TOP TEN TUESDAY: Diverse/Own Voices Books On My TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. This week's theme is a freebie, and since Diversathon is going on this week I thought I would share the Top Ten Diverse and Own Voices Books On My TBR.

If you're interested or want to know more about the Diversathon, and/or #OwnVoices I recommend you watch Christina Marie's video where she talks about what #OwnVoices means and the importance of supporting these authors and their books.

The Weight of Feathers by Anne-Marie McLemore

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee

Ghost by Jason Reynolds

All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst

Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina

The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Jonesy: Volume One | Fangirl Cupid

JONESY: Volume One

(Jonesy, Issues 1-4)

Written by: Sam Humphries | Illustrated by: Caitlin Rose Boyle

Colors: Mickey Quinn | Letters: Corey Breen | Cover: Caitlin Rose Boyle

Designer: Kelsey Dietrich | Editors: Jeanine Shaeffer & Shannon Watters

Published: August 2016 (Boom! Box Studios)

What's It About?

A sarcastic teenager with the powers of cupid unleashes her preternatural matchmaking abilities on her school with hilarious and charming results.
Jonesy is a self-described “cool dork” who spends her time making zines nobody reads, watching anime, and listening to riot grrrl bands and 1D simultaneously. But she has a secret nobody knows. She has the power to make people fall in love! Anyone. With anything. She’s a cupid in plaid. With a Tumblr. There’s only one catch—it doesn’t work on herself. She’s gonna have to find love the old-fashioned way, and in the meantime, figure out how to distract herself from the real emotions she inevitably has to face when her powers go wrong… [GoodReads]

What I Thought.

Boom! Box continuously puts out titles that grab my attention. They make it a point to include a diverse cast of characters in all of their books. The stories are lighthearted and funny. One of the more popular titles from their line up is Lumberjanes. Jonesy has the same feel in that it's fun and doesn't take its self too serious. At the beginning Jonesy can come off as slightly immature, but I mean who doesn't when it comes to fangirling over their favorite person/celebrity. There's never a dull moment with her and the stuff that she gets herself into because of her crazy ideas. But you definitely get to see her heart and her good intentions through all of it especially when it comes to the people she loves. 

Her ability to make people fall in love is an interesting addition to her character, especially with how excited she gets over things. It's not explained how she got the powers. It's sort of mentioned in the beginning, but since Jonesy doesn't really understand how she got them and we're being told the story through her, we don't get to see how.

The pages are jam packed full of colors that make me want to rip out the pages and hang them up on my wall. If you can get your hands on a physical copy of this you'll appreciate the art so much. I love going through the Cover Gallery in the back of volumes to see the different styles and how different artists draw the same character. 

I really enjoyed Jonesy and the shenanigans she gets into. It's a colorful and fun read that you shouldn't take too serious. My favorite part is that it's diverse and original. I can't wait to read the next volume.

DIY | make your own TBR Jar!

This year I'm doing a TBR jar again. Last year I made a slight attempt at it. Some months I picked a book out and read it, sometimes I picked one out and I wouldn't read it until a month later. After a while I stopped picking them out, but that was because of the whole reading slump.

This time I thought I would make it a bit more exciting. I didn't have an actual jar last time, it was a pouch from Fandom of the Month Club subscription box. Which was fine, but it wasn't the same as picking out of a jar. 

So this isn't really a DIY tutorial, but more of a "look this is how I made it, maybe you want to do it too?"

SUPPLIES

• a mason jar
• washi tape
• alphabet stickers
• deco stickers
• paper 
• pen
• scissors

TIME TO DIY!

Write out your TBR list on a sheet of paper. Cut out the titles creating long strips. Fold the strips and then use a small piece of washi tape to keep it together.

If you're using a tomato sauce jar or something like that you're going to want to remove all of the labels. You can do that by running the jar under warm water and using a rough sponge. (There's probably another way to do this, but this is how I was able to remove the labels from the jar I used.)

Before decorating the jar make sure it's completely dry. Now go ahead and decorate your jar!

I used alphabet stickers to spell out TBR Jar. Then I used some deco stickers from two Etsy shops. The stack of books stickers are from Fox and Cactus, and the girl reading stickers are from The Littlest Planner. 

I used washi to decorate the lid, but you could probably use some scrapbook paper, use the lid to trace the size you need and then glue it on. But I didn't have any that I liked.

Now put your TBR picks inside the jar. Shake them around, and pick out your first TBR read!

TOP TEN TUESDAY: 2016 Releases I Meant To Read But Didn't Get To

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and The Bookish.

This week's theme is the Top Ten 2016 Releases I Meant To Get To But Didn't.

Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

Release Date; January 5th

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Release Date: February 2nd

The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

Release Date: May 3rd

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

Release Date; May 3rd

Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee

Release Date; May 24th

Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi

Release Date: August 30th

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

Release Date: August 30th

The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

Release Date: September 20th

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

Release Date: September 27th

The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

Release Date: October 18th

I feel like I might be leaving some titles out, but these are the ones that I hope to get to as soon as possible. If you've read any of these let me know which ones I should pick up first!

2017 Reading Goals

2016 Reading Goals Wrap Up

Last year I beat myself up for not reading enough and not reaching my Goodreads challenge of 50 books. Well this year I did a lot worse and read a total of 28 books. My second goal was to read more of the books I already own, and I did okay with this. I'm reaching for books on my shelf more. I created a TBR jar and I was doing well with that until I stopped pulling books from the jar. I've gotten rid of a lot of books and I'm continuing to do this with books that I just don't plan on reading or rereading. 

2017 Reading Goals!

After my mostly failed reading goals from last year I've decided to refocus my goals.

1) Goodreads | I set my Goodreads Reading Challenge to 12 books. I've decided that if I can read at least one book (not graphic novel or comic book) a month then that's amazing and a lot better than I did all of last year. 

2) Read Books On My Shelf | I want to keep on reading books that I already own. Of course, I've added more to this in the past year, but hopefully I'll get to the ones that I've had for a while.

3) TBR Jar | I'm going to redo this and make a new list of the books that I own. This will help me get to the books that maybe I hadn't though of picking up anytime soon or even forgot that I had.

4) Read Diversely and Widely | Diversity is a topic that's been brought to the forefront of the book community this past year and it's one that's very important to me. I want to continue reading diverse books and reading books in genres outside of what I usually read.