Top Ten “To Read Or Not To Read?”

Hello! WELCOME TO TOP TEN TUESDAY 🙂 This is a weekly meme featured on the amazing The Broke and Bookish. This week we have:

Top Ten Books “To Read Or Not To Read?”

 

The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin – Mara Dyer once believed she could run from her past.
She can’t.

She used to think her problems were all in her head.
They aren’t.

She couldn’t imagine that after everything she’s been through, the boy she loves would still be keeping secrets.
She’s wrong.

In this gripping sequel to The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, the truth evolves and choices prove deadly. What will become of Mara Dyer next?’

I READ THE FIRST BOOK, THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER, AND ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. BUT I FEEL LIKES IT’S BEEN TOO LONG, YOU KNOW? I DON’T REALLY HAVE THAT URGE TO READ IT, ESPECIALLY IF IT ISN’T ALL THAT. PLUS, IS IT REALLY WORTH ALL THE DRAMA AND SUSPENSE?

Going Under by S. Walden – Brooke Wright has only two goals her senior year at Charity Run High School: stay out of trouble and learn to forgive herself for the past. Forgiveness proves elusive, and trouble finds her anyway when she discovers a secret club at school connected to the death of her best friend. She learns that swim team members participate in a “Fantasy Slut League,” scoring points for their sexual acts with unsuspecting girls.

Brooke, wracked with guilt over her friend’s death, decides to infiltrate the league by becoming one of the “unsuspecting girls,” and exact revenge on the boys who stole away her best friend. An unexpected romance complicates her plans, and her dogged pursuit of justice turns her reckless as she underestimates just how far the boys will go to keep their sex club a secret.

I THINK THE SYNOPSIS SAYS IT ALL. IT SOUNDS LIKE ONE F*CKED UP BOOK. BUT I’VE HEARD SO MANY RAVING REVIEWS ABOUT IT . . . I’M A LITTLE TORN.

A Different Blue by Amy Harmon – Blue Echohawk doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t know her real name or when she was born. Abandoned at two and raised by a drifter, she didn’t attend school until she was ten years old. At nineteen, when most kids her age are attending college or moving on with life, she is just a senior in high school. With no mother, no father, no faith, and no future, Blue Echohawk is a difficult student, to say the least. Tough, hard and overtly sexy, she is the complete opposite of the young British teacher who decides he is up for the challenge, and takes the troublemaker under his wing.

This is the story of a nobody who becomes somebody. It is the story of an unlikely friendship, where hope fosters healing and redemption becomes love. But falling in love can be hard when you don’t know who you are. Falling in love with someone who knows exactly who they are and exactly why they can’t love you back might be impossible.

I DON’T REALLY KNOW WHY I’M TORN ABOUT READING THIS. THE SYNOPSIS IS INTERESTING AND THE RATINGS AREN’T SHABBY. I’M JUST NOT SURE IF THIS IS SOMETHING THAT WOULD REALLY HOLD MY ATTENTION, THOUGH.

Lover At Last by J. R. Ward – Qhuinn, son of no one, is used to being on his own. Disavowed from his bloodline, shunned by the aristocracy, he has finally found an identity as one of the most brutal fighters in the war against the Lessening Society. But his life is not complete. Even as the prospect of having a family of his own seems to be within reach, he is empty on the inside, his heart given to another….

Blay, after years of unrequited love, has moved on from his feelings for Qhuinn. And it’s about time: The male has found his perfect match in a Chosen female, and they are going to have a young—just as Qhuinn has always wanted for himself. It’s hard to see the new couple together, but building your life around a pipe dream is just a heartbreak waiting to happen. As he’s learned firsthand.

Fate seems to have taken these vampire soldiers in different directions… but as the battle over the race’s throne intensifies, and new players on the scene in Caldwell create mortal danger for the Brotherhood, Qhuinn finally learns the true definition of courage, and two hearts who are meant to be together… finally become one.

SO, I WAS BEYOND EXCITED FOR THIS BOOK. I LIVED AND BREATHED THEIR STORY. BUT WHEN I STARTED LOOKING AT REVIEWS, THAT KIND OF SLOWED DOWN A LITTLE. IT’S ALL OR NOTHING WITH THIS BOOK . . . PEOPLE EITHER LOVED IT OR HATED IT. IT WAS LIKE QUINN & BLAY’S STORY WAS PUT ON THE SIDELINE WHILE OTHER COUPLES STOLE THE SHOW (OR SO THEY SAY). IS IT REALLY WORTH ALL THE DRAMA THAT I HAVE NO DOUBT IS GOING TO BE THERE? ONLY TO READ ABOUT OTHER COUPLES?

There is No Light in Darkness by Claire Contreras – A past hidden in darkness. Her present cloaked in secrets. The future holds the only truth that cannot be escaped.

After the mysterious and violent death of her parents, Blake Brennan finds comfort with an unconventional family. As the dramatic loss of her parents continues to haunt her—and hinders her from reciprocating love that others give freely—Blake embarks on a harrowing journey in search for the truth.

Living in a constant state of fear and need for control, vivid nightmares reveal details that lead to perilous situations. The past begins to collide with the present, and Blake must decide if the truth is worth losing the ones she loves.

Can love conquer all as her past comes to light? Or will Blake realize that there is no light in darkness?

TOO MUCH ANGST? TOO MANY PROBLEMS AND FRUSTRATION? I’M NOT SURE THIS IS MY TYPE OF READ.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon – The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon–when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach–an “outlander”–in a Scotland torn by war and raiding Highland clans in the year of Our Lord…1743.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into intrigues and dangers that may threaten her life…and shatter her heart. For here she meets James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, and becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire…and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

THIS IS ANOTHER ANGSTY ONE. THIS BOOK IS 870 PAGES . . . AND THERE IS, AS OF RIGHT NOW, 9 BOOKS. I DON’T THINK I CAN DO IT.

Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor – Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster’s apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she’ll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

I FEEL LIKE THERE’S NO HOPE. BOOK 1 IS ON MY ‘HOLY GRAIL’ LIST BUT I FEEL LIKE I NEED MORE THAN AN INTERESTING WORLD. I NEED LOVE! MORE SPECIFICALLY, I NEED KAROU & AKIVA’S LOVE AND I DON’T KNOW IF THAT’LL HAPPEN.

Lovely Trigger by R. K. Lilley – THE IMPACT

Tristan hit rock bottom, and no one felt the impact harder than Danika. She was forced to see, in the most brutal of ways, that love does not conquer all. Bruised, bloody, and broken she had to walk away.

THE AFTERMATH

Picking up the pieces of your life after a tragedy is a daunting prospect, and that’s considering you still own all of the pieces. But what if you don’t? What if someone else owns those pieces, and those pieces are a part of your soul?

You dig deep and work with what you’ve got.

That’s what Danika told herself and believed, every single day, for years.

Tristan and Danika’s love had failed every test that life had thrown at them. She couldn’t forget that, not for one second. And if those tests had been overly harsh, well, she wasn’t one to wallow in self-pity. The failure was the thing she had to focus on. The failure was the lesson. She had no intention of working so hard to make it out of hell without learning that lesson well.

THE REUNION

Over six years after the night that changed everything, Danika finds herself forced to spend the weekend constantly in Tristan’s company, as they attend the wedding of two of their dearest friends. It’s been long enough that she feels they can be friendly again without it destroying her peace of mind, but just a small amount of time in his presence has her remembering something she had forced herself to forget: There’d been a reason she’d gone through hell with this man, for this man, some true good to precede the bad.

She shocks herself by quickly giving in to a hunger that she never imagined could still consume her.

Even the best intentioned denial has a breaking point.

THE HARSH REALITY

After everything that’s happened, the rise and the fall, the pain and the aftermath, can these two navigate the waters of acute regret, survive the trials of coming face to face with all that they have lost, and find the strength to try again?

I LOVE R. K. LILLEY. AND HER ‘UP IN THE AIR‘ IS A FAVORITE . . . BUT TRISTAN & DANIKA’S STORY DOESN’T REALLY INTEREST ME 😦 AND THIS SEEMS TO BE ANOTHER LOVE IT OR HATE IT KIND OF BOOK.

A Little Too Far by Lisa Desrochers –Have you ever gone just a little too far?

Lexie Banks has.

Yep. She just had mind-blowing sex with her stepbrother. In her defense, she was on the rebound, and it’s more of a my-dad-happened-to-marry-a-woman-with-a-super-hot-son situation. But still, he’s been her best friend and confidant for the better part of the last few years … and is so off limits. It’s a good thing she’s leaving in two days for a year abroad in Rome.

But even thousands of miles away, Lexie can’t seem to escape trouble. Raised Catholic, she goes to confession in hopes of alleviating some of her guilt … and maybe not burning in hell. Instead, she stumbles out of the confessional and right into Alessandro Moretti, a young and very easy-on-the-eyes deacon … only eight months away from becoming a priest. Lexie and Alessandro grow closer, and when Alessandro’s signals start changing despite his vow of celibacy, she doesn’t know what to think. She’s torn between falling in love with the man she shouldn’t want and the man she can’t have. And she isn’t sure how she can live with herself either way.

THIS HAS ALARM BELLS SCREECHING “LOVE TRIANGLE!! STAY BACK, STAY BACK!!’ IN MY HEAD. I CAN’T STAND FEELING TORN OVER TO LOVE INTEREST . . . GIVES ME COLD SWEATS. BUT THE BLURB IS SO INTERESTINGGGGG *WAILS*

Panic by Lauren Oliver – Panic began as so many things do in Carp, a dead-end town of 12,000 people in the middle of nowhere: because it was summer, and there was nothing else to do.

Heather never thought she would compete in Panic, a legendary game played by graduating seniors, where the stakes are high and the payoff is even higher. She’d never thought of herself as fearless, the kind of person who would fight to stand out. But when she finds something, and someone, to fight for, she will discover that she is braver than she ever thought.

Dodge has never been afraid of Panic. His secret will fuel him, and get him all the way through the game, he’s sure of it. But what he doesn’t know is that he’s not the only one with a secret. Everyone has something to play for.

For Heather and Dodge, the game will bring new alliances, unexpected revelations, and the possibility of first love for each of them—and the knowledge that sometimes the very things we fear are those we need the most.

DOESN’T THAT SOUND INTERESTING? A LITTLE HUNGER GAMES-ISH, BUT INTERESTING NONETHELESS. BUT REVIEWS HAVE ME RETHINKING THIS ONE.

These are books that have, one way or another, grabbed my attention but I’m not sure if they are worth the read. I don’t want to completely wipe them off my list, though, without getting a second opinion 😉

SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK? HAVE YOU READ ANY OF THESE? WHAT DO YOU THINK IS WORTH SAVING FROM THIS LIST? IF NOT, IS THERE ANYTHING HERE THAT HAS GRABBED YOUR INTEREST AND WORTH THE READ? I’D LOVE TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS!

Happy Reading!