Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Top Ten Tuesday #81 - Beach Reads (...Or Not)

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

Top Ten Beach Reads 

Confession: Even though I live in Florida, I hardly ever go to the beach. I've been twice in the past 7-ish years, once to watch the sunset and again very recently to give my daughter the experience of a giant body of water and sand between her toes. The beach isn't really my idea of fun. I don't really want to drive 2+ hours to go sit in the sun.
I'm more of a read in a hammock in the shade of a tree or take a long walk through the forest kind of girl. 


Anyway, I always think of contemporaries when I think of beach reads. Or cozy mysteries. I don't read either though, so this is a little difficult for me!
So, instead of what others would probably consider beach reads, I'm going to list some books I plan on reading this summer (or whenever) that are a bit out of my comfort zone. Especially since I usually crave epic fantasy in the summer.



  • Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher - (Currently Reading) I've been putting this off forever even though I own the book. 
  • The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman - I really need/want to read this before the movie adaptation comes out! I do enjoy historical fiction but this one strikes me as something I probably wouldn't have bothered with otherwise.
  • Inferno by Dan Brown - I read the first 3 Robert Langdon books ages ago so this isn't entirely out of my comfort zone, but it was back then. I almost never read crime mystery thrillers like this. 


  • Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli - I don't actually know what this one is about but I'm thinking juvenile contemporary. I heard that it's being adapted into a film and I picked it up at a thrift store last week. 
  • The Gunslinger (Dark Tower series) by Stephen King - Ok, this one has some fantasy elements I think so not entirely out of my comfort zone but it's also kind of a western(?) and that's not my thing. I also haven't read any King in years. 
  • Agatha Christie - I can't remember which book of hers I recently picked up but I've never read anything by her and I hear great things so maybe this will be my foray into adult mystery. 

  • Brooklyn by Colm Toibin - I had no idea I owned this until after the movie came out and saw it on my shelves. 
  • All the Birds in the Sky by Jane Anders - I think this one is magical realism which I haven't read much of before but would really like to. 
  • The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis - I just received an arc of this and I'm really excited to read it. It definitely doesn't seem like a beach read with it's postapocalyptic thriller synopsis (I get more of a winter night vibe from it) but I've run out of books!

  • Everland by Wendy Spinale - From May's OwlCrate, this is one I definitely plan on getting around to asap. I've been reading a lot more retellings in the past few years but I've yet to read any Peter Pan retellings even though it's my favorite Disney movie.
Now I'd love to see what everyone actually considers a beach read so please leave me a link to your list in the comments! 

Monday, May 30, 2016

May 2016 Wrap Up


This was another pretty great reading month. I had participated in the Clean Sweep ARC Challenge which pushed me to read a big majority of the arcs I had on my shelf. I do still have a couple left to get to (and a few newer ones) but I'm glad to have had that push to finish most of them. I also joined in on the Bout of Books Readathon which so far is my favorite readathon and I always try to participate in it. 
I read 12 books this month and it would have been more but I started Winter by Marissa Meyer halfway through the month and ended up taking FOREVER to finish it. It took up a lot of time and I only read a few short books during that time so I feel like I could have read at least 2 more big books in the time it took me to read Winter but I'm trying to finish up that series so I guess it was worth it.

If you'd like to see what I read vs. what I didn't get around to, you can check out my MY MAY TBR.

Books I Read


Pages Read: 4165
A record number for this year so far!

Challenge Progress



New Places Visited

(Cress)
Sahara Desert
Farafrah, Egypt
Kufra, Egypt
Siberian Tundra
Beijing

(Tru & Nelle)
Monroeville, Alabama

(On Your Mark: The Adventure Begins)
Delaware

-----------

Physical books from my shelves:

-----------



I could probably count a lot of the other's I read this month as fantasy but these are definitely fantasy, no questions asked. 

-----------


-----------



-----------
None this month but I am almost finished with The Lunar Chronicles (just need to read Stars Above) and the Oz series! 

-----------
 I may have to add this info in later. 
--------

Favorite Book of the Month
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
This doesn't come out until August but I loved everything about it! It was amazing!
---------
How did you guys do on your goals this month? What was your favorite book? 

Clean Sweep ARC Challenge Wrap Up!

This challenge takes place in May and is hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer and Kristin @ Addicted to Happily Ever After

This challenge was a big motivation for me this month! I ended up reading 12 books in all for the month, 7 of which were ARCs (not including picture books ARCs that I read). 

My goal was to read at least 5 ARC's from my list of 8 books so I did a pretty great job with that I think.

I also brought my Netgalley percentage up to 76%! 

I missed the Twitter party and forgot all about the readathon until later in the day but still jumped in and finished an arc and read a shorter one before the day was through.

ARCs Read


1. The Book of Lost Things (Mister Max #1) by Cynthia Voight - This is an arc I got from Netgalley when I first signed up for it, before I had an ereader and had to read on my desktop, and right before I moved which meant it ended up being archived before I could read it. (I actually have quite a few unread archived arcs for this reason.) I ended up picking it up from the library to read to help knock it off my shelf and bring up my percentage. I hope that still counts even if it was an older archived arc. 
2. The Glass Castle by Trisha White Priebe & Jerry B. Jenkins - Another Netgalley arc but this one is pretty recent. I ended up giving this a very low rating. Review coming to the blog soon. 
3. Tru & Nelle by G. Neri - This one I won in a Goodreads giveaway from the publisher and is an actual physical ARC copy. This ended up being a super cute story. 
4. Skeleton Island by Angie Sage - An eARC from Netgalley, this one ended up being the 7th book in a series that I hadn't started even though I do own the first one. Luckily, it's one of those series that you don't have to read the previous book to enjoy it or follow the story. 
5. The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill - Another Netgalley arc that releases in August. This was my favorite read of the month. Absolutely amazing story. 
6. On Your Mark: The Adventure Begins by C.J. Milbrandt - This one was sent to me by the author and has been sitting on my shelves for a few months. 
7. Red's Planet by Eddie Pittman - Another physical arc, this is a sci-fi graphic novel in black and white (the finished book will have full color pages) that was cute and fun to read. 

And there you have it! The 7 ARCs I read in the month of May! I've wracked up 4 more arcs this month, 2 physical and 2 eARCs and I plan on reading them in the next month or two so I don't end up with a pile again! 
Did you participate in this challenge? Or maybe the one in April? Did you make a dent in your arc pile?