top ten tuesday: books for mythology nerds

 Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish. This week's theme is: "April 12: Ten Books Every X Should Read (up to you! Examples: every history nerd, memoir lover, ballet lover, feminist, college student, etc etc.)" I chose to do my list for people who love mythology of all sorts– Greek/Roman, Egyptian, Norse, Indian, etc – because I am obsessed with mythology myself, always have been!

1. Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series– Rick Riordan 

Okay, I'm just going to go ahead and cover my bases here with the Rick Riordan series. Riordan is technically middle grade, but read one of his books without cracking up and then get back to me on that label. Percy is the OG demigod up in here: he's a bamf, even when he's like 12. This series has five books. If you haven't read it already... literally where have you been? One of my all time favorites EVER. 

2. The Heroes of Olympus Series – Rick Riordan

Just when you THINK you're done with Percy... NOPE. Uncle Rick gave us this beautiful and amazing and expansive follow up series of five books which follows Percy and Annabeth and Nico and Grover and our fave gods, then gives us some incredible new characters as well. Five books in this one also, a close runner up to the first series. 

3. Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard Series– Rick Riordan

 This is Riordan's most recent addition to his canon of mythology, this one following Norse gods and demigods instead of the Greek/Roman/Egyptian ones that he has explored in the past. There is only one book out currently, with the second, The Hammer of Thor, coming out later this year. Though I did not fall directly in love with this one quite like I did with the Greek and Roman series, it was still AWESOME and hilarious, in true Riordan fashion. 

4. The Covenant Series– Jennifer L. Armentrout 

More Greeks, more demigods here, but YA instead of MG this time. This series is very similar to the Vampire Academy series, but I honestly love them both. I read Covenant before VA, and I seriously fell head over heels in love with the characters. Five books in this series, mythology less directly involved, more implied and effused. 

5. The Song of Achilles– Madeline Miller

The story of Achilles and Patroclus, from the time that they meet as youths, until both of their untimely demises in the Trojan war. (that's not a spoiler, it's literal, mythological fact) Sweet, adorable, cute, stabby... what more could you want? Patroclus is a cinnamon roll, too good, too pure for this world. Achilles is a sinnamon roll. This is all we need to know. 

 

6. The Chaos of Stars – Kiersten White 

Hello, Egyptian mythology! Welcome, take a seat here with your Greek and Norse counterparts. This is a standalone novel where the main character is the daughter of Isis, Egyptian goddess of marriage and many other things. This book is super romantic, and honestly pretty short, but definitely one of my faves. It could be a quick beach read for you this summer! 

7. Cruel Beauty – Rosamund Hodge

 I don't know if I'm cheating here, because honestly this isn't *about* Greek mythology, specifically. It is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. BUT! It is super interesting and different because there are elements of Greek and Roman culture woven into the tapestry of this fairy tale retelling. It is a lot more subtle than the rest of the books on this list, but it's beautiful and captivating, so I included it.

8. The Wrath and the Dawn – Renée Ahdieh

 Also don't know if this one is cheating... but I don't really care, because it feels like it belongs here, to me. This book is a retelling of 1001 Nights, which, in itself, is a little hazy over whether it is classified as a "classic book," a "legend," or a "myth." I like to think of it as a Middle Eastern, Persian myth, and this book has other elements of that culture as well. Gorgeous, gorgeous writing, beautiful characters, engaging plot. LOVE it. 

9. The Grisha Trilogy – Leigh Bardugo 

Though this is set entirely in a fantastical world called Ravka, there are definite influences of Russian culture upon it. There are also echoes of Russian myths, such as that of the Firebird, so if you're looking for something with definite allusions to Russian folklore, this is your book. Also, just a kickass series all around.

10. The Raven Boys Series – Maggie Stiefvater 

Here we come to the last book on our list, which includes some elements of Welsh mythology! Something new and different for us. I know there is like a cult following for this series, but I'm totally not caught up yet, I haven't read Blue Lily, Lily Blue yet!!! So no spoilers. I'm waiting til I get my hands on The Raven King to finish this series. 

I hope you enjoyed this list :) link me to your posts this week!

xx

Caroline

top ten books I don't talk up enough

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted over at the Broke and the Bookish. This week's theme is: "March 22: Ten Books I Really Love But Feel Like I Haven't Talked About Enough/In A While," and I am really grateful for the chance to look back into my bookish past and rediscover some old faves that I may have forgotten about!

1. The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale– Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, spends the first years of her life under her aunt's guidance learning to communicate with animals. As she grows up Ani develops the skills of animal speech, but is never comfortable speaking with people, so when her silver-tongued lady-in-waiting leads a mutiny during Ani's journey to be married in a foreign land, Ani is helpless and cannot persuade anyone to assist her.
Becoming a goose girl for the king, Ani eventually uses her own special, nearly magical powers to find her way to her true destiny. Shannon Hale has woven an incredible, original and magical tale of a girl who must find her own unusual talents before she can become queen of the people she has made her own.

2. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta– I'm dreaming of the boy in the tree. I tell him stories. About the Jellicoe School and the Townies and the Cadets from a school in Sydney. I tell him about the war between us for territory. And I tell him about Hannah, who lives in the unfinished house by the river. Hannah, who is too young to be hiding away from the world. Hannah, who found me on the Jellicoe Road six years ago.

Taylor is leader of the boarders at the Jellicoe School. She has to keep the upper hand in the territory wars and deal with Jonah Griggs—the enigmatic leader of the cadets, and someone she thought she would never see again.

And now Hannah, the person Taylor had come to rely on, has disappeared. Taylor's only clue is a manuscript about five kids who lived in Jellicoe eighteen years ago. She needs to find out more, but this means confronting her own story, making sense of her strange, recurring dream, and finding her mother—who abandoned her on the Jellicoe Road.

 

3. Graceling by Kristin Cashore – Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight - she's a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king's thug.

When she first meets Prince Po, Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change.

She never expects to become Po's friend.

She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace - or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away...

4. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell – Two misfits.
One extraordinary love.

Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.

Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

5. The Covenant Series by Jennifer L Armentrout – The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi pure bloods have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals--well, not so much. Half-bloods only have two options: become trained Sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures.

Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1:Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden. Unfortunately, she's crushing hard on the totally hot pure-blood Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn't her biggest problem--staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is.

If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden. And that would kind of suck.

6. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black – Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave.

One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a wholly original story of rage and revenge, of guilt and horror, and of love and loathing from bestselling and acclaimed author Holly Black.

 

7. This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales – Making friends has never been Elise Dembowski’s strong suit. All throughout her life, she’s been the butt of every joke and the outsider in every conversation. When a final attempt at popularity fails, Elise nearly gives up. Then she stumbles upon a warehouse party where she meets Vicky, a girl in a band who accepts her; Char, a cute, yet mysterious disc jockey; Pippa, a carefree spirit from England; and most importantly, a love for DJing.

Told in a refreshingly genuine and laugh-out-loud funny voice, This Song Will Save Your Life is an exuberant novel about identity, friendship, and the power of music to bring people together.

8. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke – 12 year-old Meggie lives with her father, Mortimer, a bookbinder. Mo never reads stories aloud to Meggie because he has a special gift: when he reads a book aloud, the characters come out of the book and into the real world.

One night, when Meggie was a small child, Mortimer was reading aloud from a book named Inkheart when an evil villain named Capricorn, his aide Basta, and a fire-eater named Dustfinger escape from the book and into their living room. At the same time, Mo's wife Resa gets trapped within the book .

Twelve years later, Capricorn is on a hunt to find and destroy all copies of Inkheart and use Mo's abilities to gain more power for himself in the real world. Meggie discovers her father's secret and, along with the help of Dustfinger and Meggie's eccentric aunt Elinor, fights to free her father and destroy Capricorn.

9. Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge – Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.

With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.

But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle—a shifting maze of magical rooms—enthralls her.

As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

10. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart – A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE. 

what is on your lists this week? 

xx

Caroline 

spotlight on: HALLOWEEN

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spotlight on is a monthly feature hosted here at Stardust and Words, with a different theme each time, whether it be a series, genre, list of suggestions or author. You can see the previous entries in the spotlight series here! This month, what else can I do but talk about books that remind me of my favorite night of the year (besides christmas eve)? HALLOWEEN BOOKS!!! Not necessarily horror-themed or halloween-themed, but books that capture the ~essence~ of Halloween to me. 

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top ten tuesday: fairy tale retellings

After missing the last two weeks of TTT, I am happy to be back up and running! Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish, where each week there is a different theme of the bookish variety. This week's category is: "August 4: Ten Fairytale Retellings I've Read/Want To Read (or you could do fairytales I want to be retold or fairytales I love)." I personally adore all types of fairy tale retellings, so this is an exciting week for me!

I'm going to do five of my favorite retellings and five retellings that I would like to read.

TOP FIVE FAVORITE RETELLINGS

 1. The Lunar Chronicles – Marissa Meyer – (pictured here: book 1: Cinder)

If you haven't heard of the Lunar Chronicles, I have one question for you: where the heck have you been? This is one of the most popular series in YA right now, and understandably so. It consists currently of three books and a couple of novellas, each of which deal with a different fairy tale retelling, but also each of which connects to the other books in many ways. Its sci-fi fairy tales, set in an interesting, futuristic world and given a decisive twist into things you wouldn't expect. They are a ton of fun, and definitely some of my favorite fairy tale retellings.

2.  The Goose Girl – Shannon Hale

Based on the Grimm fairy tale of the same name, this has been one of my favorite books (and also retellings) since I was eight years old. I've read it many times, and I never seem to get tired of it. I love Shannon Hale, and this book was absolutely a staple of my young life, and even now. If you haven't read this, just please do it. It is full of magic and bravery, of girls learning to be themselves, of princes and hard work and friendship and loyalty. I honestly can't think of a retelling that I could ever love more than this one.

3. A Court of Thorns and Roses – Sarah J Maas

Sarah J Maas is one of my favorite authors right now. It seems that everything she touches turns into amazing stories filled with kickass, beautiful characters. This particular novel is a Beauty and the Beast retelling with faerie lore thrown in there. It is sexy and beautifully written, and I really just wanted it to go on forever. It was one of my most anticipated books of the entire year, and it did not disappoint. I absolutely cannot wait for the second novel to come out next year.

4. Cruel Beauty – Rosamund Hodge


Beauty and the Beast was always my favorite fairy tale, from the time I was a little girl, and so it isn't surprising that there are two Beauty and the Beast retellings on this list. Rosamund Hodge created a really awesome world in this retelling, which combines the classic story with elements of Roman society and mythology. I liked that I never knew what was coming next with this one, and the ending was super unexpected but beautiful at the same time.

5. The Wrath and the Dawn – Renee Ahdieh

I'm not sure if 1001 Nights is technically a traditional fairy tale, but I'm counting it as one for the purposes of this list because I just recently read this book and I'm completely obsessed with it. Romance and mystery, dangerous girls and lovable boys, all with an absolutely gorgeous setting that I seriously can't get enough of. You're going to want to hop on this bandwagon, because this series is going to be amazing.




TOP FIVE WANT-TO-READ RETELLINGS

1. Winter (Lunar Chronicles #4) – Marissa Meyer

This is the final installment in the aforementioned Lunar Chronicles series, and it is probably my most anticipated book of the entire year. I love this series so much, I can't believe that it is coming to an end, but at the same time I just want to read the book so bad that I won't be sad about it ending until after I get Winter in my hands. As the cover suggests, this one is a Snow White inspired story, following the other three novels, which were Cinderella, Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel.

2. A Thousand Nights – E.K. Johnson


I've never been that interested in the 1001 Nights tale, but maybe that's because I hadn't seen many retellings of it before this year. However, with the earlier release of The Wrath and the Dawn, which I loved, and then this book coming out later this year, I think it has become a story that I can appreciate through its retellings. This cover is completely gorgeous, right??

3. A Whole New World – Liz Braswell

This is the first book in a new series where Disney stories and fairy tales are reimagined in "unexpected ways." Again, I don't really know if Aladdin counts as a fairy tale, but since this is a retelling and Disney counts it as one, so will I. I have seen mixed things in advance of the release of this one, but I love Disney so much, I will definitely at least try this one when it comes out.

4. Mechanica – Betsy Cornwell 


This is a Cinderella retelling that sounds really similar to Cinder by Marissa Meyer, but I loved that book so much, I'm not complaining about the similarities. I like it when people reimagine fairy tales in a different world than their original one, it is something that fascinates me. So I do really want to get my hands on this one and give it a try soon!

5.  Crimson Bound – Rosamund Hodge


I have had this book since the day it came out, but I still have not gotten around to reading it. It is on my summer tbr, so I hope I can get it done by the end of August! This is in the same world as Hodge's other novel, Cruel Beauty, but it is not a sequel. It is a Red Riding Hood retelling and if CB is any indication, this one is going to be really cool.





What are your picks this week?

xx
Sunny

a week of recommdenations: day five

This is the fifth and final day of a week of recommendations! This week has been so much fun, and I hope that y'all have enjoyed it and at least gotten a couple recommendations from these posts! Special thanks for Violet for inviting me along with her on this week of posts!

This last day is a day for retellings, which are something that Violet and I cannot get enough of. I've always loved fairytales and myths and folklore, and retellings give me a chance to read stories that I love all over again, anew. Retellings are one of my favorite sub-genres under the umbrella of YA or Adult, and I am really excited to share some of my favorite picks with you. 

1. Cinder – Marissa Meyer

Cinder is the first in an eventual quartet called the Lunar Chronicles, and if you've been on booktube or around the blogging sphere then you'll know that these are extremely popular books with tons of people. Each installment is a sci/fi, futuristic fairy tale retelling, and they are all so creative, my mind is blown even more than I thought possible with every book. Cinder is, obviously, a retelling of Cinderella. Scarlet, the second book, is a Red Riding Hood retelling, and Cress, which is book three, tells the story of Rapunzel. However, all the characters and stories are so intertwined, there is a lot more going on in each book than just the retelling at hand. They're amazing! You should all read them! 

2. Cruel Beauty – Rosamund Hodge

This is a a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, with elements of Roman society and mythology thrown in for good measure. I adored this book when I first read it, and the ending is seriously so epic! The world of Cruel Beauty is brilliant and different and dangerous, and I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is looking for a Beauty and the Beast story with a twist. 

3. The Land of Stories: The Wishing Well – Chris Colfer

Though this is a middle grade series, I enjoy myself immensely when I'm reading the Land of Stories books. Though they aren't strictly retellings, they do include characters from all of your favorite fairy tales, all in one world, so I count them. Since they are middle grade, they're fast paced and just so much fun. 

4. Entwined – Heather Dixon

I am a huge fan of the 12 Dancing Princesses, and I have read multiple retellings of this classic story. However, I think that Entwined is my favorite. It is darker and somehow deeper than most of the other versions that I have read, and I love the characters so much. The 12 Princesses, in this retelling are strong and three dimensional, quite a feat when there are 12+ characters to develop. I love this retelling, it is graceful and twisted. 

5. Splintered – A.G. Howard

This is the first book in a trilogy that retells Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland stories. Violet urged me to read this series for ages and I never got around to it until this year, and I was amazed. This too is a darker story than even the original Alice, which is pretty twisted in its own way. I think this is a must read for anyone who enjoys retellings of any sort, and even anyone who just wants to be swept away in a different sort of world. 

And here we come to the end of a week of recommendations! I hope you all had as much fun as I did. 

xx

Sunny