kings series, which I read long long ago. Okay, maybe not THAT long ago. But long enough in the past to justify intense nostalgia. So I’m excited for this one.
5. Remember to Forget by Ashley Royer: This is a contemporary YA novel about a boy recovering from the tragic loss of his girlfriend. I’ve been on a bit of a roll with reading stories about grief and trauma lately, and apparently I just haven’t had enough. I’m a huge fan of Laura Anderson Kurk, and the premise of Remember to Forget reminds me a teeny bit of Glass Girl. I’m always nervous to compare a new author with a fav, so hopefully that goes well.
Books That I Want to Push to the Top of My TBR Pile When No One Is Looking
6. Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys: Sometimes I feel like the only person who hasn’t yet read this book. I’ve seen SO. MANY. amazing reviews of this book. I wouldn’t list historical fiction among my favorite genres, but when I stop and think about it, I’ve liked almost every historical YA novel I’ve read, so I should probably reevaluate that.
7. Pax by Sarah Pennypacker: Don’t judge me, but seriously every time I see the cover of this book, I REALLY want to drop whatever else I’m doing and immediately start reading it. I’m not usually a huge fan of books told from the POV of animals (she said, despite the fact that she LOVED The Underneath by Kathy Appelt) but there’s something really compelling to me about this sweet story about a boy and his pet fox.
8. Bone Gap by Laura Ruby: This is another book that I feel like everyone else has read and raved about. I’ve got my very own copy, but it continues to languish while I read all these other books demanding reviews in a timely manner. Boo. Bone Gap, I will read you soon!!!
9. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas: Because I really can’t resist a good fantasy series, and I hear really good things about this one. I think I have both the ebook and audiobook versions of this novel, so I really have no excuse for not diving right in. Maybe this week…
10. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky: If you’re not familiar, this was originally a serial fan-fiction in which Harry is a Ravenclaw from a Ravenclaw family. So his approach to problems stems from a much more rational, methodical outlook, and of course, that alters much of the story. You can read it here. My husband RAVES about this probably at least once per week. We once agreed that if he read my favorite book (To Kill a Mockingbird. Yep.), I would read this one. I still have time because he’s only actually read the first chapter of TKaM, and by read, I mean he listened to me read it to him. But still. Promises and such.
