Top Ten Best Beach Reads

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme hosted at The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten Best Beach Reads.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

I think the first books I ever took to the beach where The Mortal Instrument ones. I remember sun bathing while reading about Jace and Claire and the world of Shadowhunters and Downloaders and loving every minute of it.

Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty

Jessica's humor is as dry as the desert in a hot summer day and it's amazing.

It's a really fast read that'll keep you hooked and awed to the inner workings of Jessica's mind as she lives life and writes it all down.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Sometimes all you want for the summer is to find a really light and fast book to read, and that's what you get when you read about Anna's new life in Paris: the sweetest story filled with romance and humor and that'll leave you giddy after you finish reading it.

Born at Midnight by C.C. Hunter

Reading about a camp of troubled teens during the summer is all I've ever wanted in my life.

Especially when they're supernatural.

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

Another fast and sweet read where the title tells us everything, really.

Girl comes back to spend the summer with boys looking all grown up and that draws their attention. Summer romance ensues. 

Delirium  by Lauren Oliver

Dystopias always remind me of heat and sun and summer things, and Delirium is definitely one of the best books of this particular genre out there.

Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

Simone Elkeles is a terrifc writer, and Pierfect Chemistry is one of my favorite books written by her.

It was also one I read with my feet stuck in the sand and the ocean about four blocks away, so it'll always have a spot in my best beach reads.

Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins

Book one of my favorite trilogy ever, oh my god.

That's the entire reason why this is on the list, to be honest. Because it's one of my favorites books, and it came out close to the summer, and it's just so good and it has romance and angels and demons and it's the best!

Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally

My Top Ten needs to have a sports book, and this is it.

The fact that this one has a girl for her high school football team's quarterback is just a bonus.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

And another dystopian book, although this one focuses less on finding love and more on finding yourself. Quick and action-filled read that will keep you glued to the pages until the very end. 

Top Ten Freebie: Favorite Book Covers

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme hosted at The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten Freebie (Anything you want! Top Ten Favorite Paranormal Creatures! Top Ten Books Set in Paris! Top Ten Books I Wish I Never Read! etc. etc.)

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Since this week's topic is anything I want, I'm gonna go ahead and choose last week's topic and make it my Top Ten Freebie:

Top Ten Favorite Book Covers of Books I've Read

Smokeless Fire by Samantha Young

If it wasn't for the originality of the plot, I think I would've bought this book solely because of it's cover. At the time, it was just so different from everything I'd seen while browsing books on Amazon that I remember stopping just so I could stare at it and gush about all the colors and how smoky and put together everything was.

And as it turned out, the story ended up being just as freaking amazing as the cover art for it was.

The Vincent Brothers by Abbi Glines

I have to admit that I only ended up reading The Vincent Boys because I saw the cover for The Vincent Brothers and almost died. It was just so cute. And it also had this really neat feeling about it with just the girl's lips pressed against the green apple, and I  just really loved the way it looked.

I know both books now have new covers, but this one will always be the one I think about whenever someone mentions this story to me.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I liked this cover more than I liked the actual story of the book.

I just remember being at the bookstore and staring at it with my eyebrows raised because the cover interested me that much. Not that the story was bad, it just wasn't enough to keep me hooked most of the time.

The book looks damn good on my shelf, though, so there's that.

This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

I only loved this so much because of the blood spatters on the left upper corner of the cover.

They're so badass. And subtle. And awesome.

Just like the story.

Seriously. It's amazing and everyone should read it and embrace the violence that is the zombie apocalypse.

Own the Wind by Kristen Ashley

I love bikes. So it's a given that I'll love anything with bikes in them. Also, the boots. And the road. And just everything really.

The fact that this awesome cover comes with a good story is just a plus for me. And that it was written by Kristen Ashley is like the whipped-cream on top. The cover to the second installment of this series is just as good, but since I haven't read it yet I couldn't mention it here.

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

I remember the day the cover was revealed and me sitting in front of the computer with my mouth gaping because it was just so pretty. The girl and the dress and the glowing book. They all came together beautifully and I loved it.

The only bad thing about this cover is that it's the cover for the final book on the Infernal Devices series, so it was sad to see all of the characters go. But still, amazing cover.

Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

This cover doesn't make any sense???

Which I guess it makes all kind of sense when you consider the plot of Rant.

This book is one of my favorite books ever, and I guess the weird cover just makes me love it even more. I don't know. I get a smile every time I see it, I just like it so much.

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

The first time I read Beautiful Disaster the book still had that cover with the red lips and the tongue sticking out. Remember that?

So when they updated the cover to this one, it was about just the most beautiful cover I had ever seen. Mostly because it was such an improvement from the old one, but also from how simple and delicate it looked.

The cover from Walking Disaster is also awesome, but this one is my favorite from the series.

The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

I know they changed the cover, but I don't know why.

This one is so beautiful and its significance to the story is so much bigger than the cover they updated it to. Aaahhh!

Anyways, yes. This cover. I loved it because of how it shows us a little bit of the story with the all of these coins under water. It actually refers to a really cute moment in the book, which kind of just makes me like it even more.

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

This cover art works perfectly with the title of the book, because whenever I look at it I instantly think about winter time and snow. Also, it's cute.

The fact that this is also a great part of the story just makes me like this even more, even though the edition I have at home is the UK one with it's black and white cover.

Sad face.

Top Ten Books Dealing With Tough Subjects

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme hosted at The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten Books Dealing With Tough Subjects (abuse, suicide, grief etc or something personal hard for you)

The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay: There's not much I can say without giving the story away, but it deals with the aftermath of abuse. We see how the character deals after going through a horrible situation, and how it affects everyone around said character. It's downright brilliant and one of my favorite books ever.

Dare You To by Katie McGary: This story is such a wonderful sequel to her first book Pushing the Limits. It gives us an in to Beth and Ryan's story, dealing with alcohol and drug abuse, physical abuse, homophobia, and childhood traumas. It's so amazingly written that I actually like this one more than I did the first.

Going Under by S. Walden: It took me a while to get around to reading this story, but I'm so glad I did. S. Walden writes about sexual abuse, depression, and suicide in a way that's more real than what we find in books these days. It also brings awareness to things that are happening today, and I thank her for it.

Find You in the Dark by A. Meredith Walters: Mental illness is a touchy subject for me, and the way Walters portraits it in this story is possibly one of my most favorite things about it. It shows the ups and downs of what is like to know someone with manic depression and that, even though you might really want to, sometimes love doesn't have the power to fix everything.

Hopeless by Colleen Hoover: Colleen owns my soul. And she managed to rip it all in pieces as I read about all of the traumatic experiences Sky suffered through as a child. From sexual abuse to kidnapping to feeling so utterly and completely broken at finding out the truth, this book is one of the best I've ever got my hands on.

Falling Into You by Jasinda Wilder: This book will gut you right from the start. And then it will just keep kicking you while you're already down. Reading about self-harm as a way to coping with grief always gets to me, because it's so easy to see where the person is coming from. Best thing about the entire story, though, is that Colton never tries to fix Nell. He only tries to help her heal.

The Coincidence of Callie & Kayden by Jessica Sorensen: I'll never get over how great this story is. The story tackles physical and sexual abuse, showing us the aftermath of it all, how the characters are dealing with what they've been through. My favorite thing about it is how the author chose to deal with the aftermath of it all, sexual abuse, the way it forces the female lead characters to come out of her shell and push her boundaries, make new memories, and learn how to trust people again. 

Ten Tiny Breaths by K.A. Tucker: Here we see grief when it's bottled up, pushed away, and ignored. Kacey's way of not-coping is possibly one of the saddest things I've ever read, specially when she sees herself being forced to deal with it. And with Trent we learn about what guilt can do to a person, how it can make them obsessive and drag them down and make them and others hurt.

Easy by Tammara Webber: This story is about standing up for yourself. It shows how common it is for a woman not to report being assaulted, but then it gives us the lead female character deciding to take self-defense classes to make sure that, if it does happen again, she'll be able to protect herself. The reason why Lucas is the one to teach the class is also deeply rooted to a traumatizing situation he went through as a child, and it's great reading about how he takes all of that anger and turns it into something good.

Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson: I cried like a baby reading this. This is a cancer book, but from the perspective of a daughter watching her father wither away. It's grief in its most pure form, reading about Taylor trying to come to terms with the fact that this is the last summer she's going to have with her father, and it's heartbreaking.