Books. Books. Books.

I happen to love to read. Sitting by a fire in my pj’s reading a book cuddled under a blanket… that is heaven to me (with Doug on my lap of course!). I love reading at night but I also really love getting up in the morning, making coffee, and reading until Donny wakes up. So relaxing. 

I am going to 100% honest with you, one word that I feel describes my book preference is probably: shallow. I don’t want you to get offended if you like the same books I’m about to talk about, but that is how I feel. I mean, I love them enough to recommend them to you but they are not what I would call real literature.

As much as I want to enjoy classic novels like the Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, and To Kill A Mockingbird…I just don’t. I want the new young adult novels that I can relate to. I start reading those classics and quickly become uninterested. I swear, I want to like them. I feel like I should like them. But…I do not enjoy reading them. 

I have a few authors go-to that I love, but I mostly just read what my mom tells me to read. Isn’t that what you are suppose to do, listen to what your mom tells you?!?! Hahaha well besides “doing what I am suppose to”, my mom happens to be a librarian! Perfect. She is a librarian at a small school so she runs both the elementary and the junior/high school library. She gives me suggestions on all sorts of popular young adult books. 

She did pass her love of reading on to me, but I’m not sure she fully passed on her speed of reading. I’m not the slowest reader ever, but I definitely would not qualify myself as a fast reader either. But really, who cares? I guess at times I want to be fast reader so I can get to the end of the book and find out what happens! Other than that, I’m alright being an average-speed reader. 

I do happen to be a series girl. I can totally relate to that Nerd Girl Problem. If the author can write one book that keeps me engaged then that is good. If the author can keep me intrigued for three or more books…that’s a winner. I have gotten smart over the years and buy the next book BEFORE I am done with the one because then I can start the next one right away. You make that mistake once, but never again. Going to bed when you want to continue reading is an awful feeling…..

Here are some of my favorite books. I would love to hear your suggestions and what you enjoy reading, so please comment below! 

Hunger Games: along with every other teenage girl in America and beyond, I love the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. I read all three books in no time. I also love the movies too, they have done a great job with them. I keep meaning to re-read them and then watch the movies but have not gotten to that. 

I convinced Donny to read to first one but he hasn’t read either of the others. He has seen all the movies with me though. When I first starting reading Hunger Games he said he would read the first sentence and the last sentence and tell me what the book was about. He did and said it was a love story…. hahaha boy was he wrong! I told him what it was about and he decided he’d give it a whirl. It has love in it, but it is not necessarily a love story. Nice try Donny. 

Divergent: My mom told me that if I loved Hunger Games then I need to read Divergent by Veronica Roth. So that is the next on my list (you win again mom!). I like the Hunger Games a little better, but Divergent is a great trilogy as well. I am not into super-futuristic books or sci-fi books but these do a good job of not going over board. 

I also thought they did a good job with the first Divergent movie (although, what was with the end?!?!). The second movie actually comes out fairly soon I believe. 

A trilogy that was very similar to Divergent but a bit different, was The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau. I thought it was really good. Won’t go into detail but if you liked Hunger Games and Divergent then read that series. 

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Now the first trilogy that I ever read and fell in love with was the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. 

I read this before Donny & I started dating. All three are pretty intense books and I was living alone when I read them. The books made me slightly scared and a little bit  very paranoid. A lot of creepy things happen in the book and it got to me. But I loved it…..so much so that I read the first one twice (by the way, I have only done that with a few books). It seems like all good books these days they turn into a movie, and well this was a good one so it was turned into a movie. It was pretty good. If you’ve seen it then I will tell you that the book is 10 times more graphic than the film was… that is how intense it was.

Eleanor & Park:  I promise I don’t always read books that are full of action and suspense. I love lighthearted books as well. I like quick reads that are not too serious every once in a while. One that you may or may not have heard of is Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. 

Again, quick read and really cute. Just look at that cover… awesome. 

I didn’t get into reading until I was out of high school. In high school I could find 1,000 other things to do besides read. Once I was graduated I found I had more time and I started to love reading. I’m glad I found the time because it’s one of my favorite things to do now. I have a Kindle that I read on occasionally (mostly travel related), but I find that I just really love holding an actual book. Not sure why, but I prefer it. 

Jodi Picoult: She was the first author whose books I fell in love with. I have read most, if not all, of the books she has written. She writes in such an interesting way. She tells the story from the perpective of each character. For example, one chapter it is in the perspective of the daughter, the next the brother, then mother, father, etc. I would not classify her books as suspenseful in the way you think of suspense novels, but she keep the reader engaged because she will tell little bits of information here and there from each characters perspective, yet you have to keep reading to get the whole story. Very tricky Jodi Picoult, very tricky. 

As much as I love reading her books I have to read one, then read something else, then go ahead and read another one of hers. The situations that the characters find themselves in are such rare experiences and so intense that it is hard for me to read one after the other after the other. I need a break and can then sink in to the next. 

These are my two favorite Jodi Picoult books. You might have read My Sister’s Keeper or seen the movie. If you’ve read and seen the movie, then what did you think of the movie?! I was so mad when I left the theater. This book was the first book that I actually finished and was in tears. I was crying so much in the last few chapters that I could barely see through the tears to continue reading…. yeah, I was a mess. Then the movie came out and they changed the entire ending! They took out the whole part that made me bawl like a baby! I felt cheated…I was mad that people didn’t get to experience the story like the book tells it. Anyway, done with my rant. Read the book. Don’t go see the movie! 

Nineteen Minutes is a difficult book to read but it really is fantastic. I say it is difficult to read because it is about a school shooting. The way Jodi Picoult writes just changes how you would otherwise see this story. Again, she writes in the perspective of all the characters so you get everyone’s opinions and thoughts. This is another one of the few books I’ve read twice. 

Janet Evanovich: Another author that I stick to. I went on a kick where I was reading one Jodi Picoult book followed by one Janet Evanovich book…then back to Jodi Picoult so on and so forth. I said it’s hard for me to read multiple Jodi Picoult books in a row so I would break them up with lighthearted and funny stories from Janet Evanovich. 

She has 20-some books based on this one character, Stephanie Plum (she has other books as well but these were what I read most of). Stephanie is a bounty hunter and got into the most crazy situations…. I would find myself laughing out loud to some of the things that happened. 

Gone Girl: the movie was just up for an Academy Award, but the book was fantastic. I would update Donny on what was going on in the book. I would keep reading and would have to tell him “you remember when I said this is what happened….well now THIS happened!”. Pretty soon I would be reading along and would tell him “Donny, I know I said this is what happened but now THIS happened!”. This dialogue continued for the entire length of the book. If you’ve read the book (and for those of you even that have seen the movie), then you know what I am talking about. Crazy.

John Green: another author that I have read recently. He gained a ton of popularity with Fault in our Stars, but he has a few other books that I enjoyed as well.

I have read The Fault in our Stars, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns but have not read the other two. I definitely enjoyed all three and would recommend them. Nothing super exciting happens in Paper Towns or An Abundance of Katherines, but they are quick and fun reads in my opinion.

Wow, that was a lot of information. I knew I loved reading, but who know I loved writing about reading!  These are just a few of my favorites. I have read quite a few others that I would recommend depending on your reading preferences. 

What you are reading right now? What have you read and what do you recommend?