I am so excited to say I will be graduating in a few weeks. The thing that excites me the most is I can begin to concentrate on my writing career again. I have several books that are sitting in rough-draft-form that just need a bit more love and attention before I share them with everyone.

With that being said, college may have slowed down my writing process, but because of the wonderful invention of audiobooks and the an app from the library that enables me to listen to as many as I want, my reading life hasn’t suffered too much.

As the title of this post says, I would like to introduce to you some of the books I’ve come to love. According to my goodreads profile I’ve read 104 books this year, of course I counted some short stories that I’ve had to read for a fiction class I’m taking. A couple have been rereads. They have mostly been audio, as I don’t have much time to sit down and read this. With that being said, I’d like to go through a few of my favorite books.

Of course, I cannot give a blog a punish title without referencing the book I punned. So the first on this list is “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” by Jenny Hann. I’ve read everything that she’s written to date and I have to say TATBILB is in the top favorites by her. I  read this book way before the movie was ever optioned, and was so excited when Netflix made it. I think they did a great job recreating this book. Another story I love probably more than TATBILB, by Hann, is the “Burn for Burn” Trilogy. Hann cowrote this with Shioban Vivian. It’s a little different than her other writing, but it is well worth the read.

The next story I’d like to talk about was a reread for me this year. Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver. I first read this when it came out in 2015. This is one story that has stuck with me. Sometimes when I read a story that has a big twist, I like to reread it to see all the clues I missed the first time around. And that was what I did when I picked this up. The first time I read this it was in hardback form and this year I listened to the audiobook. This is about two girls that go missing one summer. This story follows the sister of one of those girls. If you like a good YA mystery, I highly recommend picking this one up.

I first read this next book in 2013, The Sea of Tranquility by Katya Millay. This is one I keep going back to. Again, I first read it on Kindle and revisited it two or three times. Then this summer it was Audible’s deal of the day I grabbed it without hesitation and listened to the audiobook when I was at the beach this summer. I love the story of Josh and Nastya. Both had had some tragic things happen to them, they are loners, but the same thing that makes them keep people away is the same thing that draws them together. It’s beautifully written. There are some great lines in there that I love, for instance, “There are so many things that can break you if there is nothing to hold you together.” I understand sometimes a person may only have one great story in them, but I can’t say I’m not disappointed that Millay hasn’t written another book.

One book I’ve read more times than The Sea of Tranquility, is The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. This was the first book that made me fall in love with reading and inspired me to write my first story too. Imagine my excitement when my thirteen year old daughter had to read it for school.

These books don’t even scratch the surface of books that I’ve loved, but I’d be here all day if I talked about everyone one of them. Let me know some of your favorites I’d love to add them to my tbr.