Top Ten Tuesday is an original weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. I thought this would be a fun way to share a condensed version of potential rambles and thoughts that I have.

This Week’s Theme:
Top Ten Books On
My Summer 14’ TBR

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 Initial Thoughts:

Your eyes do not deceive you… I’m alive!

Summer is no different than Spring as I’m still backlogged from ARCs from the previous season. It also doesn’t help that I’ve returned to a certain game which eats time so quickly. In better news, summer also means certain movies are coming out and therefore some reading must be done prior to.

All images link back to Goodreads and I’ve provided briefs to support each title.

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The Leisure

The Maze Runner – James Dashner

Thank you to movie trailers for getting the ball rolling with this.

“When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers–boys whose memories are also gone. Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out–and no one’s ever made it through alive. Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.”

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Yes, you’ve read correctly. To all individuals who have chirped me to read this…this is written in the stars now. It will happen.

“Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.”

The Rithmatist – Brandon Sanderson

I will mend a broken promise to read a previous book club book (Jenny Han’s To All The Boys…) with this one. Well…I hope at least. Though I’ve heard some mixed reviews of this, I’m still pretty certain you can never go wrong with anything Sanderson.

“More than anything, Joel wants to be a Rithmatist. Chosen by the Master in a mysterious inception ceremony, Rithmatists have the power to infuse life into two-dimensional figures known as Chalklings. As the son of a lowly chalkmaker at Armedius Academy, Joel can only watch as Rithmatist students study the magical art that he would do anything to practice. Then students start disappearing — kidnapped from their rooms at night, leaving trails of blood. Assigned to help the professor who is investigating the crimes, Joel and his friend Melody find themselves on the trail of an unexpected discovery — one that will change Rithmatics — and their world — forever.”

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Say What You Will – Cammie McGovern

This:

“Born with cerebral palsy, Amy can’t walk without a walker, talk without a voice box, or even fully control her facial expressions. Plagued by obsessive-compulsive disorder, Matthew is consumed with repeated thoughts, neurotic rituals, and crippling fear. Both in desperate need of someone to help them reach out to the world, Amy and Matthew are more alike than either ever realized.

When Amy decides to hire student aides to help her in her senior year at Coral Hills High School, these two teens are thrust into each other’s lives. As they begin to spend time with each other, what started as a blossoming friendship eventually grows into something neither expected.”

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The-Books-I’m-Behind-To-Read-And-Therefore-Ramble-About-So-Thus-Take-Precedence

 

The Lost – Sarah Beth Durst

I’m actually close to finishing this read…and it’s pretty rad. Review to come of this shortly.

“It was supposed to be a small escape. A few hours driving before turning around and heading home. But once you arrive in Lost…well, it’s a place you really can’t leave. Not until you’re Found. Only the Missing Man can send you home. And he took one look at Lauren Chase and disappeared.”

The Truth About Alice – Jennifer Mathieu

I actually don’t remember requesting this…but I think it might have been a Read Now that I impulse clicked. Good comments on this book so far though!

“Everyone has a lot to say about Alice Franklin, and it’s stopped mattering whether it’s true. The rumors started at a party when Alice supposedly had sex with two guys in one night. When school starts everyone almost forgets about Alice until one of those guys, super-popular Brandon, dies in a car wreck that was allegedly all Alice’s fault. Now the only friend she has is a boy who may be the only other person who knows the truth, but is too afraid to admit it.”

Essence – Lisa O’Kane

Pretty sure I just gravitate toward anything that’s remotely post-apocalyptic/dystopian in nature.

“Autumn escaped a cult, but now she realizes she’s fallen into another. Growing up in San Francisco’s Centrist Movement, sixteen year-old Autumn Grace has always believed emotions—adrenaline, endorphins, even happiness—drain your Essence and lead to an early death. But her younger brother’s passing and a run-in with a group of Outsiders casts her faith into question.”

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The Young World – Chris Weitz

Apparently Weitz is of The Golden Compass and Twilight: New Moon fame—news to me. But the premise certainly does sound rather familiar. I hope there isn’t chapters of protagonist depression (yes, I’m referencing to New Moon).

“After a mysterious Sickness wipes out the rest of the population, the young survivors assemble into tightly run tribes. Jefferson, the reluctant leader of the Washington Square tribe, and Donna, the girl he’s secretly in love with, have carved out a precarious existence among the chaos. But when another tribe member discovers a clue that may hold the cure to the Sickness, five teens set out on a life-altering road trip to save humankind.”

Tabula Rasa – Kristen Lippert-Martin

First of all:

“The Bourne Identity meets Divergent in this heart-pounding debut.”

Um, okay…sold.

“Sixteen-year-old Sarah has a rare chance at a new life. Or so the doctors tell her. She’s been undergoing a cutting-edge procedure that will render her a tabula rasa—a blank slate. Memory by memory her troubled past is being taken away. But when her final surgery is interrupted and a team of elite soldiers invades the isolated hospital under cover of a massive blizzard, her fresh start could be her end. Navigating familiar halls that have become a dangerous maze with the help of a teen computer hacker who’s trying to bring the hospital down for his own reasons, Sarah starts to piece together who she is and why someone would want her erased. And she won’t be silenced again.”

Evidence of Things Not Seen – Lindsay Lane

I don’t know what to expect with this one so anything goes. And I found that if that’s the mentality you go into certain books with…you come out enjoying it more than you might think.

“When high school junior Tommy Smythe goes missing, everyone has a theory about what happened to him. Tommy was adopted, so maybe he ran away to find his birth parents. He was an odd kid, often deeply involved in his own thoughts about particle physics, so maybe he just got distracted and wandered off. He was last seen at a pull-out off the highway, so maybe someone drove up and snatched him. Or maybe he slipped into a parallel universe. Tommy believes that everything is possible, and that until something can be proven false, it is possibly true. So as long as Tommy’s whereabouts are undetermined, he could literally be anywhere.”

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Afterthoughts:

Three week pseudo-hiatus is donezo (except not really because I’m still gaming a lot). It also didn’t help that I basically binged all four seasons of Game of Thrones (because after my last TTT post talking about Tyrion being a talk show host…I just had to find out for myself). I am certainly up to talk about GoT now though (no spoils from the book though okaythanksbye).

Here’s to hoping I can start back reading!

Cheers,
Joey