Top 5 Wednesday: Best Character Arcs

This week's Top 5 Wednesday topic is the Best Character Arcs/Development.  If you want to participate in the Top 5 Wednesday meme, check out the Goodreads group.

Most of the time, character development is more important to me than the plot.  Even if the story is fast-paced and exciting, I can't fully enjoy it if the characters are one-dimensional.  I appreciate a complex, well-developed character.

Here are some of my favorites who also have excellent arcs.

Book Review: Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Translated from Swedish

St. Martin's Press; 28 October 2008
472 pages
Horror
Barnes and Noble, Book Depository, Goodreads
3.5 Stars

Twelve-year-old Oskar is obsessed by the murder that's taken place in his neighborhood.  Then he meets the new girl from next door.  She's a bit weird, though.  And she only comes out at night...

Top 5 Wednesday: Friend Groups I Want to Join

It's always enjoyable to read about a group of characters whose friendships sharpen, challenge, and complete them.  Often times, I feel envious that I'm not sitting among them, chatting, fighting, and getting into trouble.  So, I feel quite gleeful as I put together today's Top 5 Wednesday list of the friend groups I most want to be a part of.

Before I begin...if you would like to participate in Top 5 Wednesdays, please check out the Goodreads group and join in.  It's a lot of fun, and quite a few bloggers and BookTubers do it, so you can also peruse their lists.

Now, these are the friend groups I most desire to be part of:

Literary Love: Favorite Females Pt. 2: Adult Literature

Last week I posted some of my favorite female protagonists from children's literature.  It's really important for girls to have literary role models their age to look up to.

This week I'm talking about my favorite adult female protagonists.  Grown women still need role models to afford us strength, resilience, advice, encouragement, and independence.

So, let's get into it.

Literary Love: Favorite Females Pt. 1: Children's Literature

One woe of literature is that there is a serious lack of leading ladies who are defined by more than who they are dating and don't fall into stereotypes.  You always have the pretty girl who isn't very smart or the smart girl who feels bad about her looks, the boy crazy girl or the girl who could care less about boys but isn't very feminine.  But where are the feminine girls who are fine being along?  The smart girls who are confident in who they are?  Where are all the real girls?

It can be difficult to find a female in literature that can be looked up to, but it's important for young girls to find characters that inspire and compel them to grow into intelligent, strong, and loving women whose worth isn't found in the mirror or who they are dating.

These are the ones whom I love and who inspired me when I was a girl in order of when I read them.

Top 5 Wednesday: Books That Take Place in My Region

So, I live on Guam, which is a tiny U.S. territory in Oceania, close to the Philippine Islands.  Though it's a wonderful island, it's not exactly a literary hub.  The only books that I've read that take place in this area are history books.

Therefore, I had to be creative when making this list.  After doing some research, I have compiled a list of the top five books I want to read that take place in Oceania or the Philippines.  These are in no particular order.

Reader Ramble: How Shadow and Bone Should Have Ended

Spoiler Alert: If you have not read Shadow and Bone, do not read this post.  There will be a major spoiler!  You have been warned. Also, I have not finished the trilogy yet, so all thoughts are only about the first book.

Last month I read the first book in Leigh Bardugo's Grisha Trilogy, Shadow and Bone.  While the book was definitely captivating, I found the plot lacking.  And it got me thinking about what I would have liked better.

January Book Haul

Back in the beginning of January I posted my reading goals for the year.  One of the things I wanted to do was read my shelves and cut down on my book buying.

Well...January did not move me toward completing that at all.  Yes, I read some books off of my shelves (check out my wrap-up post), but I also ordered quite a few, as well.  This post will concentrate on all of the books I bought in January, but I also did a comic book haul post.

I added thirteen books to my shelves in January.  Not only did I have Christmas gift cards, but Book Outlet had a crazy Boxing Day sale, and my birthday was in January.  Hopefully, I will be able to exercise restraint over the next few months since the holidays have passed.

Top 5 Wednesday: Futuristic Books

This week's top 5 topic is futuristic books, which was fun for me to think about because I don't read futuristic works too frequently.  I looked through my books and was able to revisit some that I really enjoyed and had forgotten about.

So, let's get into it, shall we?

January Comic Book Haul

I'm really excited about my first comic book haul!

Last year, I started becoming heavily interested in comics of all sorts, especially toward the end of the year.  Now I am making an intentional effort to add them to my personal library.