The Unexpected Everything

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Book covers that feel like Summer

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. This week it’s time to show off some book covers, more specifically the ones that have summery colours, imagery or just general summer vibes. For me, a summery book cover tends to be ones that has bright colours, if there’s blue skies, a beach or any body of water that’s definitely summery, or just smiley, happy people feels summery to me.

I’ve read all these books over the past five years or so and have linked to all of the reviews.

Secret Son by Laila Lalami
The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson
A Thousand Perfect Notes by C.G. Drews
When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
40 Years by Ritah

One Would Think The Deep by Claire Zorn
Frangipani by Célestine Hitiura Vaite
Dreams of My Heart by Aminath Neena
Crime Wave by Rose Pressey
Emancipated by M.G. Reyes

Have you read any of these books? And what makes a summery book cover for you?

Thanksgiving Book Tag

OK. Thanksgiving was last week so I’m a little late with this tag but we’re just going to deal with that. This tag was created by Fangirlscity on YouTube and I saw it on Aoife’s blog, Pretty Purple Polka Dots.

1. Bread – What book is purely fluff, and has no real plot line?
Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde
I flew through this book and it was a cute, fluffy read with a lot of nice relationships but it was so character-focussed that it didn’t really have an overarching plot.

2. Turkey – What book made you want to fall asleep?
The Book of Ebenezer le Page by G.B. Edwards
I’m currently listening to the audiobook of this and it’s not bad but the narrator sounds like an old man as he’s telling his life story and it is very soothing and is just the sort of thing I could accidentally fall asleep when listening to it.

3. Gravy – What book makes the whole series worth reading?
Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
I listened to the audiobooks of Chaos Walking series last year and really struggled with it. My main issue was Todd, it wasn’t until Monsters of Men that I actually started to like him and the therefore the half of the book that was from his perspective.

4. Stuffing – What book is stuffed full of action scenes?
Flashfall by Jenny Moyer
I read this as a part of my NEWTS in August and the action never really stopped, especially once it got past the halfway mark.

5. Mashed Potatoes – What book looked good, and then wasn’t?
A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney
A Blade So Black isn’t bad exactly, but it wasn’t like what I expected, and the ideas were better than the actual plot.

6. Cranberries – What book has the sweetest romance?
The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson
I don’t read a lot of romance, but I found the romance in The Unexpected Everything to be really sweet and Andie and Clark really complimented each other.

7. Corn – What’s the corniest book you’ve ever read?
Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
Sophie Kinsella’s books are always a little corny, fun, but corny, but I think Twenties Girl was even more corny than normal what with the main character being haunted by her great aunt or whoever it was.

8. Green beans – What book is too long and needs to be shortened?
Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin
This was such a fat book. It was over 700 pages and it really didn’t need to be that long. I read it while I was at uni and I’m pretty sure it took me over a month to get through it and I’m not sure I even knew what was going on half the time.

9. Pumpkin Pie – What book do you read to get out of a reading slump?
In general, I read graphic novels or comics to get me out of a reading slump. Naturally they’re short and while I’m not saying I concentrate on them less than a novel, with the images it does make things easier if my brain’s having difficulty getting through a lot of description in a novel.

10. Dog/Cat- What’s your favourite Thanksgiving food that you would steal from the table?
Not had a Thanksgiving dinner before but I could always eat a lot of mashed potatoes.

And that’s the Thanksgiving book tag! If anyone fancies being even later to the party than I am, then consider yourself tagged. Also I hope those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving had a wonderful day.

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Top Ten Favourite Books of 2017

Top Ten Tuesday is a feature run by BrokeAndBookish each week. It’s coming up to that time of year where we reflect on what we’ve read and decide which books have been our favourites. Now there is a couple of weeks left of 2017 so something could sneak in here but here’s how it stands at the moment.

In no particular order, here are my ten favourite books of 2017 – links go to my review.

Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu
This book is a great feminist read. I sped though this book because I related to the characters so much and as I read I’d get this pain in my chest because it felt so real and was equal parts inspiring and frustrating.

Frangipani by Celestine Hitiura Vaite
This book surprised me by how much I loved it. It’s a family drama with a compelling mother/daughter relationship at its heart and it’s such a nice read. I know “nice” isn’t really seen as a positive word but that’s what it is, there’s no major drama or sudden plot twists, it’s just a comforting read.

Power Man and Iron Fist Vol. 1: The Boys are Back in Town by David Walker, Sanford Greene and Flaviano
This was such a fun comic! The art style is really cool and vibrant, and I loved the relationship between Danny and Luke. If you like the Marvel Netflix shows featuring these two, then I’d definitely recommend this comic. (more…)

REVIEW: The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

When Andie’s dad is caught up in a political scandal, all her summer plans are thrown into chaos. No more summer internship, instead she finds herself with a summer job as a dog walker. She’s not used to not having everything planned out but having everything be unexpected for once could mean a chance for love and new experiences.

The Unexpected Everything is a delightful book. At over 500 pages I was worried it would take me a while to read but in the end, I read it in just one day. I got pulled in by Andie’s story and all her friends, and by the fact there was so many dogs. Honestly if you like dogs, this book is for you as its not only the characters that are interesting and a lot of fun but the many dogs Andie ends up walking are too.

Andie is the kind of character that normally would rub me up the wrong way as she’s often quite selfish and likes everyone and everything to fit in her own plans, but much of the story is about her growing as a person and seeing how she is seen by other people. Andie doesn’t like letting people get close to her or even tell people she’s in a relationship with anything of real substance about herself – this all comes to ahead when she meets Clark. The romance between Andie and dog owner Clark is sweet and has your usual lack of communication confusion but the story has a lot of charm and Andie and Clark both have their flaws and still compliment each other that I was rooting for them.

I really liked Andie’s friendship group, their summer adventures and how The Unexpected Everything showed that some relationships can be quite overwhelming and we all need are space from those we care about. I also really liked how Andie’s relationship with her dad was so believable, they’d not had anything to do with each other for so long so suddenly being around each other led to an interesting dynamic.

The Unexpected Everything is the perfect summer read. It’s fun, has moments of humour and lots of characters you want to be happy. 5/5.

My BookTubeAThon TBR

The BookTubeAThon starts next week! The BookTubeAThon is a readathon that was the brainchild of Ariel Bissett over on YouTube. While it’s a readathon that focusses on the BookTube community and there’s many video-related challenges, you can take part whether you make booktube videos or not. There’s even Instagram challenges during the readathon if bookstagram is more your thing. You can learn more about the BookTubeAThon here.

BookTubeAThon is from midnight wherever in the world you are on Monday 24th July till 11:59pm on Sunday 30th July. This actually works out quite well for me as I am at my dad’s in Spain from the 27th July, and at my dad’s I always get a lot of reading done. Also, you can read anything during the BookTubeAThon – novels, audiobooks, comics, graphic novels, non-fiction, poetry, short stories – ANYTHING!

During the BookTubeAThon there are seven reading challenges you can attempt to complete (you can use a book for more than one challenge and the challenges are in no way compulsory) and here they are:

1. Read a book with a person on the cover.
2. Read a hyped book.
3. Finish a book in one day.
4. Read about a character that is very different from you.
5. Finish a book completely outdoors.
6. Read a book you bought because of the cover.
7. Read seven books.

Here’s my TBR and theoretically I’ll be able to complete all these challenges with it:

For both the “Read a book with a person on the cover” and the “finish a book in one day” challenge I have multiple comics/graphic novels. The ones I’ve chosen are Saga Volume Six and Seven by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples, Kaptara Vol. 1: Fear Not, Tiny Alien by Chip Zdarsky and Kagan McLeod and Filmish by Edward Ross. For the “Hyped Book” challenge, I have The Unexpected Everything by Morgan, which coincidentally also works for the “Person on the cover” challenge.

For the “book you bought because of the cover” challenge I have Sirius by Jonathan Crown and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by David Shafer. Gurkha: Better to Die than Live a Coward by Colour Sergeant Kailash Limbu fits the “read about a character that’s very different to you”. This is a non-fiction book but it’s the story of a solider of the Brigade of Gurkhas and I have never been in the army and I don’t really know anything about Gurkhas.

While I’m not sure which book(s) I’ll read outside, I know I will read outside while at my dad’s as I have a spot by the pool in the shade that I always read in. Also, I have eight books on my TBR so theoretically I should be able to read seven of them books during the readathon.

Is anyone else taking part in the BookTubeAThon? Whether you take part or not, I highly recommend checking out the readathon’s discount page here – you can get 10% off all the books listed there with the code “BTAT2017”. I’ve already taken advantage of it – I’ve decided from August I’m going on a book buying ban for at least two months so I’m making the most of it right now!

My Tome Topple Readathon TBR

This readathon is created and co-hosted by ThoughtsonTomes from November 18th till December 1st and the aim of it is to read those huge intimidating books that are over 500 pages long that have been sitting on your shelves for ages.

There’s a few challenges you can try and complete which are below but really the main thing is to read some long books.

The challenges:
1. Read more than 1 tome
2. Read a graphic novel
3. Read a tome that’s part of a series
4. Buddy read a tome (use goodreads and twitter to find buddies!)
5. Read an adult novel

I took part in the (I believe) first Tome Topple Readathon in June and it gave me the push to finally read American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Since then I haven’t really read any more of my big books so this is another chance to read another of my 500+ page books that have been on my shelves for ages.

I like having some choice when it comes readathon’s so here’s the books I’ll maybe be reading in the latter half of this month. There’s two books that I’d really like to read during Tome Topple and those are A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab which has 511 pages and is an adult novel that’s also a part of a series and Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff which has 599 pages and would also fit the part of a series challenge. Naturally if I read both of them I’ll have completed the read more than one tome challenge. I didn’t think I had a graphic novel that’s over 500 pages but turns out Runaways: The Complete Collection Volume 3 by Brian K. Vaughan and others has 528 pages (according to Amazon) so that is definitely on my TBR and will help break up all the many pages I hope to read.

tometoppletbr

As I’m prone to changing my mind when it comes to readathons I’ll also have a couple of other tomes on standby in case I can’t get into Illuminae or A Gathering of Shadows for whatever reason. Those books are The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon which has 531 pages, and fits the adult novel challenge and the tome that’s a part of a series challenge, Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance by Oliver Bowden which has 516 pages, fits the part of a series challenge and I think it’s considered an adult novel, and The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson which has 517 pages, it doesn’t fit any challenge but it has been sitting on my shelves for almost six months and seems like a fun, easy read.

I haven’t said anything about buddy reading yet that’s because while I don’t know anyone who is taking part in #TomeTopple and who are reading the books on my TBR, there’s a Goodreads group where you can discuss popular books so I’ll be checking that out over the weekend to see if anyone else is going to be reading some of my tomes.

Theoretically I should be able to complete all the challenges but like with the first Tome Topple Readathon I’ll be happy if I read one big book.

I’ll probably be tweeting about my progress @ElenaM52 and you can find out more about the readathon and all the co-hosts here. Good luck to all those who are taking part!