Top Ten Tuesday: Books To Read In A Day

We often rant about how long some books are and how difficult it is to find time to read them, but it's much more unusual to rave about shorter reads, so I chose this topic for today's Top Ten Tuesday Rewind.

Top Ten Tuesday was created and is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Top Ten Books To Read In A Day

1. Cold Water, by Gwendoline Riley - atmospheric and beautiful.

2. All My Friends Are Superheroes, by Andrew Kaufman - imaginative, funny, and romantic.

3. Bonjour Tristesse, by Françoise Sagan - absorbing and tragic.

4. The Plain Janes, by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg - a graphic novel in which four very different teenaged Janes get together and make public artworks. There's also a sequel, Janes in Love.

5. Breakers, by Julia Clarke - emotionally involving, great characterisation.

6. Life on the Refrigerator Door, by Alice Kuipers - a story told via notes from a mother and daughter to each other. A tearjerker.

7. Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, by Martin Millar- surreal, silly, super.

8. The Butterfly Tattoo, by Philip Pullman - a short thriller with a poignant ending.

9. grl2grl, by Julie Anne Peters - a diverse and really enjoyable selection of stories about LGBT characters.

10. Festival, by David Belbin - four characters' lives become entwined at Glastonbury festival.

What shorter reads would you recommend?

Monday Amusements 29

My #finishitfeb progress - I'm getting there!

Today is the last day of my 27th year - oh yes, it's my birthday tomorrow! Being 26 went quite well so I'm looking forward to what this year will bring. Hopefully even more good books!

Michelle at Fluttering Butterflies has created another book tag line quiz, this one is for YA published in 2014. I could only guess two of the titles but I found it quite interesting seeing all the different tag lines together. They're all very attention-grabbing. Don't forget to enter the Fluttering Butterflies blogoversary giveaway while you're there!

When Should One Quit Reading THAT Book? asks The Pewter Wolf. There aren't many books that I haven't finished, but I think I gave up on them all quite early on. I tend to persevere with most books, even if I'm not really getting into them. A book has to actively annoy me for me to put it down - there has to be something irritating about the style or the point of view.

Keeping Track of the TBR-list is a really interesting post. Daisy is far more organised than me at the moment. I used to have a very strict system but I gave it up at the start of 2014 because I was spending more time obsessing over the order in which I planned to read books than actually reading!

I was ill last week so unfortunately this list is rather short, but I'm better now and should have more time for exploring the book blogosphere in the next fortnight!

Book Review: Red, by Alison Cherry

Scarletville, the USA's only redhead sanctuary, is a place where the redder your hair the better. Redheads get special treatment everywhere and brunettes and blondes are second-class citizens. No-one knows this as well as Felicity St John, whose stunning, deep red hair is entirely responsible for her place in life. Her beautiful hair, the envy of many of her peers, has gotten her one of the highly coveted places in the Miss Scarlet pageant. All Felicity's life, her mother, Ginger, has been training her to win the pageant and make them the first mother-daughter Miss Scarlets in history. But one day, Felicity recieves a terrifying message - someone at her school knows her deepest, darkest secret - Felicity's hair is dyed!

As you might assume from the description, Red is a book with quite a silly sounding premise. I thought it would be campy and fun and it was, but not to the extent that I was expecting. There are also some more serious elements to the story. When one group of people has privileges because of the way they look, you can’t help but draw parallels with real life race issues, especially as most redheads are white. Over the course of the novel we get to find out more and more about how hard life in Scarletville is for non-redheads, and Felicity slowly begins to have more sympathy for them as she worries about being outed. One of her best friends, Haylie, is quite nasty about non-redheads and doesn't change her tune during the novel, but is still someone Felicity loves and wants to keep being friends with. I really wanted some sort of comeuppance for the snootiest redheads, but there isn't any. I'm naturally opposed to any sort of injustice, but on the other hand, maybe it's not important, as Scarletville is just a small town, and the world outside of Scarletville is supposed to be just like the real world, so maybe the price the queen bee redheads pay for their status is being stuck in Scarletville! I'm not sure how I feel.

It took me a few chapters to get into the story, but once I did, I enjoyed it a lot, thanks to the fabulous characters. Felicity's little brothers are adorable and her mother is...difficult, to say the least. The best friends, Ivy and Haylie are lots of fun. I thought the character that was blackmailing Felicity was very interesting and I really wanted to know more about her - I would love to hear the story from her point of view! The drama is mostly fuelled by personality clashes and by Felicity's increasing desperation as she feels like the person who is ordering her around wants to destroy her life.

I wasn't entirely convinced that Felicity would be as oblivious to the world outside Scarletville as she is at the start, but then if Scarletville had offered her everything she wanted during her life so far, maybe she would never have bothered to look outside it.

I did enjoy Red, although it wasn't quite what I was expecting and I felt like some elements could have been fleshed out more fully. I'm looking forward to reading whatever the author does next.

Many thanks to the publisher, Quercus, for giving me the chance to read Red via NetGalley.

Bookish Brits Vlog 9: Five Books Featuring Romances That I Really Loved

In this video I talk about romance! What are your favourite romances in books? Should I make another video featuring five more?
 
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Books mentioned:

Valiant, by Holly Black
Ash, by Malinda Lo
Last Chance (aka Keeping the Moon), by Sarah Dessen
Empress of the World, by Sara Ryan
Fiesta, by Kate Cann

Top Ten Tuesday: Reasons I Love Being A Blogger

Top Ten Reasons I Love Being A Blogger

1. Keeping up to date with bookish news - before I was a blogger, I only knew that my favourite authors had new books out when I saw them in a bookshop or at the library, which is far too late! As a blogger, I get to know about books, events, conferences, and all sorts of other wonderful things that I might otherwise have missed out on.

2. Finding out what other people thought of books and issues surrounding books - I love the community. I am passionate about books, reading, writing, libraries and diversity, and love talking and reading about a wide variety of book-related issues. Being this obsessed can sometimes get a bit awkward, but most of the time it's worked out well!

3. Instant gratification - Not only do I love it when I update my blog and people comment straight away, but I also love being able to go online whenever I want and explore other people's blogs.

4. Connecting with people on other forms of social media - Blogging has lead me to find and follow so many interesting people. I am a complete Twitter addict, but I also love Instagram and Facebook.

5. Memes - a great excuse to indulge my love of lists. Oh look, I'm writing one now.

6. Communications with publishers, invites to events, and review copies - I'd be lying if I said that I didn't love all this stuff and that it didn't make me feel good!

7. It looks good on my CV - I have had a couple of conversations at job interviews about blogging and social media, even when the job wasn't directly related to those things.

8. Pretty pictures - books make great eye candy, don't they? I love finding and making pictures of books.

9. Discovering books I might otherwise not have heard of - my wishlist is always increasing and although I enjoy knowing what is popular, I love finding out about a book I might otherwise never have read.

10. Sharing my opinions - I started to blog in the first place for the same reason as almost everybody else - I thought some other people might be interested in my opinions about books. I haven't always been someone with confidence in my own opinions, and blogging has really helped me practice expressing my thoughts in written form.

Which of these reasons made your Top Ten list? Let me know in the comments! Top Ten Tuesday was created and is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.