Tag Archives: favorites

miscellaneous 'bookish' things

best fictional father/daughter duos

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Saturday night, my dad and I attended our fourth annual father/daughter ball, and it was a blast. Dinner, a great speaker, dessert (the best part of the night! … I kid, I kid!), dancing, and games (we won one ‘How well do you know your father/daughter’ game and a raffle prize!). I had a great time. As I was spending an amazing night with my amazing dad, I started thinking about my favorite fictional father/daughter duos and decided to share them with you all!

Jane Austen’s Mr. Bennet is by far my favorite fictional father. He’s so understanding and patient (he has to be to be married to Mrs. Bennet!) and his relationships with his daughters are unique. I love Donald Sutherland in the 2005 P&P movie.

Robert Quimby – otherwise known as Beezus, Ramona, and Roberta’s pretty awesome dad. (Is it just me or does Mr. Quimby’s facial expression look like Mr. Bennet’s in the pictures I chose?) Robert Quimby has a great sense of humor and despite having lost his job, he stays positive for his girls. I love that about him.

Best thing about P.L. Travers’ Mr. Banks from Mary Poppins? He’s really not fictional. If you’ve never read the book ‘Mary Poppins,’ GO GET IT. The movie does not do it justice, though I do love Julie Andrews. Then watch the best movie ever made, Saving Mr. Banks and WATCH IT. I was bawling like a baby at the end, by oh goodness, it was incredible.

emily

The Long Way Home, the second book in the Family Tree series by Ann M. Martin, is my favorite of the three-book series (soon to be a fourth!) because I love Dana’s father, Zander. Though he makes mistakes, he loves his girls and his family and Dana clearly adores him. Zander Barnes reminded me bit of Mr. Banks, and there’s tear stains on my copy of this book, too.

These four fathers each remind me a bit of my own dad, and I cried with them and laughed with them and loved them! I really recommend you to go read all of the books they’re in; the books are fabulous, and I promise you’ll fall in love with the dads just as much as I did!

Who are your favorite fictional fathers? Why do you like them?

Emily

blog segments

top ten tuesday // book recommendations

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Hi, everybody!  Top Ten Tuesday is an original book meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Today’s TTT is Top Ten Books I’d Give To Readers Who Have Never Read X (examples: Young Adult novels, historical fiction, a certain author, books about a certain topic, etc), and I decided to go with historical fiction and middle grade/young adult – five for each. I’m going to start with historical fiction books I’d recommend to someone who’s never read any historical fiction.

Number the Stars is a fantastic book. I actually just read it several months ago, but I’m going to have to read it again this year for more required reading. I was hanging on to every word, and sat in my room all day to finish it. This would be the first book I’d give to someone.

Oh. My. Flying. Flapjacks. What an incredible book. I read this one two years ago and my copy is very loved. Set in Little Rock, Arkansas, during the integration of schools in 1958, the Main Character creates a bond with a new girl, Liz… then Liz is caught “passing” for white and her family is shunned and disrespected. I loved, loved, loved this book and wish I could go back in time so I could read it like it was the first time again!

Of course, if you’re a regular subscriber on my blog, you had to know this would be in this list. Awesome book; so many tears. I really have no more words. I’d just shove this down someone’s throat. In fact, I have. And she loved it. (Right, Kareena?!)

I read Hattie Big Sky for the first time about a year ago, in September, and loved it. I was hooked the whole time, and there’s even a second book (though I liked the first one a lot better).

What can I say about this? Honestly. It was… oh my word, it was… eye-opening. Heck, I’m tearing up just talking about it. This would, without a doubt, be on a list of books to give someone who’s never read any historical fiction. Though, I’m not sure it would actually qualify. Since, you know, it’s not fiction. But I’m putting it on the list anyway.

Now for my top middle grade/young adult recommendations.

Okay, so this is my favorite middle grade genre series. There’s a seventh book coming out soon, which I cannot wait for. I’ll be one of the first to buy it, I’m telling ya. I’ve read the series dozens of times (and that’s not an exaggeration!), plus own two autographed copies. (One of which a friend gave to me that she found in a used bookstore – whaaat?! Who would give away a signed copy?!), especially by Heather Vogel Frederick. Speaking of, on Thursday, Heather will be answering some questions in an interview I made – which is super awesome!

Ann M. Martin is another favorite of mine – I especially love The Main Street series. Whenever I read these books, I get sort of a… cozy feel. It’s just one of those make-you-feel-good-books, which I think I may have mentioned in a previous post. (Either that, or a draft of a post.) Oh well. This is to say – go get these books! They’re awesome.

Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson is pretty darn amazing. I’ll admit, when I first bought it on my Kindle, I began it and then didn’t finish it, but DON’T JUDGE MY LAZINESS. I did not stop because it was bad. In fact, when I started it again, I loved it. (Check out my review here.) To re-use a GIF from my review for it…

(Okay, sorry this is italicized. Dunno why WordPress won’t let me fix that…) The Selection series by Kiera Cass was (I’m tempted to use the word ‘awesome’ again), but to steal a word from the Notebook Sisters, frabjous. I was holed up in my room for hours with lots of comfort food (chocolate, popcorn, popsicles, pretzels… that’s a lot of ‘p’ word foods. Anyway!), and finished all three books in two days. (Actually, reading The One was postponed, because my parents refused to enter the password on my Kindle and buy it for me… plus I was kinda-sorta broke.) Luckily, UnlockTheOne.com saved my life, and I was able to read the first ten chapters for free. 
 
Sorry, guys, I’m only doing nine today since WordPress is acting funny today; it won’t let me align anything or make it non italicized. :-/ it’s really annoying. In the meantime, hope you liked this TTT! Hopefully by Thursday it will be better, so I can post again 🙂 Thanks for reading!
 
Emily