Amanda’s Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Mash Ups

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Every week there’s a new topic where we get to choose our top ten and write about it. This week’s topic is top ten books I would mash together. I think this is a wicked interesting topic. I’m not sure how I’m going to go about it, so in no particular order, here goes!

1. Rose Gardner Investigations by Denise Grover Swank & Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich – These are books about an aspiring private investigator and books about a bond enforcement officer. I think Rose and Stephanie would make one hell of a hilarious pair.
2. Renegades by Marissa Meyer & Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, and Deborah Biancotti – Two different types of superhero books. Both with similar abilities, sort of. But the worlds they take place in are pretty different. I think it would be interesting to see these two worlds collide.
3. Meant to be Broken by Brandy Woods Snow & One Small Thing by Erin Watt – Both are novels involving girls who are struggling with their feelings about a guy. Both thinking that their feelings are wrong and should be stifled and ignored. I think the two female main characters would be great friends and would be able to help one another immensely by sharing their experiences.
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson & The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith – These are both murder mystery sort of books but with a ton of different subplots along the way. I think they would be interesting to see together. Seeing the characters with their hugely different personalities would be funny.
5. Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson & Confessions of a Murder Suspect by James Patterson – This is a choice for similar reasons to above except these are young adult murder mysteries. Again, the personalities in these stories would make for an interesting read.
6. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas & Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch – If the Sara(h)’s wrote a book together I would be able to die happy as soon as I finished it. These specific books would be so cool to see together. In ACOTAR, there’s Fae with seasonal courts and magical abilities and in Snow Like Ashes there are different kingdoms for the seasons with different sorts of magical abilities. I think they would mesh well together with the similarities in the stories.
7. The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare & A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest – Both of these series have a great variety of supernatural characters like vampires and werewolves and others unique to their books. Their also both full of headstrong characters that strive to do the ‘right’ thing at all costs. I would love to see these characters and worlds collide.
8. The Young Elites by Marie Lu & Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo – These two came together in my head because of their magic systems. Both books have people with abilities that are not accepted in their worlds. Both have fantastic villains. Now that I’m typing this, I would LOVE to see the Darkling and Adelina join forces and run the world.
9. Impulse by Ellen Hopkins & Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow – I really think that Charlie could have been another character in Impulse. She for sure could have been a fourth perspective in that story. These characters could all relate for sure.
10. The Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead & A Quick Bite by Lynsay Sands – I obviously had to throw my two favorite vampire worlds together. I think these worlds would be awesome to see together because of the different ways that vampires are created and the similarities that are already there.

This week’s topic was a hard one for me! I had a ton of fun looking at my shelves and thinking about all the different worlds I love colliding. I tried to pick bookish worlds that already had a little bit in common. I wanted my mashups to mostly make sense. Which bookish worlds would you want to see collide?

Keep on reading lovelies, Amanda.

Book Tag – Fall Out Boy

Hello, lovelies! I found this book tag recently when I made a new bookish friend, Danielle over at YA Allegiance. Go check her blog out, she has an excellent taste in books and has posted some great book tags. This book tag is one that I have to do for the fifteen-year-old girl deep inside me that will forever be in love with the band Fall Out Boy (plus, books and music, what could go wrong?) So, the Fall Out Boy Book Tag was done originally by Jace. I’m really excited to do this, so here goes.

American Beauty / American Psycho 

Pick a book with a twisted romance that you may or may not love – 

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

I think the relationship between Alina Starkov is pretty twisted, but I actually sort of loved it. Am I the only one? Something about the big bad Darkling was just super appealing. I guess I really just love me some villains.

Save Rock and Roll 

Pick a book or series that has a lot of battles and heroes  – 

Age of Legends Trilogy by Kelley Armstrong 

I’ve read this series a few times now and it just doesn’t get old. Armstrong has created an incredible world where an unlikely group band together and journey to try to save the empire. These heroes, led by a set of twin sisters, face many challenges, trials, and battles throughout the pages of the three books in the series.

Folie á Duex

As folie á deux means the madness of two, pick your most favorite strong friendship from a book or series – 

Rose Gardner Investigations by Denise Grover Swank 

The Friendship between Rose and Neely-Kate is one that keeps me laughing. These girls are a great example of real friendship. They support one another, even when they may not be making the best choices. These two girls are real friends and I love to read about them and their crazy adventures.

Pax am Days (The King is Dead)

Pick a villain that you were the happiest to see dead – 

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Um, hello THE KING OF HYPERION. Giant jerk bag and I’m pretty sure I jumped for joy when he was killed.

Infinity on High 

Pick a series or a book that makes you happy – 

A Shade of Vampire Series by Bella Forrest 

So many people have left bad reviews for this series so it may not be for you. But personally, I love these books. They’re so incredibly creative and out there. Once I start reading, I just can’t stop. The struggle of waiting for the next book to come out is too real, luckily the are released pretty quickly.

Believers Never Die (FOB’s Greatest Hits)

Pick your favorite book or series of all time – 

Book – Looking for Alaska by John Green

Series – A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas 

If you’ve read these, then this explanation is unnecessary. If you haven’t read these, then you need to. That’s all I have to say about it.

I had too much fun with this book tag. I’d love to see some other Fall Out Boy fans participate (or anyone really,) so feel free to tag our blog in your post or leave your answers in the comments!

Keep on reading lovelies, Amanda.

Amanda’s Top Ten Tuesday – Books That Give the Travel Bug

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week we’re given a new prompt for a top ten list of all things bookish. This week’s topic is – Top Ten Books That Awaken the Travel Bug in me. I’m excited about this topic because I love to travel. I’m going to try to pick books that are based in the real world instead of book worlds I’d love to travel to. So, here goes!

1. Twenty-Nine and a Half Wishes by Denise Grover Swank – This series takes place in a small town in the south. I haven’t spent much time in the south, but these books make me want to go explore all the little out in the woods towns in the south.
2. The Lawless Saga by Tarah Benner – These four books start off in a prison in New Mexico and throughout the books, the characters move all around the south, from Colorado to Texas and back a few times. Even though this series is set in the distant future where the world is ruined due to lack of water and natural disasters and things of the like, it still gives me the travel bug because of all the traveling the characters do.
3. Dragon’s Gift Collection by Linsey Hall – So this collection is four full series and Hall just started on the fifth series, each following a different character. While much of these books take place in other realms, the characters do lots of traveling throughout the U.S and parts of Europe and I’ve always wanted to travel to Europe.
4. The Origin Mystery Series by A.G. Riddle – This is a series I read over the Christmas holidays while I was mostly dying in bed with the flu (also pregnancy nausea, but I didn’t know that yet.) So this series, where the characters travel literally the entire world, was great for me to escape my sick bed and travel from Antarctica to Italy to Africa and the oceans in between.
5. Agent of Enchantment by C.N. Crawford and Alex Rivers – There are four books in this series and they all take place in London, England which is somewhere that’s been on my dream travel destination list for legitimately my whole life. So I loved every page of getting to run through the streets of London with Agent Cassandra Liddel. (But also the parts in the Fae realm were pretty cool too.)
6. The Dominion Trilogy by Joe Hart – This is an incredible trilogy where our main character is trapped inside a facility in the first book and escapes. The next two books give the travel bug for sure while she makes her way around the country, hiding from those who seek to put her back where she escaped from. This series is dystopian, so the world isn’t as we know it now, but we still get to see enough to make me want to go out and explore.
7. Paper Towns by John Green – Am I even allowed to say I’m a John Green fan if I don’t include this on my list? The characters go on a big road trip adventure to find Margo Roth Spiegelman. Road trip, says it all.
8. Shadows of the Immortals by Marina Finlayson – This is another series where the characters do tons of traveling. We start in a small town where our main character Lexi is hiding out, but once she’s been found out we get to see a few different cities, including the Underworld.
9. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon – So I only read the first few books in this series, in the books I did read the characters traveled all over Ireland and Scotland. They also traveled through time, but that’s beside the point.
10. The Guardian Trilogy by Nora Roberts – I loved this trilogy (but I love most of Nora’s books). Our characters start off in Greece in the first book, moving next to the island of Capri and then to Ireland in the last book. These are three places I would die to visit. Roberts makes the perfect setting with these stories that for sure makes me want to visit.

This is my Top Ten this week! Books that give me the travel bug set (mostly) in the real world.
Keep on reading lovelies, Amanda.