October 29, 2013

Top Ten Tuesday (57)


This week's topic is

I love love love scary books.  I wish I had time this year to read some before Halloween, but sadly I got sucked in to the amazingness that is Vampire Academy and Bloodlines last week and have not looked back since.  Here are some of my favorite scary looking covers to get you in a spooky mood.


This is an awesome cover for an equally as awesome book.  A totally different spin on the 'girl in a dress' covers.


The cover for Between the Devil really reflects how atmospheric and creepy the book is. 


The image of the island sells you on how isolated the kids are on this weekend of terror.


I don't know whether to laugh at this cover or what.  The Face on the Milk Carton is not scary.  At all.  Why is there a girl trapped inside the carton?  Great book, not so great repackage.  People expecting a horror series will be disappointed.


I've never read The Replacement, but this cover creeps me out and makes me want to know more.


I was actually concerned that this was going to be too scary to read because of the pictures.  I'm glad I tried it though, because I really enjoyed it.


All I think about when I see this cover is The Girl with the Green Ribbon and I get freaked out.  I loved scaring myself when I was little with all these stories.


Something about this cover always freaked me out when I was younger, but I bought it anyway.  I'm sure this book is still in my basement somewhere and I would still be terrified if I came across it.


Simple and scary.  Perfect for an R.L. Stine book.


I took these out of my elementary school library so many times, but I would never look directly at the covers.  I am a chicken at heart.

What about you guys?  Got any scary reads made scarier by a great cover?  Let me know in the comments!

October 8, 2013

Top Ten Tuesday (56)


This week's topic is

I despise when my favorite series come to an end.  I get very attached to the characters and the worlds and everything about the series that I'm reading.  I have a difficult time letting go of things and will usually find myself crying at some point in the middle of a last book (even if it's not sad!  What is wrong with me?)  Here are some of my favorite last books.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - JK Rowling
Is this even a question?  I used it in the banner for a reason.  Harry Potter is a part of so many of our childhoods (okay, my actual teen years, whatever).  When the seventh book came out I worked the midnight release at my bookstore.  I remember exactly where I was when I was reading it (down the shore, sitting on my towel on the beach, crying because Hedwig died while all my friends were in the water).  It was a great send off for characters that will never leave us.

Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
I don't think there's a final book more hotly debated among my friends than this one.  Some (read: me) love everything about it, find the losses in it to be important examples of how tragic and random war can be, and think that it's amazing that Katniss holds her shit together AT ALL.  Others, however, think that Katniss is whiny, the deaths are random, and that the book is pretty much not worth reading.  If you can't tell, any time Mockingjay gets brought up in conversation we get into screaming fights about it.

Black Heart - Holly Black
I just love The Curseworkers series.  I'm so glad to have a little bit of closure for poor Cassel.  I spent the whole book pretty much going out of my mind about how he was going to get out of the impossible situation that he was in.  OUT OF MY MIND.  Holly Black is a master.

Forever Princess - Meg Cabot
The Princess Diaries will forever be one of my favorite series, Mia one of my favorite protagonists, and Michael one of the most swoon-worthy boys in all of YA.  He MADE IT SNOW FOR HER among other things, oh god.  This is just the perfect wrap up for this series.

Tap and Gown - Diana Peterfreund
Every time I talk about this series I beg you all to go out and read it, so please GO OUT AND READ IT.  It's so good.  I love finding good books that take place in college and this is a whole wonderful series that takes place in college.  Tap and Gown doesn't disappoint at all as the finale of this series.  Every time I read it I just want to go back and reread the whole thing all over again.

Perfect Fifths - Megan McCafferty
Simply put, Perfect Fifths is perfect.  End of story.

Requiem - Lauren Oliver
This is another one where people's problems with it are actually my favorite parts.  I found a lot of complaints with the ending while I was reading reviews of Requiem, but I love the open ended-ness of it.  Where Oliver leaves off in the story really is just another beginning for these people and there really is no way to tie that up neatly.

Honorable Mentions (aka these are not series, they're duologies, but the second books were awesome and deserve some recognition)

Where She Went - Gayle Forman
Team Where She Went.  All the way.  I like it better than the first.

Just One Year - Gayle Forman
Willem's story is just so interesting and he's a fascinating character.  I was glad to get the chance to see where he was after the Day.

Girl of Nightmares - Kendare Blake
I loved Anna Dressed in Blood and was so glad to see the story continued.  If you want a great Halloween read definitely check these two out.