top ten authors i own the most books from

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week, we're talking about the authors we own most books from. Now, while I'll admit that compared to a lot of people I do own a lot of books, I don't have nearly as much as other book bloggers and booktubers do. So while some of these are authors that I really do own a lot of books, a good amount of them are instabuy authors - those authors whose books I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO READ as soon as they come out.

1. J.K. Rowling - 12 books

I have the entire Harry Potter series, with doubles of the last four books, and A Casual Vacancy. Haven't picked up her Robert Galbraith books yet! 

2. Sarah Dessen - 8 books
Sarah Dessen is the first YA contemporary author I really got into, so I owe a lot of my obsession to her books. I'm missing 3 of her novels, but I'm sure they'll be added to my collection eventually. 

3. David Levithan - 6 books 

I have the books he co-wrote with John Green and Andrea Cremer, as well as four of his own works. Most of them are still sitting on my tbr shelf at the moment.

4.  Stephenie Meyer - 5 books 

Don't even judge me, you know you have them, too.

5. John Green - 5 books 

Obviously an instabuy author. I don't have Let It Snow, but I'll probably end up getting it closer to winter.

6. Gayle Forman - 4 books 

This might be cheating because I technically only have Just One Day at the moment, but Just One Year, If I Stay, and Where She Went are all currently in transit on their way to my house. So there. (Also, she really has a thing for three-word titles, doesn't she?)

7. Rainbow Rowell - 4 books 

Total instabuy. Attachments is on its way to me right now, too, and I CAN'T WAIT TO READ IT.

8. Sarah Ockler - 4 books

Loved Twenty Boy Summer and instantly had to read everything she's ever written. I've gotten really lucky with her books in the way that I'll go to the bookstore not even looking for something of hers and just  find it out of nowhere. When The Book of Broken Hearts came out in paperback I just randomly stumbled across it and almost peed myself in excitement. True story. ALSO, if #scandal is in stock at Chapters when I go tomorrow I'm totally gonna snag that, too. 

9. Morgan Matson - 3 books
I will literally read every word this woman writes, ever. Hands down. No questions asked. Bye.

10. This is a total cop-out and cheating and doesn't even count in my opinion but R.L. Stine - upwards of 20 books
Just because I have a giant bag of Fear Street books that I'm too lazy to bring to the library even though I'm never going to read them.

So, there we have it! There's a lot of other authors I have 3 books from but I feel like that's a lot of effort to list them all just for 3 books. Because it really isn't that impressive to have 3 books from the same author.

What about you? Any authors you immediately have to buy books from? 

booktubeathon recap

I just wanted to write a quick little post about my experience with BookTubeAThon 2014. If anyone saw my tbr for the week you might actually be slightly impressed by the reading I did, just not by my total lack of updates throughout the week.

So, without further ado, here are the books from my list that I finished last week and the challenges!

The Lightning Thief - I read this on Monday and Tuesday and got COMPLETELY hooked, and now I really just want to buy the rest of the series. Seriously, I don't know why I didn't get to these books before. And I watched the movie after, so that completes the challenge of a book to movie adaptation.  (377 pages)

A Monster Calls - After I finished The Lightning Thief I was kind of on a roll so I jumped on this one right away and finished it in about 2 hours. I might have to read it again because I just kind of flew through it and didn't get to experience the whole thing, AND I kind of want to get the other version that has pictures in it but we'll see what happens. But the version I had was the one without it and I just read it for the book with red on the cover challenge. (224 pages)

Just One Day - Read it in - you guessed it - just one day. And I loved it and my plan was to read the sequel, which would take care of the start and finish a series challenge, but hardcover books are expensive and I'm cheap. (400 pages)

The Duff: Designated Ugly Fat Friend - I basically counted all the books on my tbr shelf and got my boyfriend to pick a number, and ended up with The DUFF! Super quick, easy read, although the MC kind of pissed me off at times. But this one took care of the book someone else picks out for you, so we're all good! (280 pages)

The Little Prince - I might have cheated because I read the original French version of this in high school, so I already knew the story. Basically skimmed through it in an hour to complete the book with pictures challenge. (85 pages)

So those were the five books off my list that I completed. I also read half of The Catcher in the Rye (124 pages) and picked Going Bovine (480 pages) to take the place of Just One Year.

SO. The challenges I completed were:
A book with pictures.
A book with red on the cover.
A book someone else picks out for you.
A book to movie adaptation.
A book from the genre you've read least of this year (attempted - halfway completed?)

In total I read 1970 pages during the BookTubeAThon, which averages out to 281 pages a day. So, not quite 300 a day, but I'm pretty happy with how I did! Especially considering the fact that I worked every day and was busy with a summer class. :)

How was your BookTubeAThon experience?

top ten characters i'd want on a deserted island with me

Let's just get this out of the way before we start: I suck. I know it, okay? I really did plan on posting daily, or at least every-other-daily BookTubeAThon updates, but the whole work/school/social life thing got in my way. I'll be posting a recap for the week tomorrow (hopefully) and until then, here's a little something to make me look like less of a failure. 

This week's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish is all about being stranded on a deserted island and dragging some poor, unfortunate fictional characters along with you. I feel like a lot of these could solve everything realllly quickly so I'm gonna be creative with this. 

For Survival: 

Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games) - Girl can hunt, okay? And if I'm stuck on an island for God knows how long, I'm gonna need some food. 

Molly Weasley (Harry Potter) - What's the law about how creating food out of nothing is magically impossible? I feel like Molly's the kind of person who can pretty much make a delicious meal out of anything, and the magic helps, too. Plus: she can put up all kinds of protection spells and clean up with just a wave of her wand! Yes, please. 

Hermione Granger (Harry Potter) - With Hermione's brains, I'm sure we'd be home safe in about 3 seconds. Even if we're not, she'd figure out a way to make life on the island awesome, not to mention her never-ending pouch that WE COULD FILL WITH ALL THE BOOKS!

Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) - She's just a total badass and if any supernatural beings tried to mess with us, she'd be on that. 

For Getting Off the Damn Island: 

Neville Longbottom (Harry Potter) - Because ACCIO GILLYWEED. See ya never, island. 

Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) - I'm pretty sure the whole breathing underwater thing would come in handy when you're stuck on an island. He could just swim over to the nearest boat or wherever civilization is and get someone to come save us. Or better yet, get his dad to split the water so we can walk home. 

Galen (The Syrena Legacy) - I mean, he's a hot mermaid. He's got this.

Elsa (Frozen) - She could just turn the ocean into ice and problem solved, just like that. 

Just Because: 

Audrey and Victoria (Audrey, Wait!) - I'm 1000% sure that these girls are my fictional soul sisters. And if we were on an island together I'd definitely join their best friend group. 

Etienne St. Clair (Anna and the French Kiss) - He's my book boyfriend forever, okay? He needs to be there. 

Who would you want to be on a deserted island with you? Let me know in the comments!

booktubeathon tbr!

I decided to take part in this year's BookTubeAThon to get me a little bit more involved in this little community here. This year's BookTubeAThon is hosted by a lovely bunch of Booktubers and challenges us to read a shitload of books in one week! YAY. 

 There's a few challenges set in place for the week, so here's how I'll be fulfilling these challenges.

1. A book with pictures.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

2. Start and finish a series.

Just One Day & Just One Year by Gayle Foreman 

3. A book with red on the cover.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (it has a little bit of red on the flowers, okay?)

4. A book someone else picks out for you. 

The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend by Kody Keplinger 

5. A book from the genre you've read the least this year. 

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (I haven't read any classics yet and this one's been laying around for about a year, so it's a perfect opportunity)

6. A book to movie adaptation. 

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (bonus points because I need to read this for school anyway!) 

7. Read 7 books (or 300 pages a day). 

If all goes well, this'll be 7 books! Fingers crossed, guys.

The BookTubeAThon is running from July 14-20. What will you be reading?

to be finished: books i started and abandoned

Do you ever pick up a book and start reading it, just to lose interest in favour of another story? It's not that they're bad books, it's just that something else caught your attention. Or maybe this just happens to me and I have the attention span of a 2-year-old. 

In any case, I've found that there's quite a lot of books I've abandoned. Maybe I lost interest in reading for a while. Maybe I bought a new book and just had to read it right away. I'm going to try and make a point of finishing these books by the end of the summer, at least. 

bookshelf scavenger hunt

My creativity is lacking today and I'm still working on a review so here, have a tag! I'm not sure who started this but it was fun and I know it's kind of an older tag but you should do it too.

review: since you've been gone

From Goodreads:

The Pre-Sloane Emily didn't go to parties, she barely talked to guys, she didn't do anything crazy. Enter Sloane, social tornado and the best kind of best friend—the one who yanks you out of your shell.But right before what should have been an epic summer, Sloane just... disappears. No note. No calls. No texts. No Sloane. There’s just a random to-do list. On it, thirteen Sloane-selected-definitely-bizarre-tasks that Emily would never try... unless they could lead back to her best friend. Apple Picking at Night? Ok, easy enough.Dance until Dawn? Sure. Why not? Kiss a Stranger? Wait... what?

Getting through Sloane’s list would mean a lot of firsts. But Emily has this whole unexpected summer ahead of her, and the help of Frank Porter (totally unexpected) to check things off. Who knows what she’ll find?

Go Skinny Dipping? Um...

Let me start off with a little disclaimer: Since You've Been Gone is, without a doubt, my favourite book I've read so far this year. I love everything I've read by Morgan Matson and would probably pay to read her grocery lists, just because she writes that beautifully. Seriously, I'm already going through withdrawals and I'm kind of dying a little bit inside because I have no clue when her next book is coming out. But, I digress. 

Pros:

The relationship dynamics - This book puts a refreshingly strong focus on the dynamics of friendship over the romantic aspect of the story - Emily is so completely focused on finding her best friend, she doesn't even begin to consider Frank as a potential love interest until much later in the story. I find that often with YA lit, the relationship between friends takes second place to romance. The fact that Matson switches this around and leaves romantic relationships as kind of an afterthought is just awesome. Even more, I loved how at the beginning of the book, when Frank is introduced, it isn't even mentioned that he has a girlfriend. Because it's honestly that irrelevant to Emily at that point in time. There's no whining about the unattainable guy, there's no love - or even attraction - at first sight. He's just some guy from school that she's seen around who becomes a friend over the summer. This is probably my favourite part of the book, to be honest. 

Sloane - I want a friend like Sloane. My high school self would have benefited so much from a Sloane in my life, I just want one. At some points in the story I was starting to get scared that it would end with Emily and Sloane not being friends anymore, and that would have just ruined me. 

Emily's transformation - I loved seeing Emily come into her own during the course of this book. I know everyone says stuff like this, but I could see a lot of myself in Emily at the beginning of the story, feeling so lost without her best friend. It made me proud in a weird way to watch her grow up and become confident on her own. It's very inspiring! 

The new friends - Frank, Collins, and Dawn play such a huge role in helping to break Emily out of her shell without even realizing what they're doing. They adopt this lonesome little lost puppy into their lives and help her find who she is outside of Sloane. 

Frank - Duh. (But in all seriousness, the fact that Frank isn't this total alpha-male hot guy is awesome. Their runs together were awesome. His wheezing and not being super athletic and strong was awesome. Frank is awesome.) 

Cons:

The whole Sam/Gideon storyline - This isn't really even a con, it just felt kind of unnecessary to me. Like, I didn't really get why seeing Gideon after not even dating was such a big deal? I know that the flashbacks were meant to show how strong and unbreakable Sloane and Emily's friendship was, so I guess there's that. I can't even say I have an issue with this, so let's not even count it as a con. This book is perfect. 

Final Thoughts:

Since You've Been Gone is one of those rare books that has a perfect mix of friendship, romance, and self-discovery that's really hard to balance in a way that works just right. It's unique in its fixation on strong, true friendships over love, and it tells a story of growing up and finding who you are once the person who defines you is gone. This book is about taking chances, being independent, and doing things you've never done before. I think everyone should read this book, it really is amazing.