Welcome fellow readers, to the word nerd.
Hi fellow book people! Welcome back to my blog! If you’ve been here before you’ve likely come to read about travel adventures or disney, but I’ve decided to delve back into blogging in the world of books for now…and I’m pretty excited about it! I hope you’ll join me on this reading journey and read along with me! I do think I’ll be travel blogging again one day, but once my travels resume, be sure to check back for those entries, for now, let’s talk about books!
Today’s topic is…books that got me back into reading!
I know what you are thinking, you’ve been reading for over a year now, why do I care about what books got you back into reading? Because I hope that this list helps someone out there who is wanting to get back into the book world!
When I was in grade school, and even throughout high school, reading was always an escape for me. I devoured juicy romance books (probably soon before I should have been) and got whisked away to fantasy worlds as often as I had time for (looking at you Harry Potter and Immortal Instruments worlds!) However, as life got busy, books started to take back stage and I no longer found myself reading for fun anymore. Instead I was pouring over text books thicker than my thighs and spending hours poured over the tax code and learning about corporate formations and estate laws.
Now that the school period of my life is behind me, I was ready to delve back into reading books that didn’t make me want to rip my eyeballs out with something quite blunt. But, where to start?
I honestly had been outside of the book world for so long I had no idea what was trending or popular any more. I’ve been a member of BOTM (book of the month club) since mid-way through law school, but I had been just collecting whatever cover spoke to me that month and then hiding it away until it was time to move, when I then again packed up these beautiful covered books until I finally got the motivation to crack one open…
So, how did I go from reading one book a year to devouring 2-3 a week you might ask? Let’s start with the three books that lit a fire within my soul and reminded me that I absolutely ADORED finding a good book to gush over with a friend.
The Gateway Book – The Romance
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood was my ‘gateway’ book that got me hooked on books again, so to say. Although upon further review this mighttttt have not been the greatest work of literature, but it is so easy and fun to read! The plot is cute and the love interest is even cuter. I adore reading about women in STEM and loved absolutely every moment of this book! If you are a romance reader (or think you want to be one) I absolutely recommend that you check this book out!
The Gateway Book – The Fantasy
“I was as unburdened as a piece of dandelion fluff, and he was the wind that stirred me about the world.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses
Did you read Harry Potter as a kid? Cause I sure did. I, at one point, could recite to anyone who asked, BY MEMORY, the entire first chapter of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. So if you were wondering how much of a fantasy nerd I might have been, take that into consideration. Jump back to present day me, strolling target to distract myself from today’s overwhelming sense of existential dread, and picking up this book I keep seeing on TiktTok. FAIR WARNING…this is in fact, a gateway book to an entire 3 series universe that Sarah J Maas has created…I am now in deep. So deep. I only have 3 books left that she’s written and I would be wrong to say that I wasn’t completely devastated. And planning to re-read the entire universe in preparation for her upcoming book release.
Okay cool Julianna, stop yammering on about the fantasy book addiction, what is this book about?
I’m glad you asked! This is a great intro to fantasy in my opinion because it is told solely in first person POV from Feyre’s POV, which makes the world building a lot easier to manage. The story in the first book is more of a beauty and the beast kind of re-telling. I absolutely adored the page flipping plot, the swoon worthy characters and the fun world building. Once I finished this one I knew I was hooked and had to know the rest of the story. I recommend this for anyone who might think they want to try out fantasy as a genre but aren’t quite sure.
The Gateway Book – The Thriller
Finally, allow me to introduce you to my favorite thriller, and probably the first thriller I ever enjoyed! The Golden Couple had just the right amount of suspense, who dun it and made my brain spin trying to figure out what would happen next! This was a fun ride and I recommend it to nearly everyone who asks me for a fun thriller or suspense type read. This was so fun to talk about with my book friends and led me to try more thrillers (which are pretty out of my comfort zone).
bye for now.
I want to hear from anyone in the comments if they have read or will read these books! I can’t wait to blog about more books with you! Look for a monthly reading update from me from here on out! Feel free to comment anything you’d like me to add to my TBR or what kinds of content you’d like!
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