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.

Amanda’s Top Ten Tuesday – Series I’ve Given up on

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 is top ten series I gave up on or do not plan to finish. This is going to be a bit of a challenge for me because I rarely give up on books. So let’s see what I can come up with this week. Okay, so after coming up with an insufficient list I’ve decided I’m going to do a few series that I will definitely be finishing, but haven’t managed to get around to it yet.

1. House of Night by P.C and Kristen Cast – This series just had so many books. It got to the point where it was hard to keep up with the story and when new books came out. So I just stopped trying to stay on top of it. Now they’re coming out with books again and I just don’t think I’ll ever get around to rereading them all.
2. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon – I read the first four books in this series. I borrowed them from Antonia’s mom. But I ended up losing the fourth book and by the time I bought a new copy she had caught up to me and needed the books back for her to read them. I may eventually pick this series up again, but I have no real burning desire to do so anytime soon.
3. The Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn – These books were another series that I had a hard time keeping up with. There are so many books and I just lost track of which ones I’ve read and still need to read. I may pick them up again because I did really like the books, but it’s not high on my priority list.
4. The Women’s Murder Club by James Patterson – Once again, too many books coming out to keep track of. I will eventually read these again because they’re easy mystery reads but it won’t be anytime soon.
5. The Princess series by Alexa Riley – I just was not impressed by these books. I think I only read the first and part of the second before giving up.
6. The Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard – The final book in the series came out recently and I’d like to reread the whole series. When am I going to do that? Eventually, my TBR list seems to just keep growing instead of getting smaller.
7. The Talon series by Julie Kagawa – Again, the final book in this series was finally released and I’m planning to reread the entire series, eventually.
8. Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld – A few weeks ago, I learned that the third book, Nexus, was released sometime last year and I didn’t even realize. So I need to buy this and get around to finishing the series.
9. Millennium series by Stieg Larsson / David Lagercrantz – Literally just now while looking for books to add to this post learned that another book has been released in this series. I will read it, but when I get around to it and who knows when that will be.
10. Shadow Falls series by C.C. Hunter – I finished the main series of these books; I actually own all of them. But there’s a few spin-off series with other characters that I haven’t managed to get around to reading yet, but I definitely plan to.

This is my top ten for this week! What series have you given up on?

Keep on reading lovelies, Amanda.

WWW Wednesday

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Should Be Reading. To play along, answer the following three questions and share a link to your post in the comments on her page. Enjoy!

What are you currently reading?

Well, as I just posted my review to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson I’m not currently reading anything thankfully because as I mentioned in my review, it’s WAY past my bed time. But I figured I might as well do my WWW Wednesday since it is technically Wednesday already.

What did you recently finish reading?

Please see my answer to the last question. I’ve been obsessed with rereading the Millennium series and have reviewed three books in the past week, so check them out.

What do you think you’ll read next?

I will be starting The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz tomorrow while I spend my day off at the DMV. This is a forth book in the Millennium series that has come out recently, but it’s by a different author,  because sadly Stieg Larsson passed away. So I’m very much anticipating this next book to see if it lives up to the first three. Don’t worry, you guys will hear all about it once I finish reading it.

What are your answers to these questions?

Happy Wednesday readers!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson

Summary:
Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into a complex and atmospheric novel.
Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of iniquity and corruption.
Review:
This is the second time I’ve read this book. The first time I read it was after several months of owning it. I was on an airplane and brought it with me to force myself to read it. I remember liking it very much the first time. This time reading it is because there has been a fourth book that came out recently which has motivated me to reread the entire series. I’m very glad I did.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an incredibly written book. It was first written in Swedish and translated into English once it became more popular. Because it’s a translated book much of the book takes place in Sweden and many of the names are very difficult to pronounce. I think that just makes it all the more interesting. I don’t know a whole lot about Sweden so I was very intrigued.
This book starts off with so many different backstories that it’s almost confusing. Several different characters are introduced in the first half of the book and even more are introduced when Mikael Blomkvist takes a new temporary job. It takes almost too long for some of the characters introduced to meet and because I’ve read it before, I know that they do and it made me anticipate their meeting. I love how detailed the book is. We are given so much information on these people that we’re not totally sure how they will connect to one another. As you read the book you learn more about the characters then what the characters know about each other. That’s something I love about being the reader; those details that the author gives us that no one in the story knows. I think it adds suspense because you’re wondering if/when will the other characters learn those things and sometimes they never do. That was the case in this book with a few details. The beginning of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is filled with many minute details that become important the further you read into the book.
The characters become more and more complex as you read. Blomkvist starts off as the main character. He’s a financial journalist, which is something I didn’t know was a thing until I read these books. Stieg Larsson makes it sound almost exciting. I really like Blomkvist because he’s very passionate about what he does. It may not be all that exciting in real life, but he has a specific set of morals that he tries to stick to and I really loved that about him. Throughout these pages, his morals are really tested and sometimes even disregarded to benefit other characters he’s grown to care about. His life is very interesting. Between his job and the women, he chooses to bring into his life. He seems to be good at finding himself in very interesting situations. The book starts off with his life seemingly falling apart. We get to follow him as he tries to put it back together. There are many situations that I never saw coming. That’s something I like when I read. I love to be surprised. I love the crazy plot twists and trust me, this book had a few.
I’ll move onto the Vanger family next. There are entirely too many members to discuss them individually. Henrik Vanger sees himself as the most normal in the family. I can definitely agree with that after finishing the book. He’s on the brink of obsessed with the mystery of his niece’s, Harriet, disappearance almost forty years ago. He hired Blomkvist to see if the journalist can discover anything new about this mystery. The rest of the family thinks that Blomkvist is there to write a historical novel about the family. It’s better that way. Once the family starts finding out why he’s really there they start to create problems for the journalist. Most members of the Vanger family really annoyed me. They all just seem really petty and bitter over stupid little things. One member, Harold, hates his daughter because she had a relationship with someone that was partially Jewish. At one point he blatantly calls her a whore. This is on the lighter side of the insanity that is the Vanger family. The things that are learned about this family just escalate the further into the book you read. I won’t give details because that will just spoil things and you really should just read this craziness.
Then there’s Lisbeth Salander. She is portrayed by the Swedish government as crazy, but I really think that’s the last thing she is. She, like Blomkvist, is extremely passionate about what she cares about. Though, she doesn’t seem to care about much until closer to the end of the book. Lisbeth is an extremely creative girl that seems to like a challenge. Once she sets her mind to something you should just step out of her way before she runs right over you, or ties you to a bed and tattoos you, as she does in this book. I think Lisbeth is my favorite out of everyone I met in these pages. She, again like Blomkvist, sticks to her morals. While her morals are much looser than his. She isn’t one to back down from a fight. She can acknowledge when she’s lost but guaranteed she will come back for round two without you even knowing there is a round two. She’s a badass chick and I’m excited to read more about her in the next book.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The descriptions of all the different settings were awesome. I loved getting to know the Vanger family, even if most of them are batshit crazy. These characters really grew on me, and I’m very excited to see where the next book takes me. This book was turned into a movie that I’m sure many of you have heard of. I’ve seen the movie and as usual, it can’t compare to the book at all. If you like crazy suspenseful murder mystery mixed with hints of a very complicated love story, this is a great book for you.

Keep on reading lovelies, Amanda.

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