ten posts I’ve written that give you the best glimpse of me

It’s been AGES since I participated in a Top Ten Tuesday, but I’ve been writing more list posts recently and think this is the perfect way to get the list post juices flowing. And I especially love this week’s topic!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

Check out all my past TTT posts here. Some highlights:

• December 1, 2020: Books I Want to Read Again
• December 8, 2020: Top Ten Wintry Reads
• December 29, 2020: Favorite Books of 2020
• January 5, 2021: Most anticipated releases for the first half of 2021

I told you it had been a while!

ten posts I’ve written that give you the best glimpse of me

This is such a great topic. It’s been ages since I introduced myself, and the focus of this blog has certainly changed a lot over the years! At four years in, a lot has gotten lost in the shuffle.

This is a great opportunity to share my favorite list posts, to give you a feel for my reading taste and what you can expect to find on my blog.

1. Bookends is a primarily a blog for spoiler discussions for popular thrillers. Before I started blogging, I was jotting down the endings to the books I’d read in my daily journal. I hated not being able to remember the endings to books I knew I’d read! After enough time googling endings, I figured others were probably searching for the same thing. I started off with what I called “speedy spoilers”, which were just quick memory-jogging summaries. Over time these summaries got more in depth. This post explains why I started a book spoiler blog and what I hope to achieve here.
2. I’m a Bookstagrammer! At times this blog has fallen by the wayside, but I’ve consistently kept my Bookstagram up to date since I started. I’ve fallen in love with the community over there. Check out my profile if you use Instagram too!
3. I’m challenging myself to stay on top of my ARC reviews this year (although it’s not really working). To keep myself on track, I made this master list of reviews of books published in 2024. It serves as accountability for myself and a great reference for readers looking for new releases!
4. Karin Slaughter is my favorite author. I absolutely love her Will Trent series, so I’ve written many posts about it over the years. My “Will Trent Series in Order” post gives some commentary of where to start and which can be read as standalones, and it’s become cornerstone blog content with the airing of her TV show.
5. My absolute favorite books to read fall into the psychological thrillers and domestic suspense categories. I often see readers asking for books similar to Lisa Jewell or Ruth Ware, so I wrote this list to recommend some similar favorites!
6. My biggest bookish pet peeve: I HATE when books are mis-marketed as thrillers, but really have an unguessable twist (like when the main character can astral project and kills the bad guy this way). To warn other readers against what I call the “surprise paranormal” twist, I wrote this post listing books like that. (WARNING: That post spoils books that fall into that category.)
7. I try to read diversely and to promote underrepresented voices. I keep up-to-date lists of books with various representations, such as thrillers by BIPOC authors, books with queer representation, and more. I’m always looking for more recommendations for thrillers by underrepresented authors.
8. At the end of every year, I make a massive list of all the books I read throughout the year with links to all of my reviews (where applicable). While these lists don’t have much value for my readers, I love looking back on what I’ve read throughout the year. Here’s 2021, 2022, and 2023!
9. I certainly have the travel bug. I haven’t written all that much about my travels, although I would love to share that information in some way someday. For now, I keep lists of books I’ve read by country and by US state. I also have a list of books about travel. I see that Jana did a TTT of her favorite travel destinations, so maybe I’ll copy that idea for the next freebie week!
10. I LOVE books set around the holidays. I keep this list up-to-date of all my reviews of holiday reads!

Do we have anything in common? Are our reading tastes similar? I’d love to hear which of these posts is most useful to you!

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