6 Books I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time

Some books improve every time you re-read them. You notice more and more details with every re-read, catch things you didn’t catch the first time, get to know the characters even better. But for some books, nothing is quite like the experience of reading it for the first time. For me, those books feel like literal magic when I read them. I can get lost in them for hours at a time.

And sometimes I wish I could forget the book entirely so I can go back and read it for the first time again.

The Night Circus

The experience of reading The Night Circus was a lot like the experience of falling in love. Discovering the Circus was so enchanting, watching Marcus and Celia fall in love so heart-wrenching, discovering the terms of the bet so devastating. Though I loved re-reading this book (and I think I’ve re-read it twice), I would love to be able to read it for the first time and experience that feeling of falling in love with a book.

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Life of Pi

Life of Pi is a book that is wonderful to analyze on a re-read, and things make more sense and you see where Martel was going and why he wrote what he wrote in each spot. But the ending is such a shock the first time. Some people hate that, but I love it. I hate to reference Twilight, but it’s like the way Meyer describes the whole world re-orienting when the wolf boys imprint, that’s what the end of Life of Pi was about. The whole book flips upside down, and it forces you to question EVERYTHING.

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And Then There Were None

I haven’t re-read And Then There Were None, mostly because I don’t think it would re-read very well. Christie wrote it as an unsolvable mystery, very successfully, I might add. But then she hated to do that to her readers (thank God), so the epilogue explains the whole thing. But I can’t imagine that the reading experience would be quite as exciting now that I know.

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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

I remember my fifth grade teacher reading Harry Potter to us as a class, and just begging her to keep reading each day. I think it must be partly that we experienced it together, partly the charming writing that I’m still enchanted by when I read the first book, and partly that I’d never read anything like it before. I’m still a Harry Potter fan, but I would love to recapture the feeling I had reading it for the first time when I was ten years old, still young enough to imagine that my Hogwarts letter might come, without knowing what all would happen next, and of course without all the baggage that comes with HP in 2021.

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The Scarlet Pimpernel

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a book I’ve read maybe a half dozen times, and loved it every time. But I just remember the first time I read it, HOW exciting it was, HOW MUCH I was desperate to know who the Scarlet Pimpernel was. I remember reading so quickly that the words started to blur, so desperate was I to know what happened next. And like Life of Pi or And Then There Were None, there’s nothing quite like finally finding out who the Scarlet Pimpernel really is. And I just can’t experience that again.

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Ender’s Game

Like with Life of Pi, the shocking ending of Ender’s Game is something that can’t be experienced again. This is yet another book that I’ve re-read again and again and enjoyed it every time, but it lacks that emotional and exciting impact at the end of the first time you read it. Similarly, the companion novel Ender’s Shadow is one that I would love to be able to read for the first time again. Its another of those that makes you re-frame everything you read in the first book.

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Is there a book you wish you could read for the first time again? Why? Let me know in the comments!

Do I Have That Book? Tag

I saw this tag on Kristin Kraves Books forever ago. She always does the most interesting tags! She didn’t tag me, but it was just such an interesting post that I saved it! And then … never got to it. So here we are! This should be interesting because I have a lot of books, but not that much variety. Well, let’s see what happens, shall we?

1. Do you have a book with deckled edges?

Oh, thousands. The first one that comes to mind is Eragon, which I was absolutely obsessed with in high school. Personally I’m not that in to deckled edges (GASP!). I like to play with the pages while I read, and that’s a lot harder to do with deckled edges. But I’m not going to complain about them either.

Calendar Girls April: Favorite Book with a Surprise Ending or Twist

Happy April! I promise I don’t have any April Fools jokes planned for y’all, just some straight-up honest gushing about books.

You guys! Surprise endings or shocking plot twists is one of my absolute favorite things in a book. A big twist gives the book such a wonderful feeling of fun and excitement! A book without any big surprises often falls flat for me. I want a book that can keep me on my toes!

So, obviously, I had a really hard time with this theme because I couldn’t pick just one favorite! Here are some of the amazing contenders that I was thinking of:

• Life of Pi by Yann Martel (OMG THAT ENDING!!!!)
• Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (okay, I was 15, it was shocking at the time…)
• The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy (never saw his identity coming)
  Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (seriously, what even HAPPENED?!?!?!)
• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (if you tell me you saw the love interest coming, then I’m calling you a liar)
• An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green (maybe I would have been less surprise if I’d have known it was a series…)

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In the end I went with a book that a) I’m sure I’ve never used for Calendar Girls before and b) I read before ANY of these books. And, if we’re being honest, it might be the book that MOST shocked the socks off me. Ever. So, without any further ado, my favorite book with a surprise ending is…

Back to School Book Recs

Well folks! It’s official, summer vacation is over. I now have an ENTIRE WEEK of the 2018/2019 school year under my belt, and I am determined to make it a good one.

I heard someone say recently that August feels more like the new year than January, and for me that is so true. I find myself making all kinds of New Year’s Resolutions, about being a teacher and just about life in general. So if your New Year’s Resolution is to read more, or to promote a culture of reading in your family, this is the post for you!

I’m going to be recommending my favorite book for kids in each grade level K-12. I can’t guarantee that each book is going to be right for every kid in the world, but I’m trying to recommend things that I think most kids will like. I’m especially paying attention to books I think would be enjoyed by both boys and girls.

So here we go! Back to school recommendations coming your way.

Elementary

Kindergarten – Hop on Pop

This is kind of a long book, so if you’ve never read anything substantial with your kids before, you might want to ease into this one! I recommend subtly skipping pages in the middle so they feel like they’ve accomplished something big.

What I love about Hop on Pop is that beginning readers can work on their phonics and sight words with the big words at the top of the page, but then parents can read the longer sentences. But by the end of the year they should be able to read everything in this book, with help, of course. I also love how silly and fun this is, perfect for young imaginations! It is impossible to go wrong with Dr. Seuss.

Unforgettable Bookish Memories Tag

I was tagged in this a bajillion years ago by The Orangutan Librarian. If you have somehow never been over there, go today. She’s the BEST. Seriously.

No. 1: The First Book You Ever Read (or was read to you)

Good grief, I don’t know. Probably something by Sandra Boynton. Ever since my son was born my mom has been obsessing about Moo Baa LaLaLa, so I guess she read that to me?

How I Choose My Books Tag

There is basically no rhyme or reason to the way I choose books. Sometimes I take recommendations, sometimes I just spot a book in a store that looks interesting, sometimes I seek out a particular kind of book. So this tag should be fairly interesting! Thanks to The Orangutan Librarian for tagging me!

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Find a book on your shelves or ereader with a blue cover. What made you want to pick up this book?

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
I was actually working at Borders Books when they went out of business, and I got this book during the liquidation sale. 40% off! I wanted to read Sherlock, and this was the first I’d ever seen that was a stand-alone.

The New Disney Princess Book Tag

I saw this book tag on Flavia the Bibliophile, and even though I wasn’t tagged I just had to join in! I’ve really enjoyed the last couple of book tags I’ve done, and I am obsessed with Disney Princesses. Am I also procrastinating on starting a book that’s been on my tbr for way too long because I secretly don’t really want to read it? Maybe.

Rules:

• Mention where you saw the tag/thank whoevver tagged you.
• Tag Zuky’s and Mandy’s posts so they can check out the wonderful Princess fun throughout the blog world (Mandy @ Book Princess Reviews & Zuky @ Book Bum)
• Play a game of tag at the end!

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Snow White

The Book (like the movie) That Started It All
Favorite Debut Book From an Author

Mmmmm, so hard to pick, but probably The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I mean, it’s just one of my favorite books period. It’s so romantic and dreamlike. I wish Le Cirque des Rêves was a real place.

Review: Zoe’s Tale

Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi

Series: Old Man’s War
Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction
Maturity Level: 3
View on Goodreads
Rating: ⋆⋆

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How do you tell your part in the biggest tale in history?

I ask because it’s what I have to do. I’m Zoe Boutin Perry: A colonist stranded on a deadly pioneer world. Holy icon to a race of aliens. A player (and a pawn) in a interstellar chess match to save humanity, or to see it fall. Witness to history. Friend. Daughter. Human. Seventeen years old.

Everyone on Earth knows the tale I am part of. But you don’t know my tale: How I did what I did — how I did what I had to do — not just to stay alive but to keep you alive, too. All of you. I’m going to tell it to you now, the only way I know how: not straight but true, the whole thing, to try make you feel what I felt: the joy and terror and uncertainty, panic and wonder, despair and hope. Everything that happened, bringing us to Earth, and Earth out of its captivity. All through my eyes.

It’s a story you know. But you don’t know it all.

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My dad gave me this book for Christmas, I think because he knows that I think Ender’s Shadow is one of sci-fi literature’s great achievements. But I think that my dad forgot two key things about Ender’s Shadow. 1) Though you CAN enjoy Ender’s Shadow on its own, its true genius is best appreciated after you have already read Ender’s Game. 2) Orson Scott Card is one of a kind.

Zoe’s Tale is similar in that it is based on a series, but told from a different character’s point of view. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Zoe’s Tale reads more like a young adult book than science fiction. The writing is so-so at best, and it’s utterly predictable. The character of Zoe is pretty stock, and all of the sarcasm (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) got pretty redundant by the end of the book. I mean, seriously, did EVERY SINGLE character have to be sarcastic, sassy, and full of attitude? Maybe Scalzi’s original series, Old Man’s War, is better, but based on this book I can definitely say I’m not going to read it.