Science fiction and fantasy are two of my favorite genres to read, and I’ve been able to read a handful of fantastic books from both categories. That being said, it took me a while to decide on just these five books for this week’s Top 5 Wednesday:
Top 5 Wednesday (#T5W) is a bookish meme created by Lainey (Gingerreadslainey) in 2013. You can learn more about it by visiting the group’s goodreads page.
Continue reading “5 of my Favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy Books”
Title: The Thousandth Floor
Author: Katharine McGee
Published: August 30, 2016
Pages: 448
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Romance
Amazon / Barnes and Nobles / Goodreads
Goodreads Description: A hundred years in the future, New York is a city of innovation and dreams. Everyone there wants something…and everyone has something to lose.
LEDA COLE’s flawless exterior belies a secret addiction—to a drug she never should have tried and a boy she never should have touched.ERIS DODD-RADSON’s beautiful, carefree life falls to pieces when a heartbreaking betrayal tears her family apart.
RYLIN MYERS’s job on one of the highest floors sweeps her into a world—and a romance—she never imagined…but will this new life cost Rylin her old one?
WATT BAKRADI is a tech genius with a secret: he knows everything about everyone. But when he’s hired to spy for an upper-floor girl, he finds himself caught up in a complicated web of lies.
And living above everyone else on the thousandth floor is AVERY FULLER, the girl genetically designed to be perfect. The girl who seems to have it all—yet is tormented by the one thing she can never have.
One of the reading challenges I’m participating in this year is the Monthly Motif Reading Challenge. Each month, particpators have to pick a book that fits the theme for that month. The theme for the month of January was Diversify Your Reading, so I had to choose a book written by an author or with characters of a different race, religion, or sexual orientation than me (basically a character who isn’t Asian, agnostic, or heterosexual). The Thousandth Floor had numerous characters that fit criteria (ex. Leda was African American, Eris was bisexual, and Mariel was Christian).
This book reminded me of We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. Both books are about rich kids who seriously need more parental guidance. I actually ended up giving The Thousandth Floor two stars for reasons similar to why I gave two stars to We Were Liars.
Continue reading “Book Review: The Thousandth Floor by Katharine McGee // too much unnecessary drama”
Title: Highly Illogical Behavior
Author: John Corey Whaley
Published: May 10, 2016
Pages: 256
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, LGBT
Amazon / Barnes and Nobles / Goodreads
Goodreads Description: Sixteen-year-old Solomon is agoraphobic. He hasn’t left the house in three years, which is fine by him.
Ambitious Lisa desperately wants to get into the second-best psychology program for college (she’s being realistic). But is ambition alone enough to get her in?
Enter Lisa.
Determined to “fix” Sol, Lisa steps into his world, along with her charming boyfriend, Clark, and soon the three form an unexpected bond. But, as Lisa learns more about Sol and he and Clark grow closer and closer, the walls they’ve built around themselves start to collapse and their friendships threaten to do the same.
I can count how many books I have read about a protagonist with a mental illness on one hand. For that reason, I decided to pick up this book in order to diversify my reading. I also heard that it does a does a good job of respectfully portraying agoraphobia.
Continue reading “Book Review: Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley // the start of my era of diverse reading”
Title: Tell Me Three Things
Author: Julie Buxbaum
Published: April 5, 2016
Pages: 328
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Amazon / Barnes and Nobles / Goodreads
Goodreads Description: Everything about Jessie is wrong. At least, that’s what it feels like during her first week of junior year at her new ultra-intimidating prep school in Los Angeles. Just when she’s thinking about hightailing it back to Chicago, she gets an email from a person calling themselves Somebody/Nobody (SN for short), offering to help her navigate the wilds of Wood Valley High School. Is it an elaborate hoax? Or can she rely on SN for some much-needed help?
It’s been barely two years since her mother’s death, and because her father eloped with a woman he met online, Jessie has been forced to move across the country to live with her stepmonster and her pretentious teenage son.
In a leap of faith—or an act of complete desperation—Jessie begins to rely on SN, and SN quickly becomes her lifeline and closest ally. Jessie can’t help wanting to meet SN in person. But are some mysteries better left unsolved?
I picked this book up because I was in the mood for a light, contemporary read and I heard good things about this particular one. I will say that I figured out who SN was right off the bat, but that didn’t hamper my reading experience. In fact, it only added to my squealing during the falling action.
Continue reading “Book Review: Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum // a predictable, but cute contemporary”2016 was an eventful year for me. Throughout the year, I would recall things I had done and think did all that really happen this year? There seems to be a general consensus among the people of the interwebs that 2016 wasn’t the best year for the world, but it was personally a good year for me. I feel like I can proudly say I went through a lot of ✧character development✧ this year.
My 2016 resolutions weren’t very specific (ex. read more, exercise more, be more positive), but I think I still accomplished them regardless of that fact. I’m keeping my resolutions very general again since it worked last year and it puts less pressure on me. In 2017, I want to:
Continue reading “My 2017 New Year Resolutions”
Growing up, I was in the habit of always carrying a book with me at school to read when passing time. During my last year of high school and first six months of college, there were a lot of changes in my life and reading just wasn’t something I had the time and energy to do.
At the end of 2015, I finished Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and it sparked my love of reading again. I made a New Year’s resolution to read at least 30 books and I’m thrilled to be able to say I surpassed that goal by 30+ books. Now, here are my favorite books of 2016:
Let me just put this out there: my hypothetical New Year’s Eve party would ideally be the mellowest get together ever. Picture people playing board games on a living room floor, the Times Square ball drop broadcasting on the TV. (So, basically what I do every year except with people ten times cooler than me.) But as I chose the characters I would invite to the party, I realized that there was no way that it could be mellow. Here are five seven characters I would invite to my New Year’s Eve party:
Continue reading “5 Characters I Would Invite to my New Year’s Eve Party”
I recently read The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It was one of those rare moments where I decided to read a book after watching it’s movie adaptation, and I still enjoyed it. After finishing the book, I started to wonder why I prefer to read books before watching their movie adaptations.
Continue reading “Why I Prefer Reading the Book Before Watching Its Movie”
Thanks to Cristina from My Tiny Obsessions for tagging me in this fun, Christmas-themed tag! You can read her post here.
Title: The Help
Author: Kathryn Stockett
Published: February 10, 2009
Pages: 444
Genre: Historical Fiction
Amazon / Barnes and Nobles / Goodreads
Goodreads Description: Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step….
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
It had been about two years since I last watched The Help and I still found myself thinking about how much I enjoyed it. Instead of watching it again, I decided to read the book to see what wasn’t included. I was pleased to discover that the movie was very true to the book, and I found the movie scenes playing out in my head as I was reading. For that reason, it almost feels like I’m reviewing both the book and movie.
Continue reading “Book Review: The Help by Kathryn Stockett // as good as the movie”
Belle Can Read 