Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week a new theme is suggested for bloggers to participate in. This week’s prompt is Books I Read In One Sitting (or would have if I had the time).

Hello Readers! I hope you’re all well and reading great books. I enjoyed some down time with the family last week while my spouse had time off from work. But I did more reading than blogging. 😉

This week’s prompt is books we’ve read in one sitting but I’m not a super fast reader, so that would mostly consist of short stories or graphic novels. BUT I have come across those books that captured my attention so well, I read them within one day—sometimes reading them during dinner. I know I’m not the only one to ever do that! Haha! Some of these are going WAY back. Let’s see which books had me hooked!

1

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Synopsis:

On a day that started like any other…

Mia had everything: a loving family, a gorgeous, adoring boyfriend, and a bright future full of music and full of choices. Then, in an instant, almost all of that is taken from her. Caught between life and death, between a happy past and an unknowable future, Mia spends one critical day contemplating the one decision she has left—the most important decision she’ll ever make.

Simultaneously tragic and hopeful, this is a romantic, riveting and ultimately uplifting story about memory, music, living, and dying.

Goodreads
My Rating: 5/5 stars
Film adaptation: 👍

From my Goodreads review: “This is one of THOSE books. The kind you can’t put down. The kind that has no chapters—nowhere to stop or pause or even take a bathroom break. If I Stay is an intense, emotional, short little book that will haunt you for days.”

2

Paper Towns by John Green

Synopsis:

Who is the real Margo?

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew…

Goodreads
My Rating: 4/5 stars
Film adaptation: 👍

From my Goodreads review: “Another John Green novel that is hard to put down. Quentin and Margo, neighbors, were friends once upon a time in their younger days. In the last few weeks of their senior year, Margo shows up outside Q’s window late one night inciting a journey of finding one’s self and discovering people aren’t always what you imagine them to be.”

3

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Synopsis:

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble; it has been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems beside the point now.

Maybe that was always beside the point.

Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her — Neal is always a little upset with Georgie — but she doesn’t expect him to pack up the kids and go home without her.

When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything.

That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts…

Is that what she’s supposed to do?

Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?

Goodreads
My Rating: 5/5 stars

From my Goodreads review: “I actually just read this book in one sitting. (Okay. Maybe I stopped to eat and go to the bathroom.) That’s how much I loved it. I was skeptical when I started, after reading all the mixed reviews. Now I just think anyone who gave it less than four stars must not have a heart. I’m kidding. Maybe.”

4

Beneath Beautiful by Allison Rushby

Synopsis:

When a handsome stranger approaches Cassie Tavington in Paris’s beautiful Père Lachaise cemetery, she has no idea who he is. It doesn’t take long to find out. A whispered name from a passerby shocks her into the realisation that it’s Cameron Callahan, high-profile modern artist, who she’s busy showing around the cemetery.

Mortified, Cassie runs, but Cameron soon tracks her down. He’s intent on having Cassie sit for him, but Cassie isn’t sure. His provocative sculptures are often in the media, which isn’t somewhere that Cassie, the daughter of a politician, should be.

But there’s no denying the attraction between the pair, and Cassie soon finds herself in a strange whirlwind of a relationship. Between Paris, London and New York, Cassie finds sitting for an artist isn’t as simple as it seems. There’s much to contend with—including Cameron’s ex-girlfriend, Plum, her own father, and her new love interest, James.

With the clock ticking down to the opening of Cameron’s new exhibition, Cassie must struggle to decide just how much of herself she can give over to Cameron and his sculpture while still remaining whole.

Goodreads
My Rating: 4/5 stars

From my Goodreads review: “So, another one I read in one day. I was hooked from the first line. I’ve read several new-adult novels, some good, some just okay. Beneath Beautiful was a refreshing departure from the stereotypical format.”

5

Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver

Synopsis:

Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before the accident that left Dara’s beautiful face scarred and the two sisters totally estranged.

When Dara vanishes on her birthday, Nick thinks Dara is just playing around. But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it’s too late.

Goodreads
My Rating: 4/5 stars

From my Goodreads review: “Oliver does a superb job of setting this mysterious teen thriller. The story is woven with eerie images and haunting clues. The characters are real enough, their voices distinct and leading. I couldn’t put this one down, reading it within a day.”

6

Faithful by Alice Hoffman

Synopsis:

Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend’s future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt.

What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Faithful is the story of a survivor, filled with emotion—from dark suffering to true happiness—a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world. A fan of Chinese food, dogs, bookstores, and men she should stay away from, Shelby has to fight her way back to her own future. In New York City she finds a circle of lost and found souls—including an angel who’s been watching over her ever since that fateful icy night.

Here is a character you will fall in love with, so believable and real and endearing, that she captures both the ache of loneliness and the joy of finding yourself at last. For anyone who’s ever been a hurt teenager, for every mother of a daughter who has lost her way, Faithful is a roadmap.

Goodreads
My Rating: 4/5 stars

From my Goodreads review: “I began this heart-wrenching novel in the wee hours of the morning on my kindle when I was forced to put down my current book so the light wouldn’t keep my husband awake. I ended up reading it throughout the day and finishing it, unable to set it aside and return to my other novel.”

7

The Ones Who Got Away by Roni Loren

Synopsis:

Liv’s words cut off as Finn got closer. The man approaching was nothing like the boy she’d known. The bulky football muscles had streamlined into a harder, leaner package and the look in his deep green eyes held no trace of boyish innocence.

It’s been twelve years since tragedy struck the senior class of Long Acre High School. Only a few students survived that fateful night—a group the media dubbed The Ones Who Got Away.

Liv Arias thought she’d never return to Long Acre—until a documentary brings her and the other survivors back home. Suddenly her old flame, Finn Dorsey, is closer than ever, and their attraction is still white-hot. When a searing kiss reignites their passion, Liv realizes this rough-around-the-edges cop might be exactly what she needs… 

Goodreads
My Rating: 4/5 stars

From my Goodreads review: “This one had me hooked and I read it all within one day. Strong characters and a timely plot that had me turning pages. Super addictive!”

8

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

Synopsis:

An unforgettable story of courage and romance. Will Valancy Stirling ever escape her strict family and find true love?

Valancy Stirling is 29, unmarried, and has never been in love. Living with her overbearing mother and meddlesome aunt, she finds her only consolation in the “forbidden” books of John Foster and her daydreams of the Blue Castle–a place where all her dreams come true and she can be who she truly wants to be. After getting shocking news from the doctor, she rebels against her family and discovers a surprising new world, full of love and adventures far beyond her most secret dreams.


Goodreads
My Rating: 4/5 stars

So technically I read this one for a readathon, which is probably why I read it in one day. But I still enjoyed it! From my Goodreads review: “I’m so happy I finally read this delightful story! Valancy is a heroine I don’t think I’ll ever forget. A charming tale about living your own truth. When it comes down to it, we alone are solely responsible for our own happiness.”

9

Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch

Synopsis:

“I made the wrong choice.”

Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, but she isn’t in the mood for Italy’s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn’t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is go back home.

But then she is given a journal that her mom had kept when she lived in Italy. Suddenly Lina’s uncovering a magical world of secret romances, art, and hidden bakeries. A world that inspires her, along with the ever-so-charming Ren, to follow in her mother’s footsteps and unearth a secret that has been kept for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything she knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.

People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.

Goodreads
My Rating: 4/5 stars

From my Goodreads review: “Just the right book I needed at the moment. I wanted a light, summery, fun book to read and I devoured this one all in one day, reading most of it outside on my back porch during a rare stormy summer day.”

10

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Synopsis:

Get Out meets The Stepford Wives in this electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing.

Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.

Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.

It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realizes that there’s a lot more at stake than just her career.

A whip-smart and dynamic thriller and sly social commentary that is perfect for anyone who has ever felt manipulated, threatened, or overlooked in the workplace, The Other Black Girlwill keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last twist.

Goodreads
My Review
My Rating: 5/5 stars
Hulu Adaptation coming soon!

My most recent unputdownable read! I was hooked from the first line. I’m so excited for the adaptation!

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Have you read and enjoyed any of these? Let me know in the comments!

Happy Wandering!