Top Ten Tuesday #325

Hi everyone, I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these! The UK is currently melting in a heatwave, and honestly I am just waiting for it to be over, I’m really not a summer person, definitely more of a cool Autumn breeze kind of girl. Still it does mean time reading out the balcony which is one of my favourite things to do so that is an upside. My week has been fairly quiet, but my friend Hannah is coming to visit over the weekend so I’m really excited for that.

Anyway, since it’s Tuesday, I have another Top Ten Tuesday for you all, courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is meant to be Books I Read In One Sitting but honestly even when I was a faster reader than I am, I never really read books in just one sitting. So I decided to twist this topic to suit me better and do Books I Read In Less Than 2 Weeks (which seems to be my average reading time):

1. The Perks of Being A Wallflower-Stephen Chbosky-2 days

Perks is a very short book, under 300 pages so naturally it didn’t take me very long to read. This is one of the rare times where I actually preferred the movie, the book is in an epistolary format and I just don’t get along all that well with those, I find it hard to grasp the narrative.

2. Speak Up!-Laura Coryton-3 days

This one is definitely aimed for much younger readers, but it was a nice quick read and definitely a good introduction to activism for young girls.

3. The Daughter of The Pirate King-Tricia Levenseller-4 days

I always tend to read faster in the summer when I spend hours outside reading. This was a really fun, light read with a great main character and a large dose of humour which made it very engaging. I really do need to get around to the sequel at some point!

4. City of Ghosts-Victoria Schwab-4 days

Middle grade books are always very quick to get through because they’re so short and Victoria Schwab’s middle grade debut was no exception. It was a nice refreshing break from all the dense fantasy that I tend to read, a fun little read with friendship at the heart rather than romance (YA books take note: you could do this too.)

5. Daughter of The Burning City-Amanda Foody-6 days

Another of my post-exam reads, I raced through this one whilst reading out in the sun. This was such a creative story, I loved the combination of the murder mystery in a circus setting and it was a wonderfully atmospheric read. This is one of few YA fantasy books that I actually thought could have benefitted from being a bit longer, because the world building was a little lacking. I don’t think Foody is ever going to do a sequel, but I would love it if she did as I feel there’s a lot more of Gomorrah to be explored.

6. Six of Crows-Leigh Bardugo-7 days

7 days for an almost 500 page book may be quite a long time for most people, but for me that is very quick! I was so addicted to the characters that even though there were definite pacing problems in the beginning, I raced through it and I’m so happy that it was my introduction to the Grishaverse as if I’d started with Shadow and Bone, I’m not sure I would have actually read onto this one? For me, this is definitely still Bardugo’s best book.

7. The Song Rising-Samantha Shannon-7 days

I know Shannon has said this has been her least favourite book to write in The Bone Season series so far, but it has definitely been my favourite to read. It’s much pacier than the rest of the books, and more tightly plotted and just generally worked better for me as a reader. I will admit, having a five hour train journey to Scotland whilst reading this book did help me finish it faster, but I was so engaged with the story, that I didn’t really want to put it down for long.

8. The Exact Opposite of Okay-Laura Steven-7 days

It’s no surprise that this one was a fast read, it’s short and funny and Izzy O’Neill is one of my favourite main characters of any book ever. I’m not usually a massive fan of contemporary YA but occasionally one comes along that’s right up my street and The Exact Opposite of Okay was that for me.

9. Magnus Chase and The Sword of Summer-Rick Riordan-8 days

Again, 8 days might seem like a while for really fast readers, but for me, a 500 odd page book in just over a week is very good. Rick Riordan’s books are always very quick reads for me, they’re funny, pacey, lots of action and I always love the characters, The Sword of Summer was no exception to this.

10. The Lady’s Guide To Petticoats and Piracy-Mackenzi Lee-9 days

Given the length of the chapters in this book, I was quite surprised I finished it as fast as I did (again for me) but the long summer days reading outside definitely helped. It was also the height of lockdown number one, so I didn’t really have anything else to do other than read. I didn’t love this as much as Monty’s book, but I still really enjoyed it, Felicity was great as the main character and I loved how focused on female friendship this book was.

11. Stalking Jack The Ripper-Kerri Maniscalco-10 days

This was an engaging historical murder mystery. I loved Audrey Rose as the heroine, a traditionally feminine women in STEM in a historical fiction book was definitely a protagonist I could get on board with, and whilst I had theories on who the killer was, I didn’t find it super easy to guess, I was on the wrong track for ages.

12. The Language Of Thorns-Leigh Bardugo-10 days

I’m not usually a short story reader, but I loved this collection of folktales from the Grishaverse. I probably could have finished this faster if it hadn’t been for my exams as it was fairly short. It’s such a fun addition to the world Bardugo has created, and I really loved the illustrations, they definitely enhanced the stories.

So there you go, those are some of the Books I Read In Less Than Two Weeks. Have you read any of these? Did you like them? What’s your average reading time? Do you read a lot of books in one sitting? Let me know in the comments!

Next week’s topic is Books I’d Want With Me On A Deserted Island, so that should be a fun one.