This week's Top Ten Tuesday hosted by
The Broke and the Bookish is about books on our spring TBR pile. Just fyi, It’s AUTUMN down here in the Southern Hemisphere! My favorite season! On my list I decided to not include books that I’ve already started.
10. Fragile Bones: Harrison & Anna by Lorna Schultz Nicholson
I love books, TV shows, and films with characters who have autism. I’ve even gone to real-life lecture about autism by an autistic man, and I will always listen to a radio program about it. I cannot explain the source of my curiosity. In Fragile Bones, two teens, one with high-functioning autism and the other who is the top of her class, buddy up through a school program and find their lives mixing in ways that they didn’t sign up for.
9. Cleo by Lucy Coats
I’ve had a life-long attraction to Ancient Egyptian lore. I hard-core fangirled when I saw the Book of the Dead in the Louvre. So of course I wanted to read this: teenage Cleopatra escapes to the temple of Isis to flee from her awful step-sisters. When Isis needs help to regain her full power, Cleo returns to take on Alexandria and her future.
8. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
I’ve read mixed reviews: most are stellar, but Alyce from
At Home With Books gave it a derp face. I requested it from the library because I like psychological thrillers, and there is an audiobook version. I go through a lot of audiobooks because I commute at least two hours a day. So, a commuting girl sees something horrific on her daily commute and it changes the way she sees the world? I’m looking forward to arriving to work completely terrified.
7. The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler
I recently finished reading A Tale for the Time Being, and I have a small book hangover from it. That’s what attracted me to The Book of Speculation - it has a similar plot. The main character receives a book that gives him clues to his family’s history. He realizes that he must act quickly to find all the clues and try to save a relative from the family curse.
6. Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Bruna from
Bruna Writes and Ana from
Butterflies of the Imagination both recommended that I read The Lunar Chronicles series, and they aren’t the only ones. I finally put myself on the hold list at the library. Besides meeting a
PopSugar Reading Challenge need, this will satisfy several YA subgenres I like: fairytale retellings, dystopias, and sci-fi.
5. The Buried Giant by Kazuro Ishiguro
I keep seeing this around places, including a
review by Neil Gaiman, and I kind of have an obsession with novels written by Japanese people or Japanese descendants. It’s not because I’m one of those people who wears cosplay and believes I was born in the wrong culture. I like the sense of acceptance of the self, the pacing, the introspective attention to details, and refined use of language that are generally present in contemporary Japanese literature. I don’t know much about the story (and I like it like that!) besides this: a VI century British couple journeys to find their estranged son.
4. Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata (manga series)
The other day when I was exploring the Japanese neighborhood in São Paulo with my boyfriend, we stopped into a bookshop. Silas started swooning over the Death Note series because he had seen a remarkable play based on the story. From what I understand: a young man finds a notebook and discovers that if he writes someone’s name in it, that person dies. He starts out using it to bring justice, but then the power gets to his head.
3. The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery
Did you know that I’m a scuba diver? And that one of my favorite sea creatures is the octopus? When I go to an aquarium (which I love to do), I divide my time between trying to get an adrenaline rush from the shark tank and trying to communicate telepathically with the octopi. I’m very excited about reading this non-fiction on the amazing intelligence of octopi.
2. Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo (manga series)
Guys. There is this app called
Manga Rock and it gives you access to pretty much every manga ever. I’m trying to still be a productive member of society, but it’s reeaalllly hard. Manga is addicting because it’s so quick to read, the stories are imaginative and creative, and nearly all of it is serialized (Gotta catch ‘em all!). Post-WWIII Tokyo, sci-fi, and a struggle for an extreme power… Sign me up!
1. Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer
To be honest, I wouldn’t naturally choose this book to read based on the blurb (a girl goes to a therapy home to receive assistance with the grieving process over her dead boyfriend). But I heard an interview with the author, read several positive reviews on blogs, and watched a booktube where it was endorsed. I’m a curious person, plus a cover art whore.
