Happy Friday (On Saturday)!

Welcome to Friday Memes on Saturday!  TGIF, The Blog Hop, Let's Talk, and Follow Friday are brought to you by Ginger @ GReads, Jennifer @ Crazy for Books, Melissa @ i swim for oceans, and Parajunkee respectfully.  Feel free to follow the links I provide you so that you may link up with all sorts of fine people!  Let's get started.

TGIF

Unexpected Books: Which books did you have reservations about reading, but ended up loving once you did?

I tend to have reservations when it comes to new books that people are just raving about in the social circles outside the internet and on the blogosphere.  Maybe I'm just waiting for a second opinion or I don't particularly like being apart of a gushing crowd before I've read the book.  Wither by Lauren DeStefano was one of those books for me.  I found it at Half-Price Books months after it came out and the hype for it had dropped significantlyand I decided, "Why not?"  So that's when I picked it up and found that I was absolutely enthralled by this story.  This is the most recent title that comes to mind.

The Blog Hop

Who is your go-to author when you're in a reading rut?

I think it's between J.K. Rowling, Gabrielle Zevin, Markus Zusak, and John Green.  It all depends on what kind of mood I'm in at the time.

Let's Talk

Who are your top literary crushes and why?

Hermione Granger: She is such a strong character-- a role model to women everywhere and of all ages.  She knocks down walls that were created for seemingly no reason at all.  She is loyal, very clever, and she has a certain tenacity that I just love.

Augustus Waters: He's so young (well, maybe not quite that young), but already he has this great insight on life because of what he's had to face with his sickness.  He decided that his disease would not stop him from living and being a great human being.  He was a beautiful boyfriend to Hazel.  He tried so hard to be strong for her and her failing lungs and it was very difficult to see him be brought to his knees when his disease returned stronger than ever.  There will never be another character like Augustus Waters.

Follow Friday

What would you do if you were to start your blog again from scratch?

There isn't a lot that I would want to do from the beginning.  I'd like to have had a better idea of what I wanted to do on this blog from the beginning, but I don't even think I'd want to do that because it took some time to decide that yes, I really wanted this blog to be a book blog.  I needed that time to play around with my options and then make the jump and transition this blog from there.  So really, I wouldn't change a thing.

Thank you very much for stopping by!  If you'd like for me to visit your blog, leave your web address below and I'll try my best to make my way over to you this weekend!

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude