I joined Goodreads a few years ago, way before I started blogging, so my profile is kind of a mess. I really want to clean it up so I can make better use of it. I thought what a better way to do that than to join the Down the TBR Hole meme started by Lia @Lost In a Story! I am going to do it once a month instead of weekly, and hopefully make my Goodreads a pleasant place to be again.
Here is how it works:
- Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf.
- Order on ascending date added.
- Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books
- Read the synopses of the books
Decide: keep it or should it go?
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself.
But Natalia is also confronting a private, hurtful mystery of her own: the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone. A famed physician, her grandfather must have known that he was too ill to travel. Why he left home becomes a riddle Natalia is compelled to unravel.
Grief struck and searching for clues to her grandfather’s final state of mind, she turns to the stories he told her when she was a child. On their weekly trips to the zoo he would read to her from a worn copy of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which he carried with him everywhere; later, he told her stories of his own encounters over many years with “the deathless man,” a vagabond who claimed to be immortal and appeared never to age. But the most extraordinary story of all is the one her grandfather never told her, the one Natalia must discover for herself. One winter during the Second World War, his childhood village was snowbound, cut off even from the encroaching German invaders but haunted by another, fierce presence: a tiger who comes ever closer under cover of darkness. “These stories,” Natalia comes to understand, “run like secret rivers through all the other stories” of her grandfather’s life. And it is ultimately within these rich, luminous narratives that she will find the answer she is looking for.
My Thoughts: This book has some major cred, but for some reason, the premise just doesn’t call to me. VERDICT: TOSS
Loser/Queen by Jodi Lynn Anderson
Cammy Hall is what anyone would describe as a loser. She lives with her grandparents 
and has adopted their way of life right down to the comfortable shoes and early bedtime. And can she help it that she actually likes to knit?
At school, her skills with knitting needles and some yarn go completely unappreciated: people like Bekka Bell reign while Cammy and her best friend, the fearless Danish exchange student Gerdi, watch from the sidelines. Cammy’s used to being an outsider; after years of humiliating moments, her goal is simply to fly under the radar. Then she suddenly starts receiving mysterious text messages that lead her right to all the embarrassing secrets about the most popular kids in school. Cammy never expected to be able to climb up the high school food chain, and the agenda of the texter may be questionable but how can she possibly give up the chance to be Queen?
My Thoughts: This book just seems kinda meh to me. VERDICT: TOSS
666 Park Avenue by Gabriella Pierce
What if your mother-in-law turned out to be an evil, cold-blooded witch . . . literally?
Ever since fabulously wealthy Malcolm Doran walked into her life and swept her off her feet, fledgling architect Jane Boyle has been living a fairy tale. When he proposes with a stunning diamond to seal the deal, Jane can’t believe her incredible luck and decides to leave her Paris-based job to make a new start with Malcolm in New York.
But when Malcolm introduces Jane to the esteemed Doran clan, one of Manhattan’s most feared and revered families, Jane’s fairy tale takes a darker turn. Soon everything she thought she knew about the world—and herself—is upended. Now Jane must struggle with newfound magical abilities and the threat of those who will stop at nothing to get them.
My Thoughts: This one is tricky. On the one hand, it sounds like it should be everything I could want in a novel, but on the other hand, it has a TON of mixed reviews- a lot of them skewing to the negative… It definitely won’t be high up on my list but maybe if I randomly come across it at the library…. VERDICT: KEEP (for now)
From High Heels to Handcuffs by Helen Goltz
What makes a girl throw away a six-figure salary and a marketing career to enter thePolice Service? A) A mid-life crisis? B) Trying to escape a failing marriage? C) The search to reignite her passion for life? D) All of the above?For the author, it was ‘D’, all of the above. Nearing forty, childless, tired of her career and with the new-found discovery that her husband was cheating, the time had come to make some tough decisions. The author begins a journey to reignite her passion for life.From High Heels to Handcuffs is for anybody who has ever lost their footing in this world and wondered, ‘can I start again?’
My Thoughts: Honestly not quite sure how this made it onto my TBR in the first place…. VERDICT: TOSS
These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf
When teenager Allison Glenn is sent to prison for a heinous crime, she leaves behind her reputation as Linden Falls’ golden girl forever. Her parents deny the existence of their once-perfect child. Her former friends exult her downfall. Her sister, Brynn, faces whispered rumors every day in the hallways of their small Iowa high school. It’s Brynn–shy, quiet Brynn–who carries the burden of what really happened that night. All she wants is to forget Allison and the past that haunts her. But then Allison is released to a halfway house, and is more determined than ever to speak with her estranged sister. Now their legacy of secrets is focused on one little boy. And if the truth is revealed, the consequences will be unimaginable for the adoptive mother who loves him, the girl who tried to protect him and the two sisters who hold the key to all that is hidden.
My Thoughts: I’m not the biggest thriller fan in general, and this one has really mixed and polarizing reviews. I think I have more important books to get to, and if I’m going to read a thriller I think there are better options. VERDICT: TOSS
Let me know what you think of my decisions in the comments! If you have read any of these, I’d love to hear your opinions on them! ❤ Happy reading friends!
Reading In The Wings 
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