This post will be short and sweet, but titles are something that give me joy! And these days, I take any little piece of joy I can get. For this I specifically chose “long” book titles, which I defined to myself to be longer than five words. I was going to do many different lengths but the post was kinda getting out of hand haha.

Sometimes book titles are very obvious in how they connect to the story, and sometimes they have like a secret meaning that you don’t get until you read further in. I love both styles of title! How do authors come up with such amazing titles? I feel like it’s a gift. Anyway enough of me rambling about titles, here’s my list of favs!

• The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (by Becky Chambers)
• The House in the Cerulean Sea (by T.J. Klune, my review here)
• Down Among the Sticks and Bones (by Seanan McGuire, Shari’s review here)
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (by Robert Louis Stevenson)
• When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (by Nghi Vo, my review here)
• The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water (by Zen Cho)
• A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe (by Alex White, my review here)
• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (by Douglas Adams)
• The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You (by Lily Anderson)
• An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth (by Chris Hadfield)
• Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day (by Seanan McGuire)
• Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur an Aliebn Too (by Jomny Sun)

What are some of your favorite book titles?

Guess what? Yes, it’s my birthday! I was looking for fun tags to do and I found this one from Antonia @ Always Books. So let’s get started!

1) Birthday Cake (A book with a plot that seems cliché but you adore it anyway)

Hmm I think it’s not so much the plot – because that was pretty novel – but the general idea of urban fantasy, and the kickass heroine. But the Kate Daniels series! I think the basic idea of warrior girl fights bad guys and there’s werewolves and vampires is a pretty cliché premise, but oh man you guys! This series is so much more than that basic premise. Even the werewolves and vampires are totally not like what you’d think. And Kate herself is THE BEST. So yeah. I love this series haha. Also – there’s nothing wrong with loving cliché things!

You know what’s absolutely RIDICULOUS? The fact that it is literally the year 2020 right now. How did that happen?? It’s the twenties now!! Again. Time to bring back the roaring twenties I guess. And that means it’s also time to take a look back at the books I read in 2019! I love sharing my top books, obviously, but I’m including a little bit more about authors I discovered and etc because how can you encapsulate an entire year in just a list of your top ten books?? Answer: you can’t. So here’s just a bunch of stuff about the books I read this year!

Jana (That Artsy Reader Girl) hosts the Top Ten Tuesday tag, and while looking at the topics (and her blog) I found this fun book tag! To be honest I don’t love Christmas songs haha. Mostly just because they’re overplayed – however! I love seeing the ideas/prompts that came out of each of these songs.

She answered her questions with books that she read this year, which I think is a great idea so I’m going to do that as well! As much as I can anyway.

1. “All I Want for Christmas Is You”: Favorite bookish couple.

Okay I’m going to do two, one that is non-spoilery and one that is kinda spoilery. I don’t know how to make the text secret so the spoiler one will just be at the end of this section.

So the non-spoiler one! Josh and Hazel from Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating!! I love each of their personalities separately and I love even more how they are with each other.

SPOILERS FOR THE OCTOBER DAYE SERIES!!!!

(I love Toby and Tybalt!!!!!! I knew from the first book it would happen and when it finally did I was so happy).

END SPOILERS.

2. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”: Name a book where a character is away from home (school, vacation, etc.).

Gideon the Ninth! By Tamsyn Muir. Takes place at a semi-creepy crumbling down house (think more like mansion) where they can’t leave or contact anyone on the outside!

3. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”: Name your favorite “little” book (children’s book, short story, novella, etc.).

Way back at the beginning of the year I read The Test, a novella by Sylvain Neuvel. It was an easy 5 stars from me! It’s definitely better to go into it not knowing much, but it’s a really great sci-fi/dystopian novella.

4. “Santa Claus is Coming to Town“: What book(s) do you hope Santa brings you this year?

SOooooooo many. The new box set of the first three books in the Expanse series, Senlin Ascends, A Labyrinth of Scions and Sorcery.…I could go on forever haha.

5. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”: Which book turned your nose red (made you cry)?

Magic of Blood and Sea by Cassandra Rose Clarke! It’s not really a sad book at all haha it’s just that some of the scenes reminded me a lot of certain emotions I was dealing with at the time.

6. “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”: Your favorite book/kind of book to read during the holidays.

I’m not too much of a mood reader but I like being able to read series over the holidays! Since I have a lot of free time to binge read whole series haha. So I think this upcoming holiday season I’m going to continue the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire! I binge read the first 6 books in early October (whoa, how fitting for her name – didn’t even realize that at the time) so now I’m ready to continue Toby’s journey.

7. “We Three Kings”: Your favorite trilogy.

I didn’t actually read/finish many trilogies this year! But I did read The Queen of Sorrow which was the third in the Queens of Renthia trilogy. This is a super underrated adult fantasy trilogy that I love! And this installment was amazing.

8. “Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow”: A character you would love to be snowed in with.

I’m cheating and I’m gonna pick a group of characters rather than just one – I pick the characters from A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe! It would definitely be an entertaining day with all of them.

9. “Last Christmas”: A book that seriously let you down.

Circle of Shadows by Evelyn Skye 🙁 I loved the premise of this one! But it just really fell flat for me and it’s one of the rare books that I actually dislike (rather than feel ambivalent towards).

10. “White Christmas”: An upcoming release you’re dreaming about.

Probably The Shadow Saint! I still haven’t finished the first book (The Gutter Prayer) but the first half of it was AMAZING so I’m already looking forward to the second book! And I already have it preordered too haha.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my choices! And if you haven’t read these, I hope you check them out 🙂

You know what they say, April showers bring May flowers right? Well, regardless, New Jersey seems to be taking the “April showers” to heart because we’ve been having a lot of rain lately, and there’s a lot in the forecast. What a perfect time to talk about rainy day reads! Honestly for me anything is a rainy day read. I love being cozy inside with a candle and blanket, reading a book while it rains outside. But I’m gonna pick a few today that to me give off the vibe of a gloomy but ultimately happy day.

And thank you to Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl for hosting/organizing Top Ten Tuesday!