So
I don’t do Top Ten Tuesday every week, mostly because I am so incredibly rubbish
at keeping to any kind of posting schedule ever because I just suck, so it
always gets to Thursday and I realise it was a really good theme this week and I
kick myself.
Not actually, because ouch, but you know, metaphorically.
Anyway, their theme
this week is a summer freebie which is nothing if not fortuitous because last
night I was messaging with The Gals (which is the unique and very inspired name
me and two of my friends have for each other) last night about our forthcoming
weekend away in the sun (HURRY UP JULY) and my pal Hol asked me for holiday
book recs.
Which, OH HELLO LET ME THROW THESE BOOKS IN YOUR FACE.
Which, OH HELLO LET ME THROW THESE BOOKS IN YOUR FACE.
Metaphorically
again, this girl is one of my faves; I would NEVER actually throw a book in her
face.
Anyway, it got me to thinking, what
books would I read on the beach? If I wasn’t as a big a reader as I am (which
totally might be the case in some terrible parallel universe) which books would
it be nice to read for the first time in the sunshine? So I did the
metaphorical throwing and then I thought OOOOH BLOG POST LET’S MAKE A LIST and
then I looked at the TTT post and high fived myself.
So here, have at it – a list of books
you could read on holiday if you were my friend Hol and wanted something fairly
light and a bit funny but with a good story and not too romantic but a bit
girlie. With quotes so you can see how pretty they are. #seducemewithprettywords
Obviously I'm going to mention Eleanor and Park because I heart that book so hard and it’s so lovely and the words are just gorgeous and I just love it and I want everybody to read it.
“Bono met his wife in high school," Park says."So did Jerry Lee Lewis," Eleanor answers."I’m not kidding," he says."You should be," she says, "we’re sixteen.""What about Romeo and Juliet?""Shallow, confused, then dead.”"I love you, Park says."Wherefore art thou," Eleanor answers."I’m not kidding," he says."You should be.”
SO MUCH PRETTY.
And then, you know, if we’re talking about
Rainbow Rowell then Landline is a
good choice.
It’s quirky and the whole time travel element is excellent and it has all these excellent pop culture references and it’s funny and a really nice easy read. It’s about this girl who thinks her marriage is in trouble and doesn’t know what to do about it until she accidentally finds a way to communicate with her husband in the past and it’s a really cool concept and of course it’s Rainbow so it has these words that make you feel like she’s INSIDE YOUR HEAD.
“She thought of ... the way he never made her feel crazy, even when she was acting crazy, and never made her feel like a failure, even when she was failing.”
I mean that, right? THAT. Those feelings are MY FEELINGS AND HOW DOES SHE HAVE THEM.
It’s quirky and the whole time travel element is excellent and it has all these excellent pop culture references and it’s funny and a really nice easy read. It’s about this girl who thinks her marriage is in trouble and doesn’t know what to do about it until she accidentally finds a way to communicate with her husband in the past and it’s a really cool concept and of course it’s Rainbow so it has these words that make you feel like she’s INSIDE YOUR HEAD.
“She thought of ... the way he never made her feel crazy, even when she was acting crazy, and never made her feel like a failure, even when she was failing.”
I mean that, right? THAT. Those feelings are MY FEELINGS AND HOW DOES SHE HAVE THEM.
Also this conversation. I think I’ve had it:
You can't make me do anything. I'm an adult. And I'm much stronger than you."
"Upper body strength isn't everything; I have wiles."
"Not really."
"Yes, I do. I'm a woman. Women have wiles."
"Some women. It's not like every woman is born wily."
"If I don't have wiles, she said, "how come I can get you to do most anything I want?"
"You don't get me to do anything. I just do things. Because I love you."
"Oh."
"Christ, Georgie, don't sound so disappointed.”
Love, Nina makes this little list (which by the way i made in a frenzied 5 minutes) because oh hello there glorious book that ticks all the boxes and I want to be friends with Nina Stibbe and reading this book makes you feel like you’re having a catch up with a really good friend and there’s a little bit of romance with Nunney and it’s more than a bit funny – it’s laugh out loud funny - and I’m all about the epistolary books anyhow but it just means this book flies past because you can sort of dip in and out. S’really quite quite fabulous. Also Nina is me and I am Nina:
“I’ll think about going (to yoga). But I’m not sure I want to be that relaxed. I am who I am and I might not do so well as a relaxed person.”
“I’ll think about going (to yoga). But I’m not sure I want to be that relaxed. I am who I am and I might not do so well as a relaxed person.”
STEPHANIE PLUM.
Oh God, Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books are made for the beach. They’re so easy to read and they’re so funny (Grandma Mazur anyone) and Stephanie’s love life is most readable about even if you’re cringing sometimes and she’s, well, she’s the bounty hunter version of most of us I think.
She has this nuts family and a hamster and these two guys she has this crush on and she eats shite – so much junk food oh my God I think she’s a Gilmore – she’s just, light relief. The lightest relief. I love her. If I was a bounty hunter I would be her and these books are so easy to read omg. SO easy.
I mean it’s kind of ridiculous because I won’t lie: there are probably millions of books that are better than these books but fuck me who cares. If guilty pleasure was a thing I even believed in (which it isn’t because DO NOT FEEL GUILTY FOR THE THINGS THAT MAKE YOUR LITTLE HEART SMILE) then these books would be mine I reckon.
“Nothing Personal? You've harrassed my mother, stolen my car, and now you're telling people I've gotten you pregnant! In my opinion, getting someone pregnant is pretty fucking personal! Jesus, isn't it enough I'm accused of murder? What are you the bounty hunter from hell?”
“My body is not designed to run. My body was designed to sit in an expensive care and drive.”
You know what else I love and that I think would be a lovely beachy read? The Time Traveller's Wife because holy pretty love story type book, batman. I think I read it in the summer actually which is probably where that comes from. It’s just lush isn’t it, that book. Or of you haven’t read it then trust me. It is; the premise is this: Clare and Henry meet when Clare is 6 and Henry is 36 and they get married when Clare is 23 and Henry is 31 and this is totes possibly because Henry has this disorder that causes his genetic clock to reset and move him forwards and backwards in time and it is one of the most beautiful love stories ever written.
Think for a minute, darling: in fairy tales it's always the children who have the fine adventures. The mothers have to stay at home and wait for the children to fly in the window.”
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry,
and then also The Love Song of Miss Queenie
Hennessey which is the same story in reverse because, well, because I firmly believe
everybody will be a better person for meeting these two. These books moved me. They're beautiful. Except there’s not so
much of the happy there is there. There is a lot of heart-wrenching sad
actually but it's that bittersweet kind of sad. The kind of sad that makes you glad regardless. Harold walks the length of England to hand
deliver a letter to Queenie. Queenie is sick and in a hospice and she’s
waiting. These books, both of them, are beautiful. I preferred Queenie, but that's only my opinion. And I think you could read either of them first.
“All these years I thought a piece of my life was missing. But it was there all along. It was there when I sat beside you in your car and you began to drive. It was there when I sang backwards and you laughed or I made a picnic and you ate every crumb. It was there when you told me you liked my brown suit, when you opened the door for me, when you asked once if I would like to take the long road home. It came later in my garden. When I looked at the sun and saw it glow on my hands. When a rosebud appeared where there had not been one before. It was in the people who stopped and talked of this and that over the garden wall. And just when I thought my life was done, it came time and time again at the hospice. It has been everywhere, my happiness – when my mother sang for me to dance, when my father took my hand to keep me safe – but it was such a small, plain thing that I mistook it for something ordinary and failed to see. We expect our happiness to come with a sign and bells, but it doesn’t.”
“All these years I thought a piece of my life was missing. But it was there all along. It was there when I sat beside you in your car and you began to drive. It was there when I sang backwards and you laughed or I made a picnic and you ate every crumb. It was there when you told me you liked my brown suit, when you opened the door for me, when you asked once if I would like to take the long road home. It came later in my garden. When I looked at the sun and saw it glow on my hands. When a rosebud appeared where there had not been one before. It was in the people who stopped and talked of this and that over the garden wall. And just when I thought my life was done, it came time and time again at the hospice. It has been everywhere, my happiness – when my mother sang for me to dance, when my father took my hand to keep me safe – but it was such a small, plain thing that I mistook it for something ordinary and failed to see. We expect our happiness to come with a sign and bells, but it doesn’t.”
And I know The Girl With All The Gifts
is the opposite of what we’re talking about here but I think I’ve made some
kind of blood oath wherein I have to rec it at every available opportunity
because I just can’t help myself. & that is all I am going to say because I
never say anything other than this book is fucking incredible and THAT IS
SWEARING and if you don’t read it then you’re doing life wrong, frankly.
There’s John Green. Not TFiOS because
nobody wants wet neck on a beach but his others, definitely. He’s an easy read, Mr. Green, and
I still totally want to be his friend. I feel like it's perhaps not cool to like John Green sometimes but I say to you this: I have never cared about being cool and John Green is relevant and his books, actually, are very much worth reading. So there. Read them. Will
Grayson, Will Grayson is a good one, or Paper
Towns. Yes perhaps Paper Towns and
the hunt for Margo.
“Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean, look at it, Q: look at all those culs-de-sac, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.”
“Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean, look at it, Q: look at all those culs-de-sac, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.”
A Court of Thorns and Roses ticks lots
of beachy boxes. I mean my thoughts on this series as a whole have changed with
every book and I have thoughts and feelings that I keep meaning to get down on
paper but there’s no denying there’s an interesting Beauty and the Beast story
here and Maas creates an excellent world and I flew through this book. I really really enjoyed it and for an easy read, some pure escapism, well, you could do worse than Sarah J. Maas.
And I just realised it’s Wednesday. Fuck’s
sake. You know what. I’m posting this anyway. Talk at me please - gimme all your summer recs.
Also the formatting is a mess on this post and I can't work out why so I totally apologise for the weird text and the fact that all of this is less than aesthetically pleasing.
