books to read around christmas!

It's that time of year, folks!!! (okay, disclaimer: I celebrate Christmas. If you do not, I am terribly sorry, I hope this doesn't offend you!) THE BEST MONTH EVER. DECEMBER MEANS EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING IS 100% DECKED OUT FOR CHRISTMAS. I am am unashamed lover of everything festive, so what better way to get into more holiday spirit than to discuss my favorite books to read around the holidays!

I did a post recently where I discussed books that have Christmassy scenes in them, which I will direct you to here. However, this is different: these are books that just *feel* like Christmas to me: whether it is because I always have read them over the holidays, the fact that they have a dark, muffled, winter feel, or because they give me warm fuzzies that remind me of the goodwill towards men thing that comes around Christmas. These are all perfect books to curl up with while sipping a warm beverage and enjoying a break before the new year :)

1. The Harry Potter Series

2. The Song of Achilles 

3. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe 

4. These Broken Stars 

5. A Little Something Different

6. Fangirl 

7. And We Stay

8. The Goose Girl 

9. The Book Thief 

10. The Book of Blood and Shadow

11. The Princess Bride

12. Saving Francesca 

13. Daughter of Smoke and Bone

14. Stardust

15. Instructions For A Broken Heart

16. My True Love Gave To Me 

17. Eragon

18. A Thousand Pieces of You

19. Vicious

20. Pride and Prejudice

What books get you in the holiday spirit? 

xx

sunny

bedtime book tag

Hey everyone!! I promised myself that I would do at least one tag post before the month of June was over, and so when I was talking to my friend Violet and she recommended The Bedtime Book tag, I just had to tag myself and give this one a shot! ITS ONLY JULY 2 SO THIS COUNTS. I've gotten this from here if anyone is interested in doing it themselves! I'm not going to tag anyone, except for to tag everyone, so if you want to do this, consider yourself tagged!

1. A Book that Kept You Up All Night Reading

I stayed up all night reading this one because I desperately wanted to get to the end without seeing any spoilers online, so I read it basically all in one sitting on the day that it came out! Many tears were shed, many goodbyes were said, it was all around an emotional night.

 
2. A Book that Made You Scared To Go To Sleep 

I do not do scary books. Or scary movies. Or haunted houses. Basically I tend to avoid being scared for fun. Not because I have a lot of fears, just because I don't find it enjoyable to be jumpy and on edge, and so I don't have a whole lot for this category. However, the world of the 5th Wave freaked me out a lot, so I would say this is the one that comes closest to giving me nightmares.

3. A Book that Made You Go to Sleep 

 I was *so* on board with the premise of this book, I thought it was going to be awesome and different and that I would love it! However, when I read it, two summers ago, it was incredibly disappointing, and I just remember being so bored and waiting for it to be over.

4. A Book That Left You Tossing and Turning All Night in Anticipation of its Release

 For those of you that have read The Mark of Athena, which is the third book in this, The Heroes of Olympus series, you will know that it was one of the most intense and emotional cliff hangers. Then we had an entire YEAR to wait in between that one and this, and so that meant that the night before this was released, I was too excited to sleep.

5. A Book that Has Your Dream Boyfriend 

PAUL *heart eyes emoji* I love him so so much. In my review on this book, I basically just gush for about 500 words about how much I love him. He is loyal and has a strong moral compass, and he is utterly devoted to Marguerite, but he doesn't pressure her at all when she doesn't know where she wants to be with him. He's just perfect and brave and wonderful and I'm obsessed with him. 

6. A Book that Would Be Your Worst Nightmare to Live In

Ok, half of the reason that I really liked this book is because the setting scared the crap out of me, to be honest. I've never read anything like it. This book takes place in an insanely scary world ruled by the Martial Empire, where even a toe out of line could get you disfigured or killed. I liked reading about it, but I would never ever want to live there.

7. A Book that Reminds You of Nighttime

I'm not exactly sure why, but I think of a clear night when I think of this book. Maybe because its kind of dark and twisty, because it takes place in Prague, because of Eretz, the world with two moons, but this is definitely one that reminds me of the night.

8. A Book that Had a Nightmarish Cliffhanger

 Even though I already had the next book in this series when I read this one, I still remember being curled up in a ball on the floor, rocking back and forth, sobbing at the end of this one. Remembering that actually really makes me want to re-read this series...

9. A Book that You Actually Dreamed About

 I'm sure a lot of us have had the Hogwarts dream. I know that I've been sporadically dreaming about Harry Potter since I first read it as a preteen. Who wouldn't want to be whisked away from their life and into a magical wizarding world?

10. A Book Monster that You Would Not Want to Find Under Your Bed 

I'm going to go with a Strigoi vampire from the Vampire Academy series. They are scary as hell, and you have to be like a super badass to beat them. Definitely not something I'd ever want to meet up with.

This was fun!! I always love doing tags. What would your answers be? 

xx

Sunny

top ten tuesday: ten books for people who like traveling

top ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish that allows us to talk about amazing books in groups of ten! This week the theme is "March 10: Ten Books For Readers Who Like _________" And I have seen some really creative answers to this. One of my true loves, besides reading, is traveling as widely as I possibly can, and sometimes that involves reading books that allow me to go to different places around the world. I usually am drawn to a book if it mentions the places of my travel bucket list in the synopsis. So here are ten books that involve a trip or the act of traveling.

top ten tuesday- characters i'd like to travel with

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! Each week, there is a different category that you must fill with ten things. This week was a free week, but my friend Violet over at Paper Worlds and Swirls of Ink did an interesting thing with her free week, so I am using her idea. I love traveling with all my heart, and I'd never thought about bringing along some of my favorite characters on my travels. I love the idea, so here we go!

1. Karou from Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor- She can speak tons of languages, she's already extremely well traveled, and she's just all around very cool under all types of pressures and circumstances. 

2. Hermione Granger from Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling- Hermione has been one of my favorite characters since I was little, and I would love to be besties with her and travel around the world, seeing all the magical and muggle wonders. 

3. Will Herondale from The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare- Will is my number one male protagonist, and he's well read and snarky and hilarious. Also, there's the accent. I would drag him around everywhere just to banter with him in many different countries.

4. Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Jason Grace, Piper McLean, Hazel Levesque, Frank Zhang, Leo Valdez,  Nico di Angelo and Reyna Ramirez-Arellano from Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan- I know that's an ensemble of characters, but I would love to hop on the Argo II and sail around the world with these kick-ass demigods. I love them all so much, and this is one cast of characters that I think is completely flawless. 

5. Celaena Sardothien from Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas- She's one of the most amazing characters I've ever read, and I would love to spend time with her traveling to dangerous locales and hiking up like, live volcanoes and stuff like that. 

6. Cath and Levi from Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell- one of my favorite couples, I feel like they would be so fun to go on a vacation with. Me and Cath could bond over our mutual love of fanfiction and Levi would be all around floppy and cute. 

7. Isadora and Ry from The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White- They speak every single language known to man and have godly families who could fly us all around for free. That's all I have to say.

8. Étienne St. Clair from Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins- He's French, British and also American, so there's the well-traveled factor, as well as, again, the accent, and also the fact that he's so utterly charming and cute that he will probably gain us favor with the locals. 

9. Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green- I mean, I know he's a bit pretentious, but I think that's the whole point of him. I think he'd be as excited as a five year old to see all the wonders around the world, and I would enjoy seeing his face light up as he experienced it all. 

10. Noah and Jude from I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson- This was probably my number one book of 2014, and I find these twins so interesting. I'd love to travel the world with their artistic minds. 

This was a fun tag to do! Let me know who your choices would be! 

xx 

Sunny