Ash Reads Stuff

Ah, sweet summertime! I love that this week's Top Ten Tuesday is books to read at the beach/pool. I, however, do most of my reading on my couch. So. I'm going to list some of my favorite easy reads and maybe some books I have on my To Be Read list. (There are so many on my TBR list, it's not even funny.) Anywho, here we go. Favorite Reads:        To Be Read:  There are just a few of the books I'm looking forward to reading this summer and some of the books I could read over and over. I'm hoping to do another book club with The Husband's Secret . I just finished one with Little Fires Everywhere  and it was fun.  What's on your summer TBR?  I've also started watching One Tree Hill from the beginning again, so. We'll see how this reading goes.  Happy reading! 

In a Perfect World  by Trish Doller Publication Date: May 23, 2017 Pages:  294 (hardcover) Genre: Young Adult My Goodreads Rating: 3.5 Stars Goodreads Synopsis: Caroline Kelly is excited to be spending her summer vacation working at the local amusement park with her best friend, exploring weird Ohio with her boyfriend, and attending soccer camp with the hope she’ll be her team’s captain in the fall. But when Caroline’s mother is hired to open an eye clinic in Cairo, Egypt, Caroline’s plans are upended. Caroline is now expected to spend her summer and her senior year in a foreign country, away from her friends, her home, and everything she’s ever known. With this move, Caroline predicts she’ll spend her time navigating crowded streets, eating unfamiliar food, and having terrible bouts of homesickness. But when she finds instead is a culture that surprises her, a city that astounds her, and a charming, unpredictable boy who challenges everything she thought s...

Blackhearts  by Nicole Castroman Publication Date:  February 9, 2016 Pages: 384 (hardcover) Genre: Young Adult  My Goodreads Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Synopsis: Blackbeard the pirate was known for striking fear in the hearts of the bravest of sailors. But once he was just a young man who dreamed of leaving his rigid life behind to chase adventure in faraway lands. Nothing could stop him—until he met the one girl who would change everything. Edward "Teach" Drummond, son of one of Bristol's richest merchants, has just returned from a year-long journey on the high seas to find his life in shambles. Betrothed to a girl he doesn’t love and sick of the high society he was born into, Teach dreams only of returning to the vast ocean he’d begun to call home. There's just one problem: convincing his father to let him leave and never come back. Following her parents' deaths, Anne Barrett is left penniless and soon to be homeless. Though she’s barely work...

The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan Publication Date: May 3, 2016 Pages: 384 (harcover) Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy My Goodreads Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Synopsis: How do you punish an immortal? By making him human. After angering his father Zeus, the god Apollo is cast down from Olympus. Weak and disorientated, he lands in New York City as a regular teenage boy. Now, without his godly powers, the four-thousand-year-old deity must learn to survive in the modern world until he can somehow find a way to regain Zeus's favour. But Apollo has many enemies - gods, monsters and mortals who would love to see the former Olympian permanently destroyed. Apollo needs help, and he can think of only one place to go . . . an enclave of modern demigods known as Camp Half-Blood. My Review:  A couple of things before we get started:  1. I'm under the influence of cold medicine.  2. Rick is one of my favorite authors so I'm physica...

I'm always happy and/or excited when I remember to participate in The Broke and the Bookish' s weekly Top Ten Tuesday . This week was a freebie, so I chose my favorite sequels. Here we go! I pretty much read The Lost Hero  thinking "WHERE'S PERCY?" the entire time.  So many answers! I loved it.  I loved hearing Adam's story. (I also apparently love Gayle Forman.)  Like I could have a list without Harry on it?  These words. The best.  Three words for you: MORE. LOGAN. ECHOLLS.  I know it's not really a sequel, but I loved seeing St. Clair and Anna again.  Swoons.  No, I didn't skip a book. It never existed.  Can I have the third one now?  Anywho, thanks for checking out my list and be sure to check out these books! Only you should probably read the first ones...first. 

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira Publication Date: September 29, 2015 Pages: 352 (paperback) Genre: Young Adult  My Goodreads Rating: 3.5 Stars Goodreads Synopsis:  It begins as an assignment for English class: Write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because her sister, May, loved him. And he died young, just like May did. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to people like Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Amelia Earhart, Heath Ledger, and more -- though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating new friendships, falling in love for the first time, learning to live with her splintering family. And, finally, about the abuse she suffered while May was supposed to be looking out for her. Only then, once Laurel has written down the truth about what happened to herself, can she truly begin to accept what happened to May. And only when Laurel has begun to see her si...

Liars, Inc. by Paula Stokes Publication Date: March 24, 2015 Pages: 268 (kindle) Genre: Young Adult/Mystery My Goodreads Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Synopsis: It all starts with one little lie… Max Cantrell has never been a big fan of the truth, so when the opportunity arises to sell lies to his classmates, it sounds like a good way to make a little money and liven up a boring senior year. With the help of his friends Preston and Parvati, Max starts a business providing forged permission slips and cover stories for the students of Vista Palisades High. Liars, Inc. they call it. Suddenly everybody needs something and the cash starts pouring in. Who knew lying could be so lucrative? When Preston wants his own cover story to go visit a girl he met online, Max doesn’t think twice about hooking him up. Until Preston never comes home. Then the evidence starts to pile up—terrifying clues that lead the cops to Preston’s body. Terrifying clues that point to Max as the murderer. Ca...

The Bright Effect by Autumn Doughton & Erica Cope Publication Date: November 16, 2015 Genre: Young Adult My Goodreads Rating: 5 Stars Goodreads Synopsis:  “Maybe promises are supposed to hurt a little.” Amelia Bright has lots of plans for the future, and none of them involve falling for a guy like Sebastian Holbrook. With a questionable reputation and an attitude to match, he’s exactly the kind of guy Amelia promised herself she’d avoid. But after an encounter that leaves her charged and breathless, she can’t stop wondering about him and the secrets he keeps hidden behind that tough exterior. Sebastian knows firsthand that every single choice has a consequence and how a fragile promise can shape a life. Now that his mother is gone and he’s raising his little brother on his own, he’s all but given up on a future for himself. Struggling to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads, Sebastian doesn’t have time for games or girls. So why can’t he shake though...

The Rest of Us Just Live Here  by Patrick Ness Publication Date : October 6, 2015 Pages:  336 (hardcover) Genre: Young Adult My Goodreads Rating: 3 Stars Goodreads Synopsis:  What if you aren t the Chosen One? The one who s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death? What if you re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again. Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week s end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life. Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions. My Review: A few years ago I read The Knife of Never Letting Go  series by Patrick Ness and was pretty impressed. I loved the fact that the story was written in the language of a young boy and that, ev...

Black Widow: Forever Red by Margaret Stohl Publication Date: October 13, 2015 Pages: 401 (hardcover) Genre: Young Adult My Goodreads Rating:  3.5 Stars Goodreads Synopsis: Enter the world of the Avengers' iconic master spy Natasha Romanoff is one of the world's most lethal assassins. Trained from a young age in the arts of death and deception, Natasha was given the title of Black Widow by Ivan Somodorov, her brutal teacher at the Red Room, Moscow's infamous academy for operatives. Ava Orlova is just trying to fit in as an average Brooklyn teenager, but her life has been anything but average.The daughter of a missing Russian quantum physicist, Ava was once subjected to a series of ruthless military experiments-until she was rescued by Black Widow and placed under S.H.I.E.L.D. protection. Ava has always longed to reconnect with her mysterious savior, but Black Widow isn't really the big sister type. Until now. When children all over Eastern E...

This week is a FREEBIE Top Ten Tuesday , a weekly feature on from The Broke and the Bookish . I haven't done one in a while simply because they just weren't topics I could really get into...but also because I forgot. School is back in full swing now and I'm starting to get back to teacher life. Since that's happening I decided to go with my Top Ten Favorite Children's Books for this post. I love Harry Potter big. Like, way big. There are things in this series that I'll probably never get over and things I still need to know. I also don't believe that Harry Potter is just for kids. It's magic, who doesn't love magic?  My feelings about Percy Jackson are fairly similar to those of Harry Potter. This series is all about Greek mythology from the point of view of the snarkiest kid on the planet. But seriously, watching Percy grow through all ten (YES, TEN) of the series and companion series books is so, so awesome.  Skippyjon is my favo...