Top 5 Tuesday #63: Umm… Zombies Don’t Scare Me 😨

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 horror/thriller tropes that don’t scare you

(Let’s talk about horror tropes that you are brave in the face of… or that you find mildly ridiculous to funny.)

Well, if I stick to this week’s topic, I’ll have a very short list because I’m a bit superstitious and scare easily, so just about all horror tropes scare me. Exceptions are only for slasher films and zombie movies because zombies are funny.

So, continuing on that zombie thought, here are some zombie books I’ve read/are on my TBR.

Feed by Mira Grant

Top 5 Tuesday #62: More of These, Please

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 sequels you would sell your soul for

(What are some books that don’t have a sequel (either not announced or was never published) that you would really like to read?)

I do prefer series than standalones, although I hardly ever move past the first books in series, lol. I just prefer when a story I love keeps going for a bit. The following are mostly standalone comics (so far) that I’d like to read a sequel of.

Conspiracy of Ravens by Leah Moore & John Reppion, illus. by Sally Jane Thompson

Top 5 Tuesday #61: Retellings, Series, Standalones

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

I haven’t done this meme in a while since last week was BOOK TAG WEEK!!! and… I don’t know what the excuse is for the other weeks. But I’m doing it now! 😊 I think I’ll just catch up on the ones I haven’t done in this post since I like the topics. I’ll start with this week’s topic.

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This week’s topic:

Top 5 standalone books

(Perhaps standalone books are more your thing. Tell us your top 5 standalone books.)

I tried to select books I haven’t mentioned or haven’t chatted about often.

Best Books So Far in 2021

The following are the best books I’ve read so far this year. They are a combination of favorite reads and ones so entertaining that I HAD to rate them highly and include them on this list. I wanted this to be a nice, round 10 books, but instead I have 9 with some honorable mentions.

The variety of books here reflects my reading taste, so you’ll see novels but also comics and picture books as well. They are listed in order of what I most recently read.

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Before the Devil Breaks You by Libba Bray
★★★★★

Top 5 Tuesday #60: I Love Buildings on My Covers

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 with buildings/vehicles on the cover

(What are your 5 favourite covers with either vehicles or buildings on them??)

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Well, guess who got carried away with this topic? I love illustrations of buildings, and a couple of the books I’ve bought and read over the years are due to this reason. So I went beyond the required 5 and listed a good bit below that I own.

Top 5 Tuesday #59: Plants on My Covers

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 with plants on the cover

(What are some great covers that have plants on them?)

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Through the Woods by Emily Carroll (illus.)

It’s a YA horror graphic novel containing five short stories that all have a fairytale feel to them. They aren’t very scary, but they are all pretty creepy and unsettling. I wasn’t a fan of the illustrations, but I think they pair well with the stories. I bought myself a copy both because the numerous reviews got me curious back then and because I like the cover. I love the silhouettes of the trees and the roots below that look like clawing hands.

Top 5 Tuesday #58: Creatures & Food

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

Since I haven’t blogged much these past few weeks and didn’t post anything last week, I’ll double up in this post and include last week’s topic as well (because I really wanted to do it but couldn’t drum up the energy to do a post). But first —

This week’s topic:

Top 5 books with creatures on the cover

(Either mythical or real; what are 5 books with creatures on the cover, that you love??)

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I’ve decided to focus on children’s picture books for this category, so here are some recommendations for those of you who enjoy reading picture books (like me) or have kids.

The Little Red Wolf by Amélie Fléchais (illus.), transl. from the French by Jeremy Melloul

Inspired by Charles Perrault’s fairytale Little Red Riding Hood, this story is about a little wolf travelling through the woods in his red clock to bring some food for his grandmother who has lost all her teeth and can no longer hunt. It’s a sweet story with gorgeous illustrations, and the little wolf is adorable. It’s one of my favorites.

Top 5 Tuesday #57: Hyped Books I Didn’t Like

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 hyped books I didn’t like

(What are some hyped books that you just did not care that much for??)

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I have a variety of books here that MANY people enjoyed but that didn’t work out for me.

LUMBERJANES, VOL 1: BEWARE THE KITTEN HOLY BY GRACE ELLIS AND NOELLE STEVENSON, ILLUS. BY BROOKE A. ALLEN

This is a middle grade fantasy comic book about a diverse group of girls who have interesting adventures at summer camp. The tone of the story is very silly, which I expected but didn’t like, and the story places a lot of emphasis on the girls’ friendship, which I loved. In addition to the tone, the illustrations also didn’t work for me because I expected the style to be like what’s on the cover.

THE BOY, THE MOLE, THE FOX AND THE HORSE BY CHARLIE MACKESY (ILLUS.)

A children’s picture book about friendship and kindness… I think. This one would also fit in the self-help category and would appeal to both kids and adults. Basically it’s a book of uplifting phrases, I guess…? I didn’t like it. I just thought it was all very obvious and a bit too saccharine at times, which annoyed me. I liked the illustrations, but it took a while for me to get used to its wispy style.

Top 5 Tuesday #56: Hyped Books I Won’t Read

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 hyped books I’m not interested in

(Sometimes the hype-train isn’t for everyone. What are some hyped books that you’ve seen and just aren’t interested in reading?)

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I couldn’t be bothered to think up popular books I’m not interested in, so I just looked up one of those best-sellers lists and selected 5 books from it that I know I won’t read.

Top 5 Tuesday #55: Hyped Books on My TBR

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 hyped books on my TBR

(How many hyped books are on your TBR?? What are your top 5 that you need to read first??)

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I went a little overboard choosing books to feature for this topic. I have quite a number of hyped books on my TBR since I do get caught up in the excitement surrounding books and become interested in them whenever I read a review that sings them high praises for being awesomely great or totally rips them apart for being terribly horrible. Either way, I’ll probably add the book to my TBR out of curiosity. Well, here are 8 hyped books I’d like to read at some point.

PROJECT HAIL MARY BY ANDY WEIR

I read his Martian and really liked it so I placed this one on my TBR since the high praises for it got me interested. Plus, I keep seeing it mentioned that Project Hail Mary is similar to The Martian, which is okay for me.

CIRCE BY MADELINE MILLER

I’ve wanted to read this book since I first heard of it and still I procrastinate on doing so, smh. I’ll get to it eventually. I have a feeling that Miller may become one of my fav authors.

AMERICAN GODS BY NEIL GAIMAN

I actually attempted this last year but DNF’d it because I wasn’t feeling it. I’ll try again before I decide whether to unhaul the book.