Top Ten Tuesday: May 27

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We’d love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

 

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list  that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It’s a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

Top Ten Freebie: 

My choice: Top Ten Books So Far This Year

I’ve read 45 books this year, so finding the top ten may either by really easy or really hard. These are also not in order, just the top ten.

1. Along Came a Spider by James Patterson- I feel like I’m always talking about Alex Cross. That’s because the books are so good. This was the first book in the series and one of my favorite books this year. The story hasn’t escaped my mind and I often find myself thinking about this book, and series in general. I would gladly read this book again even though I know how it ends. This book is strong enough to make me want to read it again and again.
2. Kiss the Girls by James Patterson- Second book in the Alex Cross series. I liked this one even better than Along Came a Spider. If I could give a book more than 5 stars, this would be that book for me. The story is strong. The plot was supposed to be creepy and scary and it succeeded. There was not a low part of this book. I would read this book time and time again. I hated the movie because it just didn’t do the book justice, so read the book and forget about the movie. But seriously, read this book.
3. The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly- A book that was adapted into a movie and had Matthew McConaughey in it is a book I can get behind. For about a week, I went through a phase where I only wanted to read books that involved awesome lawyers and I think this is the book that started it. Mickey Haller is a great character that is just bad enough to make you like him but also make you want to read future books to see if he grows up. This is the only Mickey Haller I’ve book so far but I plan on reading all of them.
4. The Yankee Years by Joe Torre- I’m not a Yankees fan. In fact, I hate the Yankees. But I’m a baseball fan and Joe Torre is just one of those guys. I would feel weird calling myself a baseball fan if I went my whole life without reading a book by Joe Torre. The Yankee Years was a good book with a lot of stories from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Torre writes well; I had some issues with it but they weren’t bad and didn’t take away from the rest of the book. I would read this again, especially if I were in the mood to watch the Yankees go from Dynasty to a failure in just a few short years.
5. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn- Okay if you’re reading any other book right now: finish it as soon as possible and go pick up this book. If I could read a book repeatedly and not get tired of it, it would be this book. Flynn is known for her broken heroines that are somehow lovable but this one is just beyond. I was obsessed with Libby Day. I was reading until 5 in the morning every night until I finished it because I just needed to know what was happening. This is another book that would get 6 stars from me. I am not sure if I want to see the movie because if it’s not as good as the book, I will be crushed and probably read the book two times in a row just to get over the movie. Please read this.
6. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey- Yes I am aware of the “”controversy”” of this book and no that doesn’t make me like it any less. Frey isn’t a protagonist per se because it was nonfiction, but he was someone that I felt for and rooted for. It was a difficult subject to read about, but I’m so glad I read this book. I have My Friend Leonard, which is somewhat a sequel to AMLP, but I have no read it yet. I’m planning on reading this again sometime. Strong book or the strong material. Highly recommended. [can be triggering for drugs and institutionalizing]
7. Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski- Another sports book made my top ten but this one is soccer/football. Baseball fans, writers, coaches, and owners are slowly letting Sabermetrics slip into the game. This is a more numbers or “on paper” “number cruncher” type of stats. There is New Fans and Old School Fans. Well, now soccer/football is making their own Sabermetrics. Since I’m interested in baseball saber stats, soccer saber stats interest me as well. This book brings saber stats into country clubs and the World Cup. It’s interesting reading this book before the World Cup. This book is something I’ll go back to during the World Cup or stats. If you’re a soccer/football fan, you need to read this.
8. Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich- If you’ve never read a Stephanie Plum book: my question is why? They are light mysteries that are heavy on the humor. I don’t know another series that I regularly read that makes me laugh as much as this one does. I have not read one single book by Evanovich that I haven’t loved. The good thing about this series is that you don’t have to go in order. I picked up the series at book 5 and then read 15 and wasn’t extremely confused. If you’re at a bookstore and see any of the books in the series, pick it up. You won’t regret it.
9.  The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides- I read this book in February and wasn’t sure if I liked it all that much. There was just something that was bothering me about it and I couldn’t place it. I really started to think about it and realized that I’d read a book that had a parallel with it. Looking for Alaska by John Green. I loved LFA, so why didn’t I love Virgin Suicides? I couldn’t get this book out of my head for about a week and a half and I realized that in that week and a half my opinion changed from “do I like this?” to “of course I do, why are you being so difficult? Just LOVE THE BOOK ALREADY” and ever since then I’ve been wanting to read it again to appreciate it more.
10. The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison- I can’t leave this off the list. It was too good. I was addicted to their disastrous relationship. The writing and different POVs was intriguing. I would read this book again and again. Before reading it I heard parallels to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, but this was much stronger in my opinion. If you hear that from someone, forget it. Don’t think that again. Don’t read the book until you forget about that. Then read this book and enjoy it.

Honorable mention: It’s Not Summer Without You by Jenny Han

What are your top ten books this year? What was your Top Ten Tuesday topic?

 

A Million Little Pieces- review

Book: A Million Little Pieces | Author: James Frey | Started: 4/5/14 | Finished: 4/13/14 | Rating: 4.5 stars

Synopsis: At the age of 23, James Frey woke up on a plane to find his four front teeth knocked out, his nose broken, a hole through his cheek. He had no idea where the plane was headed nor any recollection of the past two weeks. An alcoholic for ten years and a crack addict for three, he checked into a treatment facility shortly after landing. There he was told he could either stop using or die before he reached age 24. This is Frey’s acclaimed account of his six weeks in rehab.

My review:

“I am an Alcoholic and I am a drug Addict and I am a Criminal.”

When I first started reading this book, I had no idea about the controversy with this book. I feel like to write an honest review, I can’t not mention the controversy and my take on it. I read the Wikipedia page and some other things on it and I can tell you that I still consider this a memoir and a great one at that. I know some people don’t like that Frey lied about spending some time in jail when he didn’t, but who has told the whole truth when talking or writing a book about themselves? The controversy is why I took off half a point, otherwise it would have been an easy five stars. Now onto the actual book!

James Frey wrote this book in an interesting way an interesting way.

There were times that he repeated himself (like I did in the previous sentence). And there were few full paragraphs. What I mean by that is that a lot of the sentences started on a new line. I’m not sure why he did that, but the free prose made the book different. A good different.

He also did not put any quote marks in this book. At all. It looked a lot like this

Leonard stands.

Let’s go for a walk.

I stay on the bench.

No thanks.

Come on.

No.

Why.

I look up.

I don’t know if I can be seen with you in that sweatsuit.

This time of writing was confusing at times unless he specified who was talking or if was what being said was aloud or inner monologue. Once I could decipher between the two, I liked this time of writing. It’s unique and weird, a lot like this book.

James Frey may be an Alcoholic and a drug Addict and a Criminal, but he’s also a good writer. There were parts of this book that just amazed me.

The screams of the Addicted without their addictions. The screams of the dead who are somehow still alive.

I mean I pictured vampires when he said this, but that’s not too far off from some addicts that I’ve come across. His writing comes alive. His writing is real. His writing is scary. I love his writing.

I am alone. Alone here and alone in the world. Alone in my heart and alone in my mind. Along everywhere, all the time, for as long as I can remember. Alone with my family, alone with my friends, along in a Room full of people. Alone when I wake, alone through each awful day, alone when I finally meet the blackness. I am alone in my horror. Alone in my horror.

I just want to go give him a hug. It’s hard to read such sad things, especially when I know it’s so real. But it made me so happy when he finally was happy again.

I could tell when he started shifting from the Alcoholic and the drug Addict and the Criminal to a person with Feelings and Heart.

I am a Criminal and he is a Judge and I am white and he is black, but at this moment none of that matters. He is a man who needs a friend and I can be his friend.

When James really started becoming human, it was one of the happiest moments I’ve had in weeks. I knew he recovered to write this book because, well he wrote this book, but it was awesome getting to read about his recovery. The book itself was really good. It had it’s funny moments, it had it’s sad moments, and it had it’s happy moments. There were times that I wanted to just shake him and say “JAMES QUICK BEING AN IDIOT. YOU NEED TO RECOVER.” and there were other times where I wanted to shake everyone else and say “JAMES IS GOING TO RECOVER IN EVERY WAY THAT HE THINKS WILL WORK. LET HIM DO THAT.”

This book broke my heart at times. At the beginning I was sad for him because I knew that his life was far from good and he was so young and he was so ruined. When his good friends would leave the clinic, I’d pray that they would recover and stay in touch with James. When James finally found love for the first time in his life, I was so happy for him but I was also worried for him.

I’ve known people that have gone through these types of problems and I’ve heard a few different recovery stories. This one is one of my favourites. I am so happy that James recovered and has a life now. I am excited to read his second book, My Friend Leonard.

I’d talk about the other “characters” in this book, but that makes it feel like it’s not a non-fiction. The other stories of the people in this book were important, but I feel like this was all about James and his road through the clinic. I will say that I had some other people in the book that I had a liking to and it was hard letting them go without hearing their full story.

Since he wrote this book, I knew it would end happily. I didn’t expect it to end the way that it did, but it was a great ending. I am so happy for James Frey and will keep him in my thoughts that he can keep strong.

James has never relapsed.