Double-Stacked Bookshelves

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and it's a way to share what you're loving in list form. The topic changes every week, so there is always something new to discover! This week's topic is:  Top Ten Characters That I Just Didn't Click With .  Oh...a doozy!  Here are mine: Rosemary from Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin I didn't not feel bad for Rosemary at all.  I felt her character was weak and so wishy-washy.  Ugh.  This could, undoubtedly, be due to the fact that the book was written in the 60s...alas. Emma from Emma by Jane Austen Oh, Emma.  My least favorite Austen character, and book, by far.  She's whiny, manipulative, and snooty.  She didn't deserve John at all! Celia and Marco from The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern I just couldn't bring myself to believe or really even care for either of theses characters.  While I did like Marco more than Celia, neither impressed me t...

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and it's a way to share what you're loving in list form. The topic changes every week, so there is always something new to discover! This week's topic is:  Top Ten Books That Celebrate Diversity/Diverse Characters .  Such a great topic!  Here's my list: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky   Cinder by Marissa Meyer The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie   The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon   Life of Pi by Yann Martel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini Golden Boy by Tara Sullivan The Help by Kathryn Stockett   The Passion  by Jeanette Winterson Eleanor & Park   by Rainbow Rowell What are some of your favorite books that highlight diversity? Also, look for next week's top ten:  Characters Who Are Fellow Book Nerds ...

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and it's a way to share what you're loving in list form. The topic changes every week, so there is always something new to discover! This week's topic is:  Top Ten Characters I'd Like to Check in With .  Now, I could probably fill this entire list with Harry Potter characters, but I'm not going to do that!  Here's who I'd like to catch up with... Every single character from Harry Potter .  See what I did there?  Yeah! Leisel Meminger from  The Book Thief Charlotte and Zachariah from The  True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle Francie Nolan from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Piscine "Pi" Patel from Life of Pi Anne, Diana, and Gilbert from Anne of Green Gables Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series Skeeter, Abilene, and Minnie from The Help Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice Margaret Hale and John Thornton from No...

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and it's a way to share what you're loving in list form. The topic changes every week, so there is always something new to discover! This week's topic is:  Character Driven Novels .  Characters, to me, make the story.  Yeah, a good plot is necessary, but it's the characters that most readers connect to.  For me, these are my top ten recommendations for character driven novels: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak A brilliantly sensitive book placed against the backdrop of WWII.  The story revolves around Liesel Meminger and her adoptive parents in a small German town. The Help by Kathryn Stockett This is a fantastic book.  The characters are fleshed out and stand for something...even if you don't agree with their stance. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin This really needs no explanation.  It's full of well-developed characters.  So many characters! Li...

Getting back into the swing of things has taken a bit of effort on my part.  It seems that, with everything going on outside of the blogging world, my poor blog has taken a tragic hit.  I've been so neglectful of consistent posting...though I do have several (perhaps ten or so) drafts in the works to be edited.  Wow.  So, to help aid my way back into consistent blogging, I'm participating in this week's edition of "Why I Love".  I've been participating in this blogging meme for a while now, but have missed weeks recently.  However, here's my attempt at getting back in the groove!  This week's topic is Favorite Series . There are so many series that I absolutely love.  The Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich, Harry Potter by JK Rowling, Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan...and on and on.  But I'm not going to talk about any of those, mainly because I've written about every single one of them in some capa...

"A snowball to the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship." The Book Thief Most people have no idea who Liesel Meminger is, but those who have read Markus Zusak's The Book Thief   would probably rate her among one of the best characters in the book, if not most books.  For that reason alone, she is my Favorite Character . Liesel...how do I even describe her?!  She lives in a time and place that most of us would shudder at...Nazi Germany.  After her younger brother's death, her mother sends her to a small town in Germany in order to keep her safe.  She is fostered by Hans and Rosa Hubermann, who happen to live, fittingly, on Himmel Strasse (Heaven Street).  We come to see Liesel and how she interacts with her foster parents and the other citizens in the area.  She even becomes friends with a fist-fighting Jew who hides in her basement.  It is during her time in this town that Liesel develops, or hones, her knack of stealing...