Top 5 Tuesday #74: These Ones Give Summer Vibes

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Shanah, the Bionic Book Worm, and now hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads.

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This week’s topic:

Top 5 books that remind you of a season

I’m supposed to list books that remind me of the four seasons, but (luckily for Meeghan — HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!) I can only think of books that remind me of summer, lol! So here are five books that give me strong summer vibes.

To Night Owl From Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloan & Meg Wolitzer

This one falls toward the older end of middle grade, bordering on YA. It’s a contemporary novel about two girls whose single dads are dating and want their daughters to meet and get along. It’s an epistolary novel, as the story is relayed via emails and texts the girls use to communicate. And it gives me summer vibes because it takes place in the summer while the girls are at camp and because it reminds me of the movie Parent Trap. The story is light, fun, and sweet.

Top Ten Tuesday #52: It’s About Time

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s topic:

Books with a unit of time in the title

I’ve decided to make this easy on myself and focus on books I haven’t yet read or thought of in a while.

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Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
Ten Years in the Tub: A Decade Soaking in Great Books by Nick Hornby
My First Day by Phùng Nguyên Quang and Huỳnh Kim Liên
A Long Day in Lychford by Paul Cornell
The Scroll of Years by Chris Willrich
The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai
First Year by Rachel E. Carter
How Long ‘til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson
The Years, Months, Days: Two Novellas by Yan Lianke

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Let me know if you’ve read any of these and what you thought of it.

Top Ten Tuesday #51: Fantasy Books I Haven’t Read Yet

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s topic:

Books I was excited to get but still haven’t read

The Wyrd & Wonder monthlong celebration of all things fantasy is still going, so I’ve decided to make this Top Ten Tuesday post fantasy related by listing only fantasy books below.

There are many books I could have included on this list because my unread TBR is large, but these are among the top ones I’d love to prioritize.

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Top Ten Tuesday #50: Bookish Characters From Fantasy Books

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s topic:

Bookish Characters

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Top Ten Tuesday post, but I didn’t want to past up the opportunity to make this one fantasy related in honor of Wyrd & Wonder, a monthlong celebration of all things fantasy.

So here are 10 bookish characters from fantasy books.

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Eladora from The Gutter Prayer by Gareth Hanrahan

The Gutter Prayer is basically about a country at war against it gods and how the protagonist — a young woman named Carillion — and her friends get caught up in the conflict between those who want the gods to return and those who want to get rid of them permanently. Eladora is Carillion’s cousin and a scholar. She knows much about Guerdon, the story’s setting, and its gods. In part of the story, she spends the entire day at the library researching the gods. I don’t think she noticed how much time had passed until the library started to close. (Review of the Gutter Prayer)

Top 5 Tuesday #73: Death

Here’s a Top 5 Tuesday post on a Wednesday because I forgot that yesterday was going to be Tuesday. 😩

You might think that’s odd of me, and you’d be right. My internal clock is a bit skewed at the moment, and I’m even more off schedule than I’ve been since this year started because now I’m very sick. 😷

Hopefully things will get back to some sort of normal around here soon.

Btw, Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Shanah, the Bionic Book Worm, and now hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads.

This week’s topic:

Top 5 books about a death

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Well… I didn’t realize until after drafting the post that the topic is “about a death” rather that “about death” as a theme, hence my limited selections below. 

Top 5 Tuesday #72: Weddings & Births

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Shanah, the Bionic Book Worm, and now hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads.

So my intention with this post was to play catch up and make it a list of 10 things, but it turns out that I haven’t read many things that include the topics below — or my memory isn’t serving me well at the moment — so to come up with a list of 5, I’ve combined the selections for last week and this week’s topics into one list.

This week’s and last week’s topic combo:

Top 5 books about weddings & births

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The Duke & I by Julia Quinn

Of course a Bridgerton book would contain a wedding. The Duke & I is the first in this Regency romance series about the extensive Bridgerton family whose matriarch seeks to secure happy, love-filled marriages for her children. I enjoyed the first book as much as I did its TV show adaptation on Netflix. As for the second book, The Viscount Who Loved Me, I enjoyed the TV show more than I did the book.

Top 5 Tuesday #71: Scavenger Hunt!

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Shanah, the Bionic Book Worm, and now hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads.

This week’s topic:

…

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Well… the theme for this month’s topic is scavenger hunt, so every week participants had to find books that contain the week’s object on the cover or in the title. I… didn’t participate because life, so I’ve decided to do all the month’s topics in this post.

I’ll start with the topic for this week.

Find a…

…book with a book on the cover

Book Love by Debbie Tung (illus.)

Top 5 Tuesday #70: Series I Haven’t Finished

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Shanah, the Bionic Book Worm, and now hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads.

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This week’s topic:

Top 5 series I haven’t finished

(What series haven’t you finished yet (or caught up to date on if it’s ongoing) that you meant to?)

There are MANY series I need to finish. Actually, I think I need to do one of those series-read projects I see people doing where you list the many series you’re in the middle of and read to complete or catch up on them. But, for now, here are 5 I’d like to complete.

First Law series by Joe Abercrombie

Top 5 Tuesday #69: These Have Been Around Awhile

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Shanah, the Bionic Book Worm, and now hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads.

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This week’s topic:

Top 5 books that have been on my TBR since forever

(What other books are you hiding on your TBR? And which ones have been there the longest?)

I’m sure we all have books on our TBRs that we’ve been meaning to read for years now but have yet to get to. I recently rediscovered a few while moving. Here are some of them.

Top 5 Tuesday #68: Top 5 New Authors of 2021

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Shanah, the Bionic Book Worm, and now hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads.

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This week’s topic:

Top 5 new authors of 2021

(Tell us all about your favourite new authors, either debut authors from 2021 or new-to-you this year.)

I met some great new-to-me authors this year who I’d love to read more from. Here are my top five.

Camilla Bruce

At the top is Camilla Bruce whose In the Garden of Spite I read earlier this year, thanks to Mogsy and Tammy. The novel is a historical thriller about a female serial killer in the late 1800s. It’s slow paced but such a riveting read. Both my aunt (who I made read it) and I want to read more from Bruce, and I need to get another copy of the book to let my mom read it too (I gave my copy to my aunt).