Tiara Talk: Book Recommendations

Let's talk book recommendations.

Prior to discovering the vast array of book blogs online I relied on myself for book recommendations. What I mean by this is that when it was time for me to get a new book to read I would actually take the time to examine covers, read the summary on the back, and do all of the leg-work myself. I hit on some really amazing novels this way, but I also found lots of duds that didn't quite live up to their promises.

I've mentioned my slightly older cousin before, the one who started me on Sarah Dessen, The Uglies Series by Scott Westerfeld and The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. She's the first person I actually took recommendations from. And I'll admit, I wasn't really open to them at first. Occasionally there would be a book hidden in the stacks upon stacks that she would send home with me that I would pick up right then and there, but more often they were what I chose when I was at the end of my rope. Now I regret all the time I wasted not reading those books because what I didn't know as a child (let me add that my cousin and I seldom got along, she was the popular princess and I the shy nerd) is that despite our many differences, my cousin and I had extremely similar reading taste. I wish we still traded books.

As the constant loans from my cousin dwindled out (serious boyfriends, college and work took up the majority of her reading time) I set to work finding like-minded friends at school, people who liked to read. I had two such friends already. Unfortunately with one of them, despite my trying to mold myself into her reading likeness, we simply didn't compare. Looking back now I realize she was a bit of a reading snob in a lot of ways who stuck mostly to gothic literature, the classics at that. Which was fine for her, I was happy that she found something I liked. But not so much for me, a girl who at the time hated to draw attention to myself by being different. And we did agree on Tamora Pierce, all three of us did, which was something. The other friend and I shared some loves such as the Enderverse books by Orson Scott Card and other random titles that we fell into severe insta-love with. But it wasn't enough for me.

Nowadays most of my recommendations come from the many, many, many book blogs that I follow and most especially from the good friends I have made from becoming a blogger myself. I love being able to catch up on what's new out in the book world and get a second, third, fourth, however many opinions on what those new books are like.

So, where do your book recommendations come from? Who do you trust to help choose your next reads?