Tag Archives: romance

Top 10 Tuesday: Books I’d Gladly Throw in the Ocean

Welcome to Top 10 Tuesday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s challenge is about books I’d gladly throw in the ocean!

Normally for these posts I focus on either books I’ve read and enjoyed or books that I’m still looking forward to reading. However, for this post I got to think back on books that I haven’t enjoyed so much. To be fair, even with books I don’t enjoy, I would never go as far to destroy any of them (or in this case, throw them in the ocean). Normally I would just donate them, but I have to say it was fun to reminisce and remember those books that made me feel… strong feelings. Without further ado, here are my top ten books that I’d gladly throw in the ocean!

March Wrap-Up

Happy April everyone!

Did March feel really long to anyone else?

I’m experiencing some big changes in my job, and I think the stress just felt never-ending this month. But oh well! It’s a new month full of new opportunities and new books! Change is always scary but I’m hopeful it’ll lead to some positive things.

Unfortunately March wasn’t my greatest month of reading. My stress led to more TV and videogame time than usual, and there were even two books I DNF (did not finish), which literally never do. I hate giving up on a book before finishing it, but I realized that I deserve to read books I enjoy, and it’s not worth it to spend time reading something that I dread (or end up not reading at all because I dread it that much).

I think part of the reason I wasn’t super thrilled with my March picks was that I chose to focus on middle grade books this month. I took many books home from my classroom to read during quarantine, and I want to be able to read and return them to my classroom before the end of the school year. While I love middle grade books, I tend to get a little restless when I read too many in a row.

I’m excited for my April reads though! I’m planning on reading the next book in the Uglies series (which comes out in less than a week) and I’m also hoping to read The Glass Castle. Other than that, I plan on just reading whatever I’m in the mood for!

Without further ado, here is my wrap-up of all the books I read in March:

Top 10 Tuesday: Places in Books I’d Love to Visit

Welcome to Top 10 Tuesday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s challenge is about places in books I’d love to visit!

It was initially places I’d love to live, but I changed it to visit because, well, I’m a homebody and I don’t really want to move anywhere far away (not permanently at least). It was so difficult to choose for this one! There are so many book settings I’d love to visit for a short amount of time, and it was fun to reminisce on all of the great places books have helped me travel to. Without further ado, here are my top ten choices for places in books I’d love to visit (in no particular order)!

Top 5 Saturday: Books for Foodies

Welcome to Top 5 Saturday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by Devouring Books, and this week’s challenge focuses on books with a desert setting (which I changed to books for foodies!).

I really couldn’t think of many books with a desert setting, but I figured the word “desert” is similar to “dessert.” This then got me thinking about books that feature food in some way, so I ended up choosing five books that feature food or dessert! In no particular order, here are my top five books for foodies!

Top 10 Tuesday: Memorable Book Titles

Welcome to Top 10 Tuesday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s challenge is about funny book titles!

So, you may have noticed that I modified this week’s prompt just a little bit. I really couldn’t think of any funny book titles that I’ve read or that are on my TBR! However, I’ve read many books with titles that are intriguing and memorable. Books that, although I’ve maybe long forgotten the plot, the titles have stayed with me. Maybe they include a play on words, maybe they evoke some sort of imagery, or maybe they’re just quirky and clever in some way. Regardless of the reason, these are my top ten most memorable book titles (in no particular order)!

Top 10 Tuesday: (Audio)books on my Spring 2021 TBR

Welcome to Top 10 Tuesday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s challenge is about books on my spring 2021 TBR!

As dorky as it sounds, one of my favorite things to do when I’m bored is stare dreamily at my bookshelves and think about when I can read all of the books on my shelves. You’d think this time would be better spent actually reading said books (and you’d be right), but oh well! I just can’t help myself. That being said, I don’t set a specific TBR list for myself. Within each genre on my shelves, I have certain books that are a higher priority than others. But still, I keep that in mind when picking my next book to read, but in the end decide to read whatever I’m in the mood for. At first, I wasn’t sure how to approach this prompt because of this. I was thinking about just listing my “top priority” book for each genre, even though I definitely won’t get to all of those in spring (maybe not even in 2021).

However, then I remembered that I do follow a more structured TBR for my audiobooks! For the most part, I just go in the order in which I purchased them (with exceptions here and there). This year, I’ve been doing this, but while also following a set pattern to help me reach my reading goals for 2021. Basically, I go to the “bottom” of my library (I scroll down to the oldest, not-yet-downloaded book), start there and then work my way up in this order: fiction, nonfiction, classic, repeat. Therefore, I have a pretty predictable line-up for my spring 2021 audiobooks. I certainly won’t follow this exactly, especially with Spring Break coming up. I typically listen to audiobooks while I get ready for work and sometimes when I do chores, so over Spring Break I might choose some other, shorter audiobooks to focus on instead simply because I’ll have less time to listen to them. We shall see! But for now, here are my top 10 audiobooks on my spring 2021 TBR!

Top 5 Saturday: Books with Snow on the Cover

Welcome to Top 5 Saturday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by Devouring Books, and this week’s challenge focuses on books with a snow on the cover.

I really struggled again this week! Apparently I don’t read too many snowy, wintery, cozy books. For this list, I managed to come up with a list of books for adults and for children that feature snow in some way on the cover (some of which I’ve read, and some of which I haven’t). Without further ado, here are my top five choices (in no particular order)!

Te amo, Je t’aime, I Love You… (Top 10 Tuesday)

Welcome to Top 10 Tuesday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s challenge is a Valentine’s Day/Love freebie!

I really enjoyed this one! I tried to approach it not just from a romantic perspective, but in a way that includes many different types of love. Mother-daughter love, sisterly love, the special love between a dog and its owner, love of a place or activity, and more! There are many different kinds of love, something which many languages other than English do a better job of differentiating linguistically. English only has one word: love. You can say you love your mom and that you love chocolate and we can use context to determine which kind of love we mean. But in Spanish, there are entirely different verbs to represent these two kinds of love. So interesting! I love to geek out over Spanish grammar, but I’ll stop (for now). Instead, let’s check out my top ten choices for books with a love motif!

Top 5 Saturday: Books with Royalty in the Title

Welcome to Top 5 Saturday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by Devouring Books, and this week’s challenge focuses on books with royalty in the title.

I’ve been struggling with these lately! I feel like these prompts are often geared more toward readers of fantasy, which is great! But I just don’t read a lot of that genre, so I often have a hard time coming up with these. However, I did manage to come up with five! These are a mix of books I’ve read and books that are on my TBR list. In no particular order, here are my top five books with royalty in the title!