Ten Books We Almost Put Down But Didn't

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 Jamie's Picks:

1. Pride & Prejudice: YEP. One of my favorite books. I almost put this down because I was so not into it at first. I ended up pressing on because I didn't want to be the only girl in the world who didn't know who the swoonworthy Mr. Darcey was. Glad I kept going because I fell in love!

2. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman: I had bought this on a whim at a used book sale and read it many years ago because I had heard of the great Neil Gaiman and I wanted to give him a shot. It so wasn't my typical kind of read (especially at that point in time) and I almost put it down but I'm so glad I didn't. I need to read more Gaiman despite ending up enjoying it!

3. Eve & Adam by Katerine Applegate & Michael Grant: I wish I would have once I realized that this book was not at all what I thought it would be. Instead I kept going. It ended and I was like WHY DID I READ THIS.

Kimberly's Pick

4. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray:  I couldn't stand the narrative style at first. I want sure if I wanted to even try reading it. But since I had already bought I decided to read it. And I ended up loving it!

Bridget's Pick

5. The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling: It took me forever (aka about a month and 200 pages) to get into this book, but I'm so glad I pushed through and finished it! For those of you who weren't able to get into it, I totally understand--it took a while for it to all come together. But I would recommend giving it another try, I think it was worth it in the end.

Paula's Pick

6. The Town That Forgot How to Breathe by Kenneth Harvey - I pushed through this book but I wish I had the capability of putting books down because I would have my three weeks back...

 Jana's Picks

7. Racing Savannah by Miranda Kenneally - I kind of wish I had just stopped this one, because I really did not enjoy it. I've read another book by this author and didn't like it either, so I'm thinking this author might not be for me. 

8. Black City by Elizabeth Richards - Call it morbid curiosity if you'd like, but I honestly stayed with this one only because I was curious as to how on EARTH these people were going to pull themselves out of this situation. But the book was just way too dark and disturbing for me, and there's one part in particular that has scarred me for life. So... I should have quit! Haha.


What about you guys? Which books did you almost put down but then didn't? Is it normally a good or bad experience when this happens?

Jana Reviews: Wish You Were Italian by Kristin Rae

Title: Wish You Were Italian
Author: Kristin Rae
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Release Date: May 6, 2014
Source: ARC from publisher
Rating: 5+ Stars

Pippa has always wanted to go to Italy … but not by herself. And certainly not to sit in art school the entire summer learning about dead guys’ paintings. When she steps off the plane in Rome, she realizes that traveling solo gives her the freedom to do whatever she wants. So it’s arrivederci, boring art program and ciao, hot Italian guys!

Charming, daring, and romantic, Bruno is just the Italian Pippa’s looking for—except she keeps running into cute American archeology student Darren everywhere she goes. Pippa may be determined to fall in love with an Italian guy … but the electricity she feels with Darren says her heart might have other plans. Can Pippa figure out her feelings before her parents discover she left the program and—even worse—she loses her chance at love?

 --

I recently posted a raving review of this book on my personal book blog, and I participated in the author's release week event by posting my 10 goals for my second trip to Italy. Bottom line: I ADORE this book. I adore it so much that I just HAD to write a second review of it here so I could get the word out to even more people!

I read this book weeks ago, yet I still think about it. That's saying something. So, I guess you could say that this post is less of a review and more of a continuation of my fangirling. As soon as I shut the book, I ran into my mom's room and told her she had to read it. She's not usually a fan of my young adult contemporary romances because she thinks they are usually pretty superficial and silly. I know what she means... kind of. But whatever. She LOVED Wish You Were Italian. I'm not sure if it's because she and I both traveled Italy together two years ago or what, but this book was the closest we could get to gong back. Kristin TAKES you to Italy, drops you there, and leaves you to fall in love with the characters. I really could not have asked for more. Well, if the book could come with a ticket to Italy that would be nice. I'd buy millions of copies.

This book has a lot more going for it than Italy, though. I mentioned the characters, and they are AMAZING. Pippa is a risk taker, a realist (but a dreamer at the same time), and just a real down-to-earth person. She loves her grandmother and her friends, and she has the funniest voice. I just loved reading her adventures. She meets this girl, Chiara, in a coffee shop and travel with her to Cinque Terre to work in the family restaurant. Chiara is the voice of reason, and is really the best friend a girl could ask for. Her brother, Bruno, is a sexy stereotypical Italian boy who fit the stereotype SO well that I could not help but love him. And then you've got Darren, this nerdy archaeology student from the States with big hair. The cast of characters is just so much fun!

There's lots of travel adventures, emotion, romance, and growing. I really just can't love this book enough, and I hope YOU go buy it now! I've recommended it to two different people, and they both LOVED it. I'm 2 for 2 right now!

So, have you read Wish You Were Italian? Did you love it? If you have not read it yet, have I convinced you to get on that? Talk to me!

Broke and Bookish Book Haul for 4/27 - 5/10

Daisy's Book Haul

Bought and gifts:
I met up with a couple of awesome bloggers: Karin, Kat, Celine, Judith and one awesome booktuber Lisa. We had lunch, obviously went book shopping and traded some books :)
-Dark Lady's Chosen by Gail Z. Martin: bought this when I was shopping with my fellow book people because it was way cheap and I own the first two books in the series.
-The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion: so everyone is talking about this and I want in on it.
-Between the Devil and Ian Eversea by Julie Anne Long: I really like Julie Anne Long's writing and had to have her next release.
-Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson: I'm trying to read more epic fantasy series and this one sounds really good!
-Wednesdays in the Tower by Jessica Day George: I LOVED the first book in this series and had to have the sequel.
-Wish You Were Italian by Kristin Rae: this sounds SO cute! I love stories set in Italy!
-Dark Lover by J.R. Ward: so I know miss Kelly will be happy to see this in my haul! I hope to love it as much as the rest of the bookloving world does!
-Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige: there's a whole load of controversy around this one, but I'm still really curious!
-The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafón: I LOVE this man's writing and needed to own this book as well!
-Delirium Stories by Lauren Oliver: I've only read Delirium and still need to read the other books, but Judith brought this to the meet up and I snagged it, thanks Judith!
-Little Women and Me by Lauren Baratz-Logsted: I've been wanting to read this ever since it first showed up on my radar a couple months before release and I'm so happy Karin brought it all the way from Austria for me!
-The Hero's Guide To Being and Outlaw by Christopher Healy: LOVED the first book in the series, it was so funny!

Egalleys for Review:
-Even in Paradise by Chelsey Philpot: rich people's drama. Yes I am intrigued!
-Blackbird by Anna Carey: this sounds REALLY exciting and I like Anna Carey's writing.
-Stray by Elissa Sussman: the Order of Fairy Godmothers. Do I really need to say more?
-Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch: Winter is coming (back)!
-Get Even by Gretchen McNeil: I'm kinda digging the whole Robin Hood theme of getting revenge for other people.
-Exquisite Captive by Heather Demetrios: a story about a jinni! I hope this will be awesome!
-Beware the Wild by Natalie C. Parker: this sounds pretty scary, but exciting!
-Wed at Leisure by Sabrina Darby: this sounds romantic and sweet and just YES!
-Evidence of Things Not Seen by Lindsey Lane: I always find myself tuning into the news when it's about a missing person and I wonder what happened and what's the real story behind it, so this book sounds right up my alley.
-Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis: new YA fantasy by a fellow Dutch lady, OBVIOUSLY I'm reading this!
-Unwept by Tracy Hickman and Laura Hickman: these two wrote the Dragonlance series and I'm curious about their new paranormal series!
-Make It Count by Megan Erickson: I'm digging the whole new adult college thing going on and I like a tutor turning into something more story! Who knew math could be sexy?
-The Fortune Hunter by Daisy Goodwin: Sisi is a historical figure that fascinates me, so I'm excited to read this book!

Bookish Deals (34)

Hello! Happy Saturday, everyone! Welcome to today's biweekly edition of Bookish Deals where I (Julia) try to scour the Internet to find you guys an array of deals to fit in with any budget!



Reboot by Amy Tintera - $1.99
AZ | BN

Five years ago, Wren Connolly was shot three times in the chest. After 178 minutes she came back as a Reboot: stronger, faster, able to heal, and less emotional. The longer Reboots are dead, the less human they are when they return. Wren 178 is the deadliest Reboot in the Republic of Texas. Now seventeen years old, she serves as a soldier for HARC (Human Advancement and Repopulation Corporation).

Wren’s favorite part of the job is training new Reboots, but her latest newbie is the worst she’s ever seen. As a 22, Callum Reyes is practically human. His reflexes are too slow, he’s always asking questions, and his ever-present smile is freaking her out. Yet there’s something about him she can’t ignore. When Callum refuses to follow an order, Wren is given one last chance to get him in line—or she’ll have to eliminate him. Wren has never disobeyed before and knows if she does, she’ll be eliminated, too. But she has also never felt as alive as she does around Callum.

The perfect soldier is done taking orders.

Mila 2.0 by Debra Driza - $1.99
AZ | BN

Mila was never meant to learn the truth about her identity. She was a girl living with her mother in a small Minnesota town. She was supposed to forget her past—that she was built in a secret computer science lab and programmed to do things real people would never do.

Now she has no choice but to run—from the dangerous operatives who want her terminated because she knows too much and from a mysterious group that wants to capture her alive and unlock her advanced technology. However, what Mila’s becoming is beyond anyone’s imagination, including her own, and it just might save her life.

Mila 2.0 is Debra Driza’s bold debut and the first book in a Bourne Identity-style trilogy that combines heart-pounding action with a riveting exploration of what it really means to be human. Fans of I Am Number Four will love Mila for who she is and what she longs to be—and a cliffhanger ending will leave them breathlessly awaiting the sequel.

The Sweetest Dark by Shana Abe - $1.99
AZ | BN

Lora Jones has always known that she’s different. On the outside, she appears to be an ordinary sixteen-year-old girl. Yet Lora’s been keeping a heartful of secrets: She hears songs that no one else can hear, dreams vividly of smoke and flight, and lives with a mysterious voice inside her that insists she’s far more than what she seems.

England, 1915. Raised in an orphanage in a rough corner of London, Lora quickly learns to hide her unique abilities and avoid attention. Then, much to her surprise, she is selected as the new charity student at Iverson, an elite boarding school on England’s southern coast. Iverson’s eerie, gothic castle is like nothing Lora has ever seen. And the two boys she meets there will open her eyes and forever change her destiny.

Jesse is the school’s groundskeeper—a beautiful boy who recognizes Lora for who and what she truly is. Armand is a darkly handsome and arrogant aristocrat who harbors a few closely guarded secrets of his own. Both hold the answers to her past. One is the key to her future. And both will aim to win her heart. As danger descends upon Iverson, Lora must harness the powers she’s only just begun to understand, or else lose everything she dearly loves.

The Other Side...and It Is Glorious!

I am finally done with my library science degree.  And for the first time ever I have no immediate plans to go back to school.  I knew after high school was college and after college was grad school, then more grad school.  Now--nothing.  I feel like I've come out on the other side, into something great and fabulous.

For the better part of this semester, my reading has been great.  Yes, it would suffer when I would get busy with school.  I was taking two classes and I had to put together my portfolio, after all.  But that busyness only came in spurts.  For a good part of the semester it was just me and my books.  I did some incredible reading, which was just what I needed in so many ways.  (Surely you haven't forgotten all of those whiney posts in which I complained about my lack of quality reading!)

Now that I'm officially done, though, I feel even better.  I can read anything I want because I have all the time in the world!  Never again for the foreseeable future will I have to come home and do work.  I won't have anything hanging over me because work can stay at work.  I won't have these asinine papers to research and write or these stupidly boring articles to read...or pretend to read because let's be real.  I can come home at the end of the day and read.

So now that I'm blissfully done with everything, reading and deciding what to read has become so easy.  Maybe because it's something I have time for.  I am not putting off doing something else, so I don't have to feel guilty.  It doesn't matter what I read because I can always read that book later because I really want to read this one right now.  I am not being told that I have to read this or that--I can read what I want and I can just enjoy it as opposed to looking for talking points to flesh out my papers.  Though I am still keeping my habits of underlining and writing questions when the mood strikes me.  There's a lot more freedom in meandering my way through a book as opposed to looking for specific things.  Reading has become a pleasure again, something I do for me.

So what have I been reading?

I recently finished Therese Raquin by Emile Zola...That book has been hanging over my head for a really long time.  I really enjoyed reading it and will definitely review it on my personal blog soon.  I think Zola's approach and message were very interesting.  It was a very good study and a great example of the naturalist literature of the turn of the century.

I am currently co-hosting a readalong of Ulysses by James Joyce over on my personal blog.  I haven't read as much of it as I would have liked--my goal is to read enough to be able to finish during a Bloomsday readathon on June 16.  But I have read a few inspiring articles about other people's experiences with the novel and that has given me enough courage to just dive in head first without an aids.  I'm not reading this book for credit, so it's OK if some of it goes way over my head!  I can always look up things that I want to have clarified.  Fortunately, I got a good night's sleep last night, so I think I can do that tonight!

Lastly, I am slowly beginning to discover Ann Patchett.  Last week (or maybe the week before) I happened across her collection of pieces called This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, which contains articles about her writing, her relationships, and her life.  Absolutely wonderful.  One of the articles about her writing was really inspiring to me on a personal level and I immediately searched out a copy of the essay to print off so I can mark it up and take notes (and in the process, I discovered Byliner, which is a great website with original content by various authors and thinkers).  This same essay also inspired me to purchase her debut novel, The Patron Saint of Liars, which is just lovely so far and has been such a pleasure to start.  I don't know why I have never read anything by her!

Lately I've been reading like I've always wanted to as an adult!  And that is such a wonderful feeling.  Who knew that all along it was school that was standing in the way?

Top Ten Book Covers I'd Frame As Pieces of Art

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Top Ten Book Covers I’d Frame As Pieces of Art:

Jen's Picks: 

If I would have planned this better I totally would have gone to a bookstore and just walked around looking at all the book covers I’d like a print of to hang on my wall. Instead I scoured my bookshelves and GoodReads.

 

  

Across the Universe by Beth Revis: How can you not LOVE this cover??

 

Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler: The heart shaped sea glass on the cover is a perfect fit for the book and a spot hanging on my wall. 

 

  

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater: The simplicity of the cover makes it so great.

 

Oh, The Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss: This would be good to hang in an office or someplace you'd see it when you needed a boost of motivation.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll: This clothbound version is super super super pretty! I’d hang a canvas painting of this cover on my wall for sure.

Jamie's Picks

 

I'm just obsessed with the simplicity and beauty of this one. If the heart was something I stumbled upon on Etsy I would buy it and hang it in my home.

  I haven't read this (I own it!) but this cover change for the paperback is BEAUTIFUL.

Kimberly's Picks

 Sea Glass by Maria V. Snyder: Isn't it just gorgeous? I love the color and simplicity. 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: This is my favorite edition of the book, I love the imagery, young girl with a book, sepia toned with the contrast of the rust colored curtains.

For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund: Normally I don't care for the "prom/fancy dress clad girl with devastatingly beautiful face" covers. But this is so much better. It's simple and beautiful.

What book covers would YOU hang as art work because they are so beautifuuuuul?

Daisy Asks Your Recommendations for Book Club Books!

Credit for picture goes to Unshelved.com

So I'm in a book club with Debby @ Snuggly Oranges, Daph @ Loving Books and Mel @ The Daily Prophecy and it's awesome! We get together once a month and we take turns nominated the books and then vote on which one we want to read. And we always try to all have read the book before we get together to have dinner and talk about the book and other books and life in general and blogging.

What we've read so far:
More Than This by Patrick Ness (my mini-review)
The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon (WARDEN!!)
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (which we didn't love. AT ALL)
Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen
Eon by Alison Goodman (LOVE!)
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Emma by Jane Austen (favourite re-read)

What I wanted to ask you guys: what are some books you'd recommend for a book club? We read a lot of YA and all love fantasy. What are books that really spark a discussion? We usually go off topic pretty quickly, so if you have recommendations, please let me know!