Buddy Read!

My pal Ono messaged me today about seeing my TBR Shame post and said they wanted to help me out on getting through my list by reading along with me! So exciting!!!

We decided to pick at random so I rolled on a random number generator and used that to pick a title from the list of 136 unread books.

The first book we will be reading together is: They Never Came Back by Caroline B. Cooney

Yay for buddy reads!!


Have you read ‘They Never Came Back’? What did you think?

You would have thought I’d feel brittle too, being such a bitter, angry bitch. But I didn’t. I felt nothing, really, just the sense that now the circle I’d always kept small was a little smaller. Maybe Chris could be saved that easily. But not me. Never me.

– Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby, Chapter 6

Friday 56: July 20, 2018

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda’s Voice and the rules are simple:

  • Grab a book, any book (I, personally, prefer to use my current read.)
  • Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader (If you have to improvise, that’s ok.)
  • Find any sentence, (or few, just don’t spoil it)
  • Post it

The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

More than our old house, or our Wildflower Ridge place, the beach shack was my dad. I knew if he was haunting any place, it would be there, and for that reason I’d stayed away.

 

First Lines Fridays: July 20, 2018

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

Maybe I’d always been broken and dark inside.
Maybe someone who’d been born whole and good would have put down the ash dagger and embraced death rather than what lay before me.

Did the quote pique your interest? View this book on Goodreads!

2018 TBR Shame

I finally have FULL access to my library of books and some books have been removed and others added, so I thought I’d do another TBR Shame on myself and then see if I can’t work my way through some of them. And considering I said in this post that one of my goals for 2018 is to read 15 books I own, but haven’t read yet, I would say this is a useful little list. (Ha, little, yeah right.)

Here I go!

  • Life, the Universe and Everything (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, book 2) by Douglas Adams
  • The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, book 3) by Douglas Adams
  • Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orïsha, book 1) by Tomi Adeyemi
  • Home: A Memoir of My Early Years by Julie Andrews
  • Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon by Jane Austen
  • Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie Read December 2018
  • The Juvenilia of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte
  • Anything Goes by John Barrowman
  • Papa’s Wife by Thyra Ferre Bjorn
  • Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
  • Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks
  • Thousand Words by Jennifer Brown
  • Evelina by Francis Burney
  • Thank Heaven: A Memoir by Leslie Caron
  • The Girl of Fire and Thorns Stories (Girl of Fire and Thorns Novella) by Rae Carson Read December 2018
  • Graceling (Graceling Realm, book 1) by Kristin Cashore
  • The Adventures of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
  • Postcards from No Man’s Land by Aidan Chambers
  • All Around the Town by Mary Higgins Clark
  • The Second Time Around by Mary Higgins Clark
  • No Place Like Home by Mary Higgins Clark
  • I Heard That Song Before by Mary Higgins Clark
  • The Melody Lingers On by Mary Higgins Clark
  • The Cinderella Murder (Under Suspicion, book 2) by Mary Higgins Clark; Alafair Burke
  • All Dressed in White (Under Suspicion, book 3) by Mary Higgins Clark; Alafair Burke
  • The Sleeping Beauty Killer (Under Suspicion, book 4) by Mary Higgins Clark; Alafair Burke
  • Every Breath You Take (Under Suspicion, book 5) by Mary Higgins Clark; Alafair Burke
  • The Joker is Wild by Art Cohn
  • They Never Came Back by Caroline B. Cooney Read November 2018
  • And Furthermore by Judi Dench
  • Bleak House by Charles Dickens
  • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  • Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
  • Eva by Peter Dickinson
  • The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas
  • The Chemical History of a Candle by Michael Faraday
  • Seven Tears into the Sea by Terri Farley
  • The House of the Scorpion (Matteo Alacran, book 1) by Nancy Farmer
  • Bossypants by Tina Fey
  • Darkhenge by Catherine Fisher
  • Incarceron (Incarceron, book 1) by Catherine Fisher
  • Sapphique (Incarceron, book 2) by Catherine Fisher
  • Midnight Blue by Pauline Fisk
  • The Ruins of Gorlan (The Ranger’s Apprentice, book 1) by John Flanagan
  • The Burning Bridge (The Ranger’s Apprentice, book 2) by John Flanagan
  • The Icebound Land (The Ranger’s Apprentice, book 3) by John Flanagan
  • The Battle for Skandia (The Ranger’s Apprentice, book 4) by John Flanagan
  • The Unquiet by Jeannine Garsee
  • Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt
  • Gifts (Annals of the Western Shore, book 1) by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • The Making of the Wizard of Oz by Aljean Harmetz
  • The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • My Life in Three Acts by Helen Hayes
  • North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley
  • Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway
  • The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins
  • Kissinger: A Biography by Walter Isaacson
  • Touched by Corrine Jackson Read October 2018
  • The Opposite of Hallelujah by Anna Jarzab
  • Surrender by Elana Johnson
  • Need by Carrie Jones Read September 2018
  • The Exchange by Graham Joyce
  • At Home in Mitford (The Mitford Years, book 1) by Jan Karon Read October 2018
  • A Light in the Window (The Mitford Years, book 2) by Jan Karon
  • A New Song (The Mitford Years, book 5) by Jan Karon
  • A Common Life: The Wedding Story (The Mitford Years, book 6) by Jan Karon
  • In This Mountain (The Mitford Years, book 7) by Jan Karon
  • Shepherd’s Abiding (The Mitford Years, book 8) by Jan Karon
  • Light from Heaven (The Mitford Years, book 9) by Jan Karon
  • The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd Read August 2018
  • Ophelia by Lisa Klein
  • Wildefire by Karsten Knight
  • Dreamhunter (Dreamhunter Duet, book 1) by Elizabeth Knox
  • Dreamquake (Dreamhunter Duet, book 2) by Elizabeth Knox
  • Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen
  • Out of Control by Mark Lowry
  • The Games People Play by Eric Berne
  • A Court of Frost and Starlight (A Court of Thorns and Roses, book 4) by Sarah J. Maas
  • Allan Pinkerton: The First Private Eye by James MacKay
  • Uninvited by Amanda Marrone
  • Stories I Couldn’t Tell While I Was a Pastor by Bruce McIver
  • Cryer’s Cross by Lisa McMann
  • Dead to You by Lisa McMann
  • Lovely, Dark and Deep by Amy McNamara
  • The Secret Service: The Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency by Philip H. Melanson
  • History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time by Brad Meltzer
  • Her Husband: Hughes and Plath, a Marriage by Diane Middlebrook
  • George Washington is Cash Money by Cory O’Brien
  • Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes by Cory O’Brien
  • The Pact: A Love Story by Jodi Picoult
  • The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker
  • The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker
  • Starters (Starters, book 1) by Lissa Price
  • Siren (Siren, book 1) by Tricia Rayburn
  • On My Own: The Years Since the White House by Eleanor Roosevelt
  • How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
  • Four: A Divergent Collection (Divergent Novellas) by Veronica Roth
  • Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson by Jan Jarboe Russell
  • The Dead-Tossed Waves (The Forest of Hands and Teeth, book 2) by Carrie Ryan
  • Vesper (Deviants, book 1) by Jeff Sampson
  • Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott Read October 2018
  • Miracle by Elizabeth Scott
  • Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare
  • Hamlet by William Shakespeare
  • Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
  • King Lear by William Shakespeare
  • Macbeth by William Shakespeare
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
  • Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare Read November 2018
  • A Paradise Called Texas by Janice Shefelman
  • The Safe-Keeper’s Secret (Safe-Keepers, book 1) by Sharon Shinn Read August 2018
  • The Dream-Maker’s Magic (Safe-Keepers, book 3) by Sharon Shinn Read September 2018
  • The Help by Kathryn Stockett
  • Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers
  • Undone by Brooke Taylor
  • Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin
  • Exposed by Susan Vaught
  • A Little Friendly Advice by Siobhan Vivian
  • Orfe by Cynthia Voigt Read September 2018
  • Burnout by Adrienne Maria Vrettos
  • Elizabeth: The Life of Elizabeth Taylor by Alexander Walker
  • Where the Truth Lies by Jessica Warman
  • The Secret Hour (Midnighters, book 1) by Scott Westerfeld
  • Touching Darkness (Midnighters, book 2) by Scott Westerfeld
  • Blue Noon (Midnighters, book 3) by Scott Westerfeld
  • Partials (Partials Sequence, book 1) by Scott Westerfeld
  • Fragments (Partials Sequence, book 2) by Scott Westerfeld
  • Peeps (Peeps, book 1) by Scott Westerfeld
  • The Last Days (Peeps, book 2) by Scott Westerfeld
  • A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb
  • Sandpiper by Ellen Wittlinger
  • Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate by Bob Woodward
  • Long, Long Ago by Alexander Woollcott
  • All These Lives by Sarah Wylie
  • Blood Red Road (Dustlands, book 1) by Moira Young
  • Eleanor Roosevelt: A Personal and Public Life by J. William T. Youngs

96 136 Unread / 442 Total Books

I feel the shame you guys. And I already think I know what I’ll read first. Wish me luck!

I’d spent so many months feeling like I was underwater, half in dreamland with those mermaids, hearing all the voices from up above. And since I’d been at Evergreen I felt like I’d been swimming so hard, the water growing warmer and warmer the closer I got to the top. I wasn’t there yet, but now I could see the surface, rippling just beyond my fingers.

– Sarah Dessen, Dreamland, Chapter 12

I was worn out, broken: He had taken almost everything. But he had been all I’d had, all this time. And when the police led him away, I pulled out of the hands of all these loved ones, sobbing, screaming, everything hurting, to try and make him stay.

– Sarah Dessen, Dreamland, Chapter 12