Top Ten Tuesday | March 2, 2021

Happy Tuesday!

Top Ten Tuesday is a Bookish Meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s theme is CHARACTERS WHOSE JOB I WISH I HAD! (SPOILER ALERT: That’s Not What I Did!)

Happy Tuesday! I was having the hardest time trying to figure out books/characters that fit this week’s topic, and finally I decided to just switch it up! Recently I’ve been reading/adding to my tbr a lot of adult titles instead of YA or Middle Grade, and today I want to list my TOP TEN GROWN UP BOOKS!

The first five are books that I’ve already read and loved, and the other five are books that are high on my tbr. Full disclosure: this is not a unique list. The books that I’ve read and loved are books that either a) I talk about all the time or b) everyone talks about all the time. What can I say? I like what I like.

And now without any further ado, here’s this week’s Top Ten Tuesday!

A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel
Series: Take Them to the Stars #1
Also in this series: A History of What Comes Next
Published on February 2, 2021 by Tor.com
Genres: Adult, Alternate History, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Queer
Pages: 304
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Showing that truth is stranger than fiction, Sylvain Neuvel weaves a scfi thriller reminiscent of Blake Crouch and Andy Weir, blending a fast moving, darkly satirical look at 1940s rocketry with an exploration of the amorality of progress and the nature of violence in A History of What Comes Next.
Always run, never fight. Preserve the knowledge. Survive at all costs. Take them to the stars.
Over 99 identical generations, Mia’s family has shaped human history to push them to the stars, making brutal, wrenching choices and sacrificing countless lives. Her turn comes at the dawn of the age of rocketry. Her mission: to lure Wernher Von Braun away from the Nazi party and into the American rocket program, and secure the future of the space race.
But Mia’s family is not the only group pushing the levers of history: an even more ruthless enemy lurks behind the scenes.
A darkly satirical first contact thriller, as seen through the eyes of the women who make progress possible and the men who are determined to stop them...

{review + giveaway!}

Now, Then, and Everywhen by Rysa Walker
Series: CHRONOS Origins #1
Also in this series: Now, Then, and Everywhen
Published on April 1, 2020 by 47North
Genres: Adult, Alternate History, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Time Travel
Pages: 528
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube

From the bestselling author of the Chronos series comes a page-turning novel of time travel, fast-paced action, and history-changing events.
When two time-traveling historians cross paths during one of the most tumultuous decades of the twentieth century, history goes helter-skelter. But which one broke the timeline?
In 2136 Madison Grace uncovers a key to the origins of CHRONOS, a time-travel agency with ties to her family’s mysterious past. Just as she is starting to jump through history, she returns to her timeline to find millions of lives erased—and only the people inside her house realize anything has changed.
In 2304 CHRONOS historian Tyson Reyes is assigned to observe the crucial events that played out in America’s civil rights movement. But a massive time shift occurs while he’s in 1965, and suddenly the history he sees isn’t the history he knows.
As Madi’s and Tyson’s journeys collide, they must prevent the past from being erased forever. But strange forces are at work. Are Madi and Tyson in control or merely pawns in someone else’s game?

{review}

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
Published on October 6, 2020 by Tor Books
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Romance, Queer
Pages: 448
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A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.
France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.
But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

{review}

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by K. Eason
Series: The Thorne Chronicles #1
Also in this series: How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse, How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge
Published on October 8, 2019 by Daw Books
Genres: Adult, Multiverse, Retellings, Science Fiction, Queer
Pages: 408
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram

First in a duology that reimagines fairy tale tropes within a space opera--The Princess Bride meets Princess Leia.
Rory Thorne is a princess with thirteen fairy blessings, the most important of which is to see through flattery and platitudes. As the eldest daughter, she always imagined she'd inherit her father's throne and govern the interplanetary Thorne Consortium.
Then her father is assassinated, her mother gives birth to a son, and Rory is betrothed to the prince of a distant world.
When Rory arrives in her new home, she uncovers a treacherous plot to unseat her newly betrothed and usurp his throne. An unscrupulous minister has conspired to name himself Regent to the minor (and somewhat foolish) prince. With only her wits and a small team of allies, Rory must outmaneuver the Regent and rescue the prince.
How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse is a feminist reimagining of familiar fairytale tropes and a story of resistance and self-determination--how small acts of rebellion can lead a princess to not just save herself, but change the course of history.

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins
Published on January 5, 2021 by St. Martin's Press
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Retellings, Thriller
Pages: 304
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A delicious twist on a Gothic classic, Rachel Hawkins's The Wife Upstairs pairs Southern charm with atmospheric domestic suspense, perfect for fans of B.A. Paris and Megan Miranda.
Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates––a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name.
But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is Thornfield Estates’ most mysterious resident. His wife, Bea, drowned in a boating accident with her best friend, their bodies lost to the deep. Jane can’t help but see an opportunity in Eddie––not only is he rich, brooding, and handsome, he could also offer her the kind of protection she’s always yearned for.
Yet as Jane and Eddie fall for each other, Jane is increasingly haunted by the legend of Bea, an ambitious beauty with a rags-to-riches origin story, who launched a wildly successful southern lifestyle brand. How can she, plain Jane, ever measure up? And can she win Eddie’s heart before her past––or his––catches up to her?
With delicious suspense, incisive wit, and a fresh, feminist sensibility, The Wife Upstairs flips the script on a timeless tale of forbidden romance, ill-advised attraction, and a wife who just won’t stay buried. In this vivid reimagining of one of literature’s most twisted love triangles, which Mrs. Rochester will get her happy ending?

The Brittanys by Brittany Ackerman
Published on June 15, 2021 by Vintage
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Thriller
Pages: 272
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Bursting with bittersweet nostalgia, a funny, poignant, perfectly voiced debut that brilliantly captures what it's like to be a teenage girl. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL.
They're not the most popular freshmen at their Florida prep school, but at least everyone knows their name(s). The Brittanys.
Brittany Rosenberg: drives her golf cart around her subdivision to meet boys.
Brittany Gottlieb: insists you can't lose your virginity if you haven't gotten your period. (She heard it somewhere!)
Brittany Tomassi: is from New York.
Brittany Jensen: once threw her tampon into a stranger's swimming pool. A brash, bold, unapologetic tomboy. And the greatest person in the whole wide world.
At least as far as the fifth Brittany--our narrator--is concerned. Even within their friend group, she and Jensen are a duo: with their matching JanSport backpacks, Tiffany chokers, and Victoria's Secret push-up bras, they are unstoppable. And now that they're finally growing up, they're going to do everything: dye their hair, attend no-parent parties, try pot . . . maybe even lose their virginities. 2004 is totally going to be their year!
Except Jensen's interests may be diverging from her friends'. And within our narrator's own family--in the lives of her exhausted mother and beloved, genius older brother--life-changing events may be taking shape. Events that only years later, looking back, she has the perspective to see.

We Are Watching Eliza Bright by A.E. Osworth
Published on April 13, 2021 by Grand Central Publishing
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Thriller
Pages: 400
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Eliza Bright was living the dream as an elite video game coder at Fancy Dog Games when her private life suddenly became public. But is Eliza Bright a brilliant, self-taught coder bravely calling out the toxic masculinity and chauvinism that pervades her workplace and industry? Or, is Eliza Bright a woman who needs to be destroyed to protect "the sanctity of gaming culture"? It depends on who you ask...
When Eliza reports an incident of workplace harassment that is quickly dismissed, she's forced to take her frustrations to a journalist who blasts her story across the Internet. She's fired and doxed, and becomes a rallying figure for women across America. But she's also enraged the beast that is male gamers on 4Chan and Reddit, whose collective, unreliable voice narrates our story. Soon Eliza is in the cross-hairs of the gaming community, threatened and stalked as they monitor her every move online and across New York City.
As the violent power of an angry male collective descends upon everyone in Eliza's life, it becomes increasingly difficult to know who to trust, even when she's eventually taken in and protected by an under-the-radar Collective known as the Sixsterhood. The violence moves from cyberspace to the real world, as a vicious male super-fan known only as The Ghost is determined to exact his revenge on behalf of men everywhere. We watch alongside the Sixsterhood and subreddit incels as this dramatic cat-and-mouse game plays out to reach its violent and inevitable conclusion.
This is an extraordinary, unputdownable novel that explores the dark recesses of the Internet and male rage, and the fragile line between the online world and real life. It's a thrilling story of female resilience and survival, packed with a powerful feminist message.

Impostor Syndrome: A Novel by Kathy Wang
Published on June 15, 2021 by Custom House
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Thriller
Pages: 368
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From the critically acclaimed author of Family Trust comes a new satire, exploring the fiercely competitive world of women in Silicon Valley in a thrilling tale of foreign espionage and personal secrets.
In 2006 Julia Lerner is living in Moscow, a recent university graduate in computer science, when she’s recruited by Russia’s largest intelligence agency. By 2018 she’s in Silicon Valley as COO of Tangerine, one of America’s most famous technology companies. In between her executive management (make offers to promising startups, crush them and copy their features if they refuse); self promotion (check out her latest op-ed in the WSJ, on Work/Life Balance 2.0); and work in gender equality (transfer the most annoying females from her team), she funnels intelligence back to the motherland. But now Russia's asking for more, and Julia’s getting nervous.
Alice is a first generation Chinese American whose parents are delighted she’s working at Tangerine (such a successful company!). Too bad she’s slogging away in the lower echelons, recently dumped, and now sharing her expensive two-bedroom apartment with her cousin Cheri, a perennial “founder’s girlfriend”. One afternoon, while performing a server check, Alice discovers some unusual activity, and now she’s burdened with two powerful but distressing suspicions: Tangerine’s privacy settings aren’t as rigorous as the company claims they are, and the person abusing this loophole might be Julia Lerner herself. 
The closer Alice gets to Julia, the more Julia questions her own loyalties. Russia may have placed her in the Valley, but she's the one who built her career; isn’t she entitled to protect the lifestyle she’s earned? Part page-turning cat-and-mouse chase, part sharp and hilarious satire, Impostor Syndrome is a shrewdly-observed examination of women in tech, Silicon Valley hubris, and the rarely fulfilled but ever-attractive promise of the American Dream.

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
Published on June 1, 2021 by Tordotcom
Genres: Adult, Historical Fiction, Retellings, Queer
Pages: 272
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Immigrant. Socialite. Magician.
Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer, Asian, adopted, and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her.
But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.
Nghi Vo’s debut novel The Chosen and the Beautiful reinvents this classic of the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess, and introduces a major new literary voice.

We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker
Published on May 11, 2021 by Berkley Books
Genres: Adult, Science Fiction
Pages: 368
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From award-winning author Sarah Pinsker comes a novel about one family and the technology that divides them.
Everybody's getting one.

Val and Julie just want what's best for their kids, David and Sophie. So when teenage son David comes home one day asking for a Pilot, a new brain implant to help with school, they reluctantly agree. This is the future, after all.
Soon, Julie feels mounting pressure at work to get a Pilot to keep pace with her colleagues, leaving Val and Sophie part of the shrinking minority of people without the device.
Before long, the implications are clear, for the family and society: get a Pilot or get left behind. With government subsidies and no downside, why would anyone refuse? And how do you stop a technology once it's everywhere? Those are the questions Sophie and her anti-Pilot movement rise up to answer, even if it puts them up against the Pilot's powerful manufacturer and pits Sophie against the people she loves most.

What are some books you’ve loved recently outside of your usual genre/age group? Let me know in the comments and have a splendiferous week!