Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Loved The Year I Started My Blog

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Another week, another Top Ten Tuesday! This week’s theme is a throwback freebie so it can be anything you’d like to discuss about older books such as: books published 10 years ago, older books you forgot you loved, or books from the year you started blogging (which I’m doing!).

There are so many books I read a while ago that I don’t talk about enough and some of them I do talk about plenty. This is going to be a list of my favorite reads from 2015 back when I started this blog!

These are in no particular order and I do have reviews up for each of these books but I’m not going to link them since they’re older and slightly embarrassing! Still though they are available if you want to hear my full thoughts on some of them.

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10.) A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

This was one of the first books I read when I started my blog because there was a ton of hype and glowing reviews for it! Of course I’m super happy I gave Schwab a try because she’s one of my favorite authors now.

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9.) Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

I had read “Gone Girl” as well as “Dark Places” before I gave this one a go because I really enjoy the way Flynn tells her stories, they’re also super twisted. This one is probably one of my favorites of hers now as well because of that twist at the end!

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8.) Slasher Girls & Monster Boys stories selected by April Genevieve Tucholke

This was a new release when I started my blog and I had heard a few good things about it and I’m ALWAYS looking for some great, creepy YA horror books. This is an anthology and pretty much all of the stories were fantastic plus some of them definitely did not fail to give me nightmares!

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7.) Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor

I actually mention this book quite frequently but when I first started blogging I was digging around for some great books to read that I hadn’t heard of before. “Lips Touch” was one of the ones I found and it definitely is very underrated. It’s three short stories told by Laini Taylor and her writing here is just as beautiful as it is in her other book “Daughter of Smoke and Bone”. Highly recommend checking out if you’re a fan of hers!

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6.) The Girl From The Well by Rin Chupeco

I bought this book when I got “Slasher Girls & Monster Boys” as well because I had heard mixed things about it and was looking for more scary reads. I’m really terrified of Japanese horror stories every since getting nightmares in the fourth grade from the movie “The Grudge” so I was easily scared reading this book, which was fun!

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5.) The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich

I hadn’t actually heard much about this book but I saw it in my local bookstore and the cover was so intriguing and creepy that I HAD to buy it. It’s also told in a really unique format consisting of transcripts of video footage, journal entries, and even drawings. It’s an interesting and pretty suspenseful psychological thriller.

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4.) The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

This book….broke my heart! It came highly recommended when I was searching Goodreads for new books to read since I started my book blog and while it was fantastic and very well written….it was also completely emotionally devastating!

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3.) Alice by Christina Henry

Okay, okay I KNOW I mention this book all the time but that’s only because it’s so fantastic! I think it’s pretty good for me to still be recommending a book two years after reading it! This is a very twisted, gritty retelling of Alice in Wonderland and is very much worth reading through in my opinion.

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2.) Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh

This book was actually recommended to me by one of my blogging besties Arianna @ The Quirky Book Nerd and I of course always take her recommendations to heart! This was such a hilarious graphic novel and I enjoyed every minute of it, it’s a great book to brighten up your day!

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1.) Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Probably my most highly recommended book I’ve read and I was pretty proud reading two of Schwab’s books in half a year too when I started all of this! It’s got morally ambiguous characters with freaking superpowers….so yeah I was definitely impressed. I’m also DYING to read the sequel!!!!

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A Few Honorable Mentions:

• You by Caroline Kepnes
• The Wrath & The Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
• The Steep & Thorny Way by Cat Winters
• Uprooted by Naomi Novik
• The Martian by Andy Weir
• Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch

Have you read any of these books as well? What did you think?

What are some of your favorite books from the year you started blogging?

How about some older favorites in general?

Let me know in the comments!

Top 5 Wednesday: Rainy Day Reads

Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by the Top 5 Wednesday group on Goodreads!

This week’s theme is “Rainy Day Reads”, which got me thinking: what exactly is a rainy day read? Well I just decided to do what I think they would be, to me a rainy day read would be a book that is fast paced and un-put-downable. Something that would keep you entertained while the weather outside is…well not so entertaining.

5.) Six of Crows (The Dregs #1) by Leigh Bardugo

A fast paced, heist book with fantastic characters. You’ll be so drawn into the action of the heist and so intrigued by the backstories of the characters you won’t be able to put it down until you finish. Definitely a great book to start when you’re stuck inside all day.

You can read my full review of “Six of Crows” here.

4.) Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1) by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

For me, this book was about as fast paced as you can get! There’s a constant stream action. Think of everything imaginable that could go wrong for a group of people and this book has it happen. There’s crazy AI’s, space battles, mutating viruses, and more. This book is more than capable of keeping you entertained for a day, you’ll definitely keep turning pages.

You can read my full review of “Illuminae” here.

3.) Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Once again we have a book with a fast paced plot, the story progresses so quickly you won’t be able to stop reading until you find out what exactly is going on! Morally ambiguous characters who are so fascinating you’ll keep reading just to spend more time with them. Everything about this book will keep you interested and makes for a great book for all day reading.

You can read my full review of “Vicious” here.

2.) Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happend by Allie Brosh

This book is absolutely hilarious, plain and simple. So funny, in fact, that I can’t resist NOT recommending it for a rainy day. You’ll be so busy laughing that you’ll completely forget about the bad weather outside!

You can check out my “mini” review of “Hyperbole and a Half” here.

1.) Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

This is actually a graphic novel but it’s a very loooong one and therefore I think it can qualify on here as being more of a book. This book is hilarious and heart-warming all at once, really those two words sum up the entirety of “Nimona” perfectly I think. You can definitely finish it in a day so it’s perfect for a rainy one where you can just stay inside and read until you’re done.

You can read my “mini” review of “Nimona” here.

So that wraps up my Top 5 Rainy Day Reads! Hopefully you found some books on here to stash away for a rainy day or just to add to your TBR anyways.

Feel free to link up your T5W’s as well!

 

Book Review: Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

 

This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative–like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it–but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book:

Pictures
Words
Stories about things that happened to me
Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
Eight billion dollars*
Stories about dogs
The secret to eternal happiness*

*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

This is going to be a short, sweet review because honestly my review won’t do the book proper justice.

Where do I even begin to describe my love for this book? Oh right I know exactly where to begin, I’ll begin by thanking the lovely Ariana over at The Quirky Book Nerd for recommending this fabulous book to me! (She has great taste guys, go check out her blog for recommendations).

Anywho! Like I said this is one fantastic book, because who doesn’t love funny books? Unless you are literally a black hole that loves nothing better than consuming all happiness and humor, otherwise I can guarantee you’ll love this book!

“Hyperbole and a Half” is truly a hilarious book, I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard while reading in a long ass time. I kept trying to read it out loud to people and I couldn’t even get the words out I was laughing so much. I think the book will pretty much fit everyone’s type of humor, I can bet you’ll laugh AT LEAST once.

Plus I absolutely LOVED the illustrations, they added so much to the book. The book is simply incomplete without them.

I think I spent more time looking and laughing at pictures than actually reading…..

Also they’re so colorful and just overall fun to look at and read, I borrowed an e-copy from my library and I’m really regretting not reading it in its full colorful glory!

What I also really loved was how Allie Brosh dealt with real-life issues in her book, adding humor and honesty to things such as depression. I don’t know about you but when a humor book can make you feel better about dealing with mental health issues then it gets an A+ in my opinion. I have to deal with my anxiety and just reading Brosh’s stories/chapters on that really helped me feel a bit less hopeless about it.

I’ll actually go and buy my own personal print copy of this book and re-read it again, also give it to my friends and family and hope they read it too. Does that help you understand how great this book is?

The only reason I’m rating this a 4.5 instead of a full 5 is that I’ve already read some of the chapters/stories before so they lost the teeniest bit of their humor on me. That’s it though! The only reason I promise.

So really do you need more convincing? Go read this book now!

Links: Goodreads / Amazon