30 Day Challenge: Day 30

Day 30: Your Favorite Book

FINAL DAY! Aren't you just overly excited about finding out our favorite books of all time!? Well, we're excited to share! But first, a little recap of our #30DayChallenge.

We had some great moments talking about our favorite characters, you discovered how passionate we are about our favorite writers, and you even caught a glimpse of our personal lives, not to mention our bookshelves. Even though Josh's shelf was a little chaotic, and mine a little too neat, we wanted this challenge to be fun and also to show that we mean what we say here at Scarletta: "Publishers by Trade. Readers at Heart." We're voracious readers of a wide variety of books, and we hope our challenge has inspired our dear blog readers to pick up a few new books, or maybe look at a book in a new way. 

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30 Day Challenge: Day 29

Day 29: A Book Everyone Hated But You Liked

Our penultimate post! How exciting. We've reached that point in the thirty day challenge that's almost a little tragic. It's been a fun few weeks of blogging. We've learned a lot, reflected a ton, and made assumptions and assertions that have been unpopular, well-loved, and debated. Books have a funny way of creating dialogue within the community that loves them.

Today's prompt is a little trickier than most. It's hard to gauge just how disliked a book is relative to your love for it. So, I thought I would look to my Goodreads list and do a little cheating. It's nice to have a fairly comprehensive list of books to reference when you're stuck as I am today.

30 Day Challenge: Day 28

Day 28: Favorite Title

“Gradually the awful truth dawns on you: that Santa Claus was just the tip of the iceberg - 

that your future will not be the rollercoaster ride you'd imagined, that the world occupied by your 

parents, the world of washing the dishes, going to the dentist, weekend trips to the DIY superstore to 

buy floor tiles, is actually largely what people mean when they speak of 'life'.” 

Plenty, plenty, plenty to choose from today!

A title is a tricky thing. It has to be clever, catching, and all-together meaningful to the manuscript. And appealing! It has to have that X-factor, the ish, the it! That's what makes titles so tricky, folks. The title is responsible for the initial impression and is the most lasting way we communicate with and about a book.

30 Day Challenge: Day 27

Day 27: Most Surprising Plot Twist or Ending

I thought about being generic and choosing Fight Club, but we don't talk about Fight Club. (Yeah, I went there.) But then I thought, why be generic, so I'm picking The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. 

Long before reading the book, I had seen the following review on Goodreads: "If you love to read and if you love to care about the characters you read about and if you love to eat words like they're ice cream and if you love to have your heart broken and mended on the same page, this book is for you." How could I not eventually pick up this book? It definitely took a while to read due to the complexity and the interweaving plot lines, but so worth it. There are definitely those out there who don't like it/vehemently hate it, so I'm not going to necessarily recommend it. However, I will say that if you pick it up, to keep an open mind on why people like it. Once you finish the book, you'll understand why. 

30 Day Challenge: Day 26

Day 26: A Book that Changed Your Opinion

“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world. ” 

I thought this prompt would be incredibly taxing to write to. I'm not sure that we're always aware of our ever-changing minds, or the way our feelings and opinions wax and wane while learning from every aspect of our daily existence. Certainly we become aware of our changed thinking, but only after a certain amount of reflection. 

I used to barista at the most lovely coffee shop in the entire world, River Rock Coffee in St. Peter, MN. With a strong focus on local product, sustainability, and high quality, River Rock was not only my favorite place to be throughout college, but, perhaps, where I did the most learning and growing as a human being. In many ways, River Rock as a community, as a school of thought, was responsible for the overhaul of my person. Still, there were a few books that assisted them along the way.

30 Day Challenge: Day 25

Day 25: The Character You Most Relate To

Over the past 25 days of this challenge, I've mentioned character a lot. I love character development. I can't say it enough. So when I read a book that gives me complete relation to a character, that makes me feel as if I am the character, then I obviously don't want the book to end. I almost feel like I should read it slower to make the feeling last longer. 

Today is another day of indecision; once again I'm picking two, and for very similar reasons. Candy Quackenbush from Clive Barker's Abarat, and Isabella Strand from Molly Beth Griffin's Silhouette of a Sparrow, are my two most relatable characters.

I'm not choosing Candy Quackenbush because she is from small-town (Chickentown, to be exact) Minnesota, but because of her desire and passion for the eccentric, the adventure, and the risk. Other than that, I'm probably not much like her, but since the books are all about the eccentric, the adventure, and the risk, I find her extremely relatable. Her desire for something more, and to leave the small town with it's mundane, cyclic lifestyle behind for something exciting. And when she does, she jumps at it (literally). I grew up in a small town that had that cyclic feeling, and I needed something bigger---something adventurous. My adventure just wasn't quite like Candy's journey to another world.

30 Day Challenge: Day 24

Day 24: A Book You Wish More People Would Read

There are plenty of books that I wish more people would read. This morning, particularly, I would love it if Minneapolis drivers would read more books on how to appropriately use their turn signals or correctly stop for pedestrians. Or perhaps a novel that highlights the best way to interact with your barista! Or a collection of short stories that emphasizes how terribly offensive and inappropriate racist, homophobic, sexist, misogynist, or ethnocentric hate speech is an everyday life but especially in a cramped, freezing elevator at 8:30 in the morning.

But, you know, those are just random examples.