Hello! Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, where people all over the planet get together to post about a different bookish topic each week. Today we’re talking about the First Ten Books I Reviewed. To be honest, I really couldn’t tell you about my first ten book reviews. Long ago and far away, I used to write for a site called Epinions.com, and I’m sure I wrote at least ten book reviews there. Since I can’t tell you about my first book reviews, I’ll just tell you about the first books I reviewed on this blog.
When I first started this blog, I imagined this as a blog where I just posted all sorts of general reviews, which is what I did on Epinions.com. Back in the day I had also posted a lot of articles on places like Squidoo; every January 1st, I’d post a list of my favorite books from the previous year. In 2016, I didn’t write down all the books I read in a year like I do now, and I forgot to put The Hiding Place on my list of favorite books I read the previous year. So I wrote a review of the book instead.
Since I started the blog at the beginning of the year (January 1, 2017, to be exact), I figured that the New Year is the time people want to make a new start. I reviewed Dave Ramsey’s Complete Guide to Money a few days later.
Of course, once you get your finances in order, you’ll want to get your spiritual health ready for the New Year as well. It was only January 8th when I reviewed The American Patriot’s Bible. Book reviews have evidently been a big part of this blog from the very beginning.
I think Veronica Roth’s Carve the Mark was the first pre-order I ever bought, and I remember counting down the days towards its release. Not only did I blog my review of this book, I also blogged about the pre-order gift you could get by buying it.
From there, we have to jump a year into the future before I start posting again. I had gotten a job and just couldn’t find the time to keep up with posting here. The Titan Strain was the first book I downloaded from Netgalley. I was so in awe of the fact that I was able to read a book before it came out!
The next book I reviewed was Flame in the Mist. I had discovered Goodreads’ Listopia, and I found it to be such an amazing resource at the time. Smoke in the Sun was towards the top of its Top YA Books of 2018 list, and after following the links, I found the first book in the series. I was in luck, because the first book in the library was in stock! I remember how I couldn’t get this book out of my head while I was working.
The next book review post that I wrote was two short stories in one post: Ōkami and Yumi, which are two short stories from Renée Ahdieh’s Flame in the Mist series. I was excited for the release of Smoke in the Sun at the time.
Since I pretty much skipped blogging for an entire year, two books from the same series ended up in this post. The Fates Divide is the second book the Veronica Roth’s Carve the Mark duology, and of course, I had to review that one too.
It was less than 11 months ago that I reviewed Marissa Meyer’s Heartless, but it seems like quite a while ago. This was even before I discovered Top Ten Tuesday!
I reviewed Smoke in the Sun shortly after that. It had the most amazing pre-order gift: when I bought a copy of Smoke in the Sun, they gave me a paperback copy of Flame in the Mist! This was the second set of full duologies that made the first ten books that I reviewed on this blog.
I hope you enjoyed this little tour back in time to the earlier days of this blog. What were some of the first books you reviewed? I look forward to seeing the other posts on this week’s Top Ten Tuesday.
Next week we’re going to talk about some inspirational and/or thought provoking quotes. I decided to write about quotes that moved me. I’ve only recently started to keep a book journal, where I write those sorts of things down, so most of the quotes are from books I’ve recently read. I ended up with one bonus quote after this one passage from an audiobook completely moved me.
Great list! Flame in the Mist is one I really want to check out – I’m weak for the “girl disguises herself as boy” trope.
Jess @ Jessticulates recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday | The first books I reviewed
You might like Sky Without Stars too. Chatine disguises herself as a boy for most of the first book. But I loved Flame in the Mist too!
The only one of these I’ve read and reviewed is Heartless, but it was a later one for me as I started reviewing in 2014 and didn’t read Heartless till 2016.
Jo recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday #208
You still reviewed it before I did though :-).
I liked your explanations of why you reviewed these books. Very cool.
My TTT.
Lydia recently posted…3 Things I Love About Spring Hikes
Haha when I first started this blog I was just reviewing random things around the house. So it made sense to review things on specific days at the time.
Ooh some good ones here 🙂
I love how yours included completing actual duologies!
Cora | http://teapartyprincess.co.uk/
Cora @ Tea Party Princess recently posted…Book Review: Meat Market by Juno Dawson *AD Gifted
Funny how it worked out like that, especially with the Carve the Mark duology, since I read those books a year apart. The Flame in the Mist duology I only read a couple of months apart.
Nice list of books!!
Here’s a link to my TTT post for this week: https://captivatedreader.blogspot.com/2019/04/top-ten-tuesday-first-ten-books-i.html
Thank you!
I always meant to pick up Heartless, but I let it pass me by. I think all those expectations kind of killed it for me.
Alicia @ A Kernel of Nonsense recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday: First Ten Books I Reviewed on My Blog
I guess I’m lucky I never heard about it until last year, when all the hype was over.
Fun list! I haven’t read any Veronica Roth since Insurgent- that’s kinda crazy now that I think on it.
Greg recently posted…Top Ten (First Ten) Books I Reviewed
I can see why some people might have decided not to read her after Allegiant… I was concerned that Carve the Mark might end horribly too… especially with the tagline to The Fates Divide being something like “He’d Die for Her, She’d Kill for Him.” Eek. But I’m glad I read it (thinking about rereading the duology this year maybe) and plan on reading her anthology this fall and her adult book next year.
How long have you been blogging? I am pretty embarrassed at what a poor job I did on my reviews in the beginning.
I started my political blog on blogspot around 2000. I was writing reviews for Epinions at the time too (not just books though, I wrote about everything). I haven’t always been active at blogging though. I’ve always been writing something though. I wrote articles for Associated Content/Yahoo! for a while, articles for some more sites, and then I was writing in a journal about the news. Since Epinions is down, at least you can’t read my early reviews.
Oh wow, there is an entire narrative to your first ten reviews–it really made for a unique post.
I hope you enjoyed it!
Nice list! Wow, it’s been so many years since I thought about The Hiding Place — what a great book. It’s nice to get a reminder!
Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday: The first ten books I reviewed on my blog
It’s one of those books where I thought “how did it take me so long to read this?”
Such a cool list of books, Brooke! I hear you about being so awed about reviewing a book before it’s out — that never gets old!
Especially when it’s a book you’re really excited to read!
The Hiding Place is excellent. Here is my Top Ten Tuesday.
🙂 I made my kids read it.
Ahh I really enjoyed Flame In The Mist, I haven’t gotten around to reading the sequel just yet, but I can’t wait to do so 😀 It’s always fun to look back on these books we reviewed first, isn’t it 😀
Lovely post! 🙂
Thanks! The sequel didn’t have quite the sizzle that the first had, but the ending was good.
That’s some great list of first 10 books you reviewed. Flames in the mist has been on my tbr for too long. I don’t know why I haven’t come to pick it up yet.
There’s always new books crowding the others out. I started working on my summer TBR, and since there aren’t a ton of books coming out this summer that I’m thinking “oooh I have to read this now!” yet I just went through my books and TBR (Kindle, physical and books I really wanted to read) and I came up with 25 books I’d like to read ASAP. I used a random number generator to pick 10 books, so I let fate decide.
I loved The Flame in the Mist and Smoke in the Sun! I haven’t read the novellas in the series though, so I just downloaded them. I hope you enjoyed looking at the reviews from the start of your blog!
It’s nice that those short stories are free!
This reminds me that I still need to read Flame in the Mist. I remember reading so many great reviews for it when it first came out.
Suzanne @ The Bookish Libra recently posted…Review: THE MOTHER-IN-LAW by Sally Hepworth
This week has shown me so many books that were once so hyped and… I’ve never heard of some of them.
Great list. The Titan Strain has such an interesting cover but I don’t think I’ve heard of it before.
Annemieke recently posted…Book Haul #42 / In Which Spring Arrived with Sequels
It was one of those “Read Now” books on Netgalley. It was okay.