Top 10 Tuesday #3

I LOVE this weeks topic!  Places Mentioned in Books I'd Love to Visit.   There are really no rules so I'm doing both real and fictional places on my list. Also, I'm only doing places I've never been.  I've read plenty of books that take place in places I'd love to return to, but these are all places I have never been but really want to see.   I've always loved to travel and one of the things I'm looking forward to most when we're debt free is traveling more!

Hogwarts School, England - Harry Potter 

Havana, Cuba - Next year in Havana

Edinburgh, Scotland - City of Ghosts

Ireland (all of it) - Love and Luck

Chile (I want to go to Patagonia) - The Rhythm of Memory 

Prague, Czech Republic - The Lost Wife

Santorini, Greece - Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Paris, France - One Paris Summer

Amsterdam, The Netherlands - 13 Little Blue Envelopes

Salzburg, Austria - Wanderlost

Top 10 Tuesday #2

I'm not going to lie, I had to cheat a little bit on this one.  I only found one book that I loved that had less than 2000 ratings, and that is the first one on the list.  So I looked for books with less than 2,000 reviews which was still hard but doable (what can I say, I'm a follower).  I also looked at the ratings and made sure they were on the lower side (usually less than 5,000).

This book definitely isn't for everyone, but as someone who lost a close friend at a young age I really enjoyed this book.   I could totally relate to Cloudy at certain points of the story, which made it both uncomfortable and enjoyable to read.
{My Full Review HERE}

I really enjoyed this book but I do understand why some people don't.   It didn't have the emotional punch I was expecting to happen, but it did offer a different perspective on school shootings.  Most books I've read focus on when the shooting is actually happening and the events leading up to it.  This one takes place months after the shooting and deals with the long term effects. I think it's worth reading, it's not perfect, but its good.
{My Full Review HERE}

 This was a sweet book with a good message.  Not a masterpiece or anything but entertaining and I enjoyed the setting and the "girl power" vibe of the book.
{My Full Review HERE}

This was one of my favorite books of 2017.  Such a great story about the resistance during world war 2 in Austria.  HIGHLY Recommend for those who love  historical fiction.
{My Full Review HERE}

Isn't it every book lovers dream to be able to jump right in to their favorite stories and live there?  That's why I loved this book so much!  It wasn't perfect but I loved the idea of being able to jump in and interact with your favorite book characters!
{My Full Review HERE}

Travel, coming of age, beautiful European scenery, and colorful characters - what could be better!?  While I did have some issues with certain parts of this book, all of the great things about it totally overshadowed them.  Totally recommend to anyone who loves to travel.
{My Full Review HERE}

To be honest, I really haven't met an Alyson Richman book I haven't loved.  I always learn so much from her books and this one was no exception.  I had never read a book set in Chile before and didn't know much about the conflict there until I read this.   Definitely recommend to historical fiction lovers.
{My Full Review HERE}

I read this book in 2011 but I remember really enjoying it, especially all the different recipes throughout the book.  I remember really loving the characters and how the main character bonded with her granddaughter over baking
{No Review: read before blogging}

Another Alyson Richman book.   Her books always get me in the feels and this one really, really got me!  This was the first book I'd read on Italy in world war two and I couldn't get enough.  The whole story is just beautiful and I can't recommend it highly enough.  Just don't read it on vacation like I did, bawling on a cruise ship is not cool!
{My Full Review HERE}

I literally love all of the Hundred Oaks books but I chose this one because it had the least amount of ratings, probably because it's newish.   I love these books because they usually involve sports and because they're super realistic and not filled with annoying drama even though the characters are high school aged.
{My Full Review HERE}

Top 10 Tuesday #1

Since my life is pretty much school, work and reading I'll probably be writing a lot about books over the next year.  So, I decided to start participating in this Top 10 Tuesday.  I can't remember  how I came across this but I loved some of the upcoming topics!  Today's topic is Favorite Couples in Books.

1. Eleanor and Raymond from Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
I'm really surprised by how much I loved them.  I think Raymond changed Eleanor for the better and eventually brought out the best in her.

2. Lucy and Joshua from The Hating Game by Sally Thorne 
How can you not love their bantering and romantic comedyish relationship?

3. America and Maxon from The Selection Series by Kiera Cass
I loved that their relationship wasn't instant and I loved how sweet and respectful Maxon was.

4. Louisa and Will from Me Before You by Jojo Moyes 
If you don't love their relationship, I think you may be a sociopath.

5. Cath and Levi from Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
I loved how much Levi obviously adored Cath and how he helped to come out of her shell.

6. Elizabeth and Wynn from When Calls The Heart by Janette Oke
They may be my favorite of all of these couples.  I love the old fashioned (late 1800s early 1900s) relationship.  I love Wynn Delaney so much, he's super respectful of Elizabeth and really sweet.

7. Bex and Nick from The Royal We by Heather Cocks
While I thought the book was a bit too long and drawn out, I really did like both Nick and Bex.  I thought they were great characters and I liked them together.

8. Ashley and Dash from Dashing Through the Snow by Debbie Macomber
I just found their entire relationship hilarious.  It was meant to be goofy and that's what I loved about it.  No dumb drama, just silliness.

9. Luke and Sophia from The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks
Maybe I'm projecting the movie on to this a little bit, but they're probably my favorite couple from all of the Nicholas Sparks books I've read.  I also really love Ira and Ruth in this book. 

10. Henry and Jordan from Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally 
While they weren't the main focus of the whole book, I loved them way more than Ty and Jordan.  They started out friends and I think it made their relationship great.

Book Reviews: January

This January I decided to participate in Erin's Challenge again which pushed me to read some really great books before school started up at the end of the month.  I hoped to finish the challenge this month (10 books), but it didn't end up working out for a number of reasons.

This book was recommended to me by my sister.  I was slightly hesitant to read another Sarah Dessen book because I just could not get in to the last one.  Luckily, this one had me hooked from the beginning and was probably my favorite of hers. I loved the supporting characters, I loved that she didn't just gloss over some of the difficult-to-talk-about issues (I think she handled them very well), and I loved Owen.  I also loved that you could see Annabel grow and realize things about herself that she needed to change and work on.  Overall, a very well done story.

(4/5)

I really, really wanted to like this book, but I'm sad to say that I really didn't.  The first probably 50 pages were good and I had high hopes for it, then came the unexpected magical realism.  Usually I like magical realism but I don't think it worked for this book and it kind of ruined it for me.  I expected this to be about the characters journey out of their home country and the struggles of migrating from a war torn country, but it definitely was not.  Also there were a whole bunch of random vignettes throughout the book which didn't tie into the story at all.  The worst for me was that I didn't connect with the characters at all, I didn't care about them and wasn't invested in their story.  Honestly, I probably would have DNF'd this if it wasn't one of my books for Erin's Challenge.  Overall, extremely disappointing. 

(2/5)

This was a strange book.  It's a newberry award winner, but I really don't think I would have liked it as a kid.  It's a bit dark, and really slow paced.   The first half of the book was super slow and I really couldn't get in to it, but the last 100 pages were enjoyable.  There were a lot of things that really didn't make sense in the story but it didn't bother me if I didn't overthink.   This book was just OK - I wouldn't say don't read it, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it either.

(3/5)

I have no words for how much I loved this book.  Ever since I watched the Dirty Dancing spin off Havana Nights, I've been fascinated by Cuba.  I learned so much about the Revolution and modern day Cuba reading this book, and ended up doing my own research about different events mentioned in the book.   I really loved both the past and present stories (though, I did love the past one more).  Elisa is the kind of character that I love because she was completely realistic.  I found part of the ending of the present day story a little hard to believe, but other than that I loved every bit of this book.   If you love historical fiction, go get this book right now! 

(5/5)

What's New, January

January is by far my least favorite month of the year.  It actually started off OK.  I worked a lot in anticipation of starting school and cutting my work hours.  I'm glad I worked all of those hours because the weather decided to go nuts during the first week of school and I ended up only working one shift!  The last 2 weeks of January we got somewhere in the ballpark of 6 feet of snow.  My dogs are loving it, but me and my wallet are not!

The week before school started I learned that you can rent books from amazon which saved me a ton of money!  One of the classes ended up requiring us to purchase a code to do computer work which sucked, but it is what it is.

Josh was in Colorado for two weeks for Army stuff.  I was only a tad bit jealous.  During that time the dogs decided to become stage 5 clingers!  Especially Bolt.  My poor Bolt Bug has been through many deployments and trainings and he gets a bit more clingy each time Josh leaves.  Belle will experience her first deployment this fall.  She's Daddy's girl so I'm not looking forward to that.

We got a little bit of snow while Josh was gone so I decided to have myself a Harry Potter marathon that day.  That checked something off my 101 in 1001 list and I got to have a lazy day off - that's a win in my book.

Last year my sister and I attended Bookcon in NYC for the first time.  We weren't planning on going this year, but since we're hoping for a move once Josh gets home from deployment, we probably wont be able to go next year.  We bought our tickets and Booked our hotel at the beginning of January.  We wanted to stay at the same hotel as last year but it was already booked, but we're pretty happy with our new hotel.  We decided to stay for two nights this time because we ended up missing some panels last year due to our bus driver driving like an old lady.   I also booked our hotel for my friend Heather's wedding in May!  I'm so excited for the wedding and to see friends I haven't seen in a while.

That is pretty much my entire January.  Work, Snow, School, Repeat.   Hopefully things will start getting a little more exciting around here after winter is over.  I really hate the winters here.