Today’s Top Ten Tuesday (as always, hosted by the inimitable Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl) was hard because I could list so much more than ten blogs that I love and adore. The book Twitter community has been so wonderful, open and accepting of everyone who crosses paths with it. I have so much fun scrolling down my feed every day – one of the best things I ever did was revamping my old website, dusting out the cobwebs and making it into what I’d always hoped it would be – a repository for my bookish thoughts, feelings and reviews.

To honor that, today’s TTT is ten of my most favorite blogs, run by ten of the people I’ve connected with the most over these months. This is (obviously) by all means not an exhaustive list! There are way more than ten blogs that I follow and love, but this is just …

… a small smackerel.

10 of My Bloggy MVPs

1. Katie at Pages & Pugs – Katie is my blogging BFF, we have almost the exact same taste in literature (though she likes romances more than I do, and I like adult thrillers more than she does), and is such a great friend in general. Super glad that she’s in my life.
2. Destiny at Howling Libraries – Destiny is hilarious. She is always posting interesting Twitter threads to read up on, and has such a kind heart.
3. Katie at Too Old For YA – There must be something about people named Katie and snarky goodness, because this Katie is also a cynical darling. I’m buddy reading The Kiss Quotient with her and Destiny next month and I’m pretty jazzed about it! Her blog always makes me laugh.
4. Lauren at Northern Plunder – I don’t know how Lauren does all that she does! She maintains her blog with so much finesse, as well as a super-giant Discord channel for nerds like you and me. She still manages to find time to sleep. Don’t ask me how.
5. Sarah at Book Hooked Nook – Sarah is almost singlehandedly responsible for making me want to read more romances. She also always has the best tags on her blog!
6. Nicola at Fantastic Book Dragon – Nicola does lots of really awesome interviews with authors, and reviews so many things besides just books, like conventions. She’s not afraid to tell it like it is!
7. Kris at Boston Book Reader – Kris maintains a vlog as well as a blog, and I don’t know how on earth she manages to do that. Despite the fact that she’s busier than a tick in a dog park, she still manages to make her audience feel seen via both mediums.
8. Kaleena at Reader Voracious – I’ve seen Kaleena pop up in more than one of these now, and for good reason! She is always posting a new review, and has her finger on the pulse of the latest and greatest tags and memes. Plus she’s just adorable.
9. Adrianna at For the Love of Books – Adrianna manages to post just about every single day, which is no small feat. I love her blog for its mix of so many different types and genres of literature – there is something for everyone on her blog and she’s super cute while doing it.
10. Paige at A Conjuring of Lit – Paige is a new friend of mine, and we’ve been brought together via a traveling book annotation project. She is snarky, hilarious, and generally a joy to be around. I can’t wait to get to know her better!

I adore all the blogs I follow, though – if you aren’t on this list, please don’t be offended! It felt like I was 16 again and having to choose my MySpace Top 8 – a lot of social pressure to fill a small number of spaces with gobs of my favorite people. Thanks for being you, everyone. I can’t wait to read your responses!

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday (as always, hosted by the inimitable Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl) took a lot of thought, fancasting and daydreaming – I think I can safely say now that I am confident in my choices, though it took me way longer than I expected it to!

This week, we’re looking at 10 books we’d mash together – I am interpreting this to mean 5 pairs of books that I’d like to see cross over. And I mean a good crossover, not the Scooby Doo x Supernatural weirdness that left me slightly emotionally scarred and vulnerable for weeks to come.

Pair 1: The Book of Essie & Little Do We Know

Both of these books contain, at their cores, a questioning and rebellion against the organized religion these characters have been born into. While of course the struggles these girls face are very different, I think they would both get some peace and comfort out of talking about their feelings and inner demons.

Pair 2: The Last Time I Lied & Broken Things

Each of these books contains a strong storyline about a manipulative teenage girl who is intent on controlling and “leading” their closest friends. I would love to see a Vivian vs. Summer cage match – I am not sure who’d win, but I would put my money on Vivian – she seems a touch more ruthless, and is I believe a year or two older than Summer.

Pair 3: Truly Devious & Stalking Jack the Ripper

Let’s have some suspension of disbelief and pretend that time travel is a thing and we can get these characters together – can you imagine Stevie and Audrey Rose scuttling through the streets of London, or Ellingham Academy late at night, looking for clues together? Stevie would also have no time or energy for Audrey Rose’s dalliance with Thomas Cresswell, and I see a hilarious buddy cop sort of situation blooming here.

Pair 4: Eliza and Her Monsters & Girl Made of Stars

Eliza and Mara are sweet, fluffy, Care Bear teenagers who must be protected at all costs. I think that Eliza’s social anxiety combined with Mara’s anxieties about life in general would make them a really good pair – I can picture them sitting on Mara’s roof, gnawing on pizza crusts and talking about fangirl stuff, Eliza sketching out Mara’s stories about the twins in the stars.

Pair 5: The Wife Between Us & Jar of Hearts

This is really just an excuse to get together two women who have been through the wringer as far as relationships are concerned, and who have had to go to the end of their rope – and just slightly past it – to make it out of those relationships alive. I’d like to think Vanessa and Geo meet at some “my ex was really fucked up” AA-esque meeting, where they sip coffee and trade horror stories. They might very well wind up Thelma & Louise-ing it out of there, but that’s another story …

Do you agree with any of these? What’s on your list? Let me know in the comments!

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday (as always, hosted by the inimitable Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl) is a fun prompt! It’s especially fun because I only have, like, 10 minutes to write this week’s entry and it should be a fairly easy one! This week, we are focusing on 5 books that you think lived up to the hype, and 5 books you hope will when they release!

These are my top 5 books that, in my opinion, lived up to the hype surrounding them, either as preorders or just in general:

• They Both Die at the End
• The Last Time I Lied
• Illuminae
• Legendary
• Scythe

These are my 5 books that I either haven’t gotten my hands on yet or am anxiously awaiting a preorder for, and I hope they don’t suck.

• The Darkest Legacy
• Spinning Silver
• The Wicked King
• A Spark of Light
• Escaping from Houdini

What about you? Are any of these on either of your lists? Let me know, I am always looking for new TBR pile fodder!

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday (as always, hosted by the inimitable Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl) is a prompt that I really enjoyed puzzling and turning over in my head – ten books that you link to certain sensory memories, or that are just linked to things you remember. I really enjoy this prompt because it’s not going to just have the same 50 popular books that everyone else’s list does – it’s probably going to have some interesting, unique books too. How cool is that?

1. All That Glitters, a terrible Sabrina the Teenage Witch novelization

I was an only child until I was nearly 10 years old, at which point my baby sister was born. I remember being in the hospital after her birth, overcome with emotion and all sorts of “10 year old in 1999” feelings – jealousy, excitement, you name it. My dad went down to the gift shop of the hospital and came back up with this book – the glitter on the borders sparkled, of course. I had owned and loved a few of these, but this one was special. I’ll always remember watching the edges catch the light in that hospital room.

2. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I was on a car ride to my ex boyfriend’s family’s lakehouse when I finished this book. I remember getting so worked up over the last ~50 pages that I couldn’t even form words. When I read the last line and shut the cover, I turned around and pitched the book into the backseat. He asked no questions.

3. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Another ex, another drive. I believe this was right after we got engaged (lol!) and were driving home from our anniversary trip to the Georgia mountains. I had bought books 2 and 3 at the bookstore we’d found near an outlet mall – Mockingjay had just come out – and I was so happy, watching my ring glimmer in the sunlight streaming through the car window. Then he turned out to be a colossal asswagon. Oops.

4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling

My grandmother engineered a Scrabble tournament between herself, my two cousins, and me when there were just two HP books released into the world. Naturally nobody lost, and she had bought two copies of Chamber of Secrets and one of Sorcerer’s Stone, accidentally thinking SS was the first book (my cousins were brothers). I read Chamber of Secrets first, therefore, and had to figure out what the heck was going on from an in media res standpoint. I remember being curled up under the heated blanket in my grandma’s narrow single-sized bed, just agog at this world. I’ll never forget that.

5. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

As I mentioned above, my sister is 10 years younger than I am. I have been a book nerd since the day I was born, and she has never much cared for reading. However, she loved for me to read Goodnight Moon to her. So much so that I, in fact, have the entire narrative still memorized from my endlessly repeating it, over and over, her little head balanced on my arm. In the great green room, there was a telephone …

6. King Bidgood’s In the Bathtub by Audrey Wood

My maternal grandmother – the same one of the Harry Potter debacle – loved to read aloud to me and my cousins. She kept a large collection of story books, but the one I’ll always remember most fondly is this one: the story of a king who is just having too much fun in the tub, and makes his court come do their business with him in the water instead of out in the castle. Always a fond memory.

7. Heckedy Peg by Audrey Wood

Speaking of my Gran’s book collection, this is one she had that was beautifully illustrated, and terrifying. A witch comes to this house where there are 7 kids who’ve been left under strict instructions not to answer the door. So naturally, the kids do. The witch turns them into food items and whisks them away to her scary witch hut. The mother figures out what happened and goes to the witch’s hut in the woods, pretending to be a beggar. She winds up having to pretend to amputate her legs to get the witch to take enough pity on her to let her in the house. Somehow the mom uses her Mom Logic to figure out which kid is which food item, and then they kill the witch somehow and go home. I have no idea what the moral of this one is, don’t answer the door to witches? Anyway, it’s terrifying.

8. Matilda by Roald Dahl

When I got chicken pox, I was very young – probably 6 or 7. But I was reading full-on chapter books at that stage, however old I was. My aunt dropped off a care package with my mom, and in it was a copy of Matilda. I remember laying in my bed, transfixed, and absolutely in love with this story. Matilda still remains one of my most beloved and favorite stories to this day, and is on the top of my baby names list for future children that may or may not ever exist.

9. The Cay by Theodore Taylor

Our fifth grade teacher, Mrs. McDermott, would read to us after lunch every day. We always protested because we were too grown for that, but deep down we all enjoyed it. I don’t remember a whole lot about this book, but I remember exactly where I was standing, washing the red popsicle stain off my fingertips at the sink in the back of the classroom, when we finished it. A hushed silence crept over the room, and someone in the front asked in a quiet voice, “Can we read the next one?”

10. Holes by Louis Sachar

No wonder my love of reading has been lifelong, I’ve had so many teachers who read to us. My sixth grade Gifted teacher, Mrs. Medina, was not a nice person. She was rough around the edges, old, close to retirement, and about as grumpy as you’d expect a woman who is those three things and constantly surrounded by 12 year old children to be. But every day after lunch, we’d all crowd into the art classroom, sit on the metal stools with tennis balls on their feet, put our heads on top of our folded arms on the table tops, and listen to her read us this cool new release book she’d heard about: Holes. This book has all of the fame it deserves these days, but at the time it was just a cool book fair find. I’ll never forget gasping with my classmates when we learned why they were digging those holes, either. What a magnificent book.

Are any of these books sensory memories for you? What are some of your “sense” books? I’d love to hear about it!