10 Colorful Contemporaries To Brighten Your Day

I used to participate in Top Ten Tuesday when I first started blogging and it was a wonderful way to meet fellow bloggers! I thought with coming back from a hiatus, and a bit of a lack of inspiration on my part, participating again would be a great idea. So, every Tuesday (if the topic interests me) I’ll be sharing a Top Ten Tuesday post. Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl! Make sure to check out her page explaining everything you need to know, including future topics. 

Today’s TTT topic is all about colorful covers! It’s pretty straight forward but I decided to go with colorful contemporary covers for books I would actually recommend to you. I’ve read each of these and gave them 4-5 stars! I love them all and hope you find some to add to your TBR!

FIRST AND THEN by Emma Mills
Goodreads
♥ First & Then by Emma Mills // What Would Jane Austen Do?

This felt like an obvious first choice for this prompt based solely on the cover. However, I really enjoyed this one! I gave it a whopping 5 stars! It’s a cute story, a pretty typical high school romance, but with plenty going on and Mills writing is smart & full of wit. It’s also inspired by Jane Austen – for those of you who love her work.

A TOTALLY AWKWARD LOVE STORY by Tom Ellen & Lucy Ivison
Goodreads
♥ 4 Reasons You Should Read A Totally Awkward Love Story

I stumbled upon this one when I received an arc for it from Yallwest. It’s so freaking cute. There’s a little bit of everything happening in this romance that makes you go on a rollercoaster of emotions. It’s also so real (minus the super rich kids). If you read my review, I go into a bit more detail, but this book doesn’t shy away from real issues teens face (not just romance). Also, fun fact, it was written by real high school sweethearts and is loosely based on their relationship.

A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT by Sandy Hall
Goodreads

This is another I stumbled on thanks to an arc from Yallwest. I thought I wrote a review for it but I can’t find one? Either way, I know I enjoyed this one! I thought it was a cute read told from multiple POVs (including a squirrel and a bench). It’s weird but it’s cute and funky!

NOT EXACTLY A LOVE STORY by Audrey Couloumbis
Goodreads
♥ Not Exactly a Love Story by Audrey Couloumbis // Exactly the love story I wanted

I picked this one up on a whim from a used book store and I’m glad I did. It’s short, it’s based in the 70’s, and is such a unique spin on high school romance. It’s a romance that blossoms between two strangers on the phone. But it’s also a great coming-of-age story for the main character, Vinnie, who takes on two different personalities (who he is on the phone, and who he is in person). It’s like the OG of online persona vs real-life persona.

NOT IF I SEE YOU FIRST by Eric Lindstrom
Goodreads
♥ Not If I See You First by Eric Lindstrom // A Unique High School Drama

This story follows a blind main character named Parker. She’s a complex character who doesn’t put up with crap. Plus, this book has a great group of girlfriends around her (yay girl friendship!). This one is definitely more about friendship than love, and I highly recommend it!

GIRL AGAINST THE UNIVERSE by Paula Stokes
Goodreads
♥ 4 Reasons You Should Read Girl Against the Universe by Paula Stokes

I loved this one! Maguire, our MC, was such a perfect “strong female character” in that she was kind but also accepted help when she needed to. This book, at it’s center, is about mental health. It breaks down the stigmas about reaching out to people, accepting help, and talking bout it. I could keep rambling, but my review (link above) explains it much better than I can in a quick snippet!

» Bonus points: In my review I wrote this “She’s Irish and Greek and has big hair just like me so I was super ecstatic about that”

FINDING AUDREY by Sophie Kinsella
Goodreads
♥ Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella // Relatable & Adorable!

If you want a book with a quirky family and an adorable love interest, this book is for you! It’s another one that deals with mental health and social anxieties. Kinsella kept the details of the cause of Audrey’s anxieties a mystery but she had a very specific reason for doing so. Here is a quote from her about this:

“…I feel strongly that if you start to think ‘This event caused this reaction and was responsible for Audrey’s condition,’ you actually relate less to Audrey’s predicament. So many teenagers these days suffer from anxiety, I wanted them to be able to relate to Audrey and not feel, ‘I didn’t have that event happen to me so I’m not like her.”

I love that, because it really did make the book that much more relatable. So if you don’t want to read this book for the great characters, read it for the relatability.

GEEKERELLA by Ashley Poston
Goodreads
♥ Geekerella: A Cute, Fandom Filled Retelling

This one was just adorable. I love Poston’s Heart of Iron duology, but this one was a solid contemporary. I enjoyed Elle’s character because, hello, she has a blog dedicated to her favorite fandom! We can all relate to that. Darien is like a nerd in disguise because it’s not cool. They’re both wonderful characters with great backstories and I really rooted for both of them.

UNDER ROSE-TAINTED SKIES by Louise Gornall
Goodreads
♥ Under Rose-Tainted Skies by Louise Gornall // A book that did it right

If you liked Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon, you’ll like this one (although this one is 100x better to me). While the story can be a bit slow (it’s a short book though), the writing, characters, and the topics addressed were what made this book great. I said in my review that this isn’t a YA romance, it’s a story about mental illness that has a romance in it. Where Me Before You and Everything, Everything went wrong, this book went right. The romance doesn’t cure Norah (the MC), or save her, it’s about Norah’s mental illness being a part of who she is but not all she is, and she doesn’t have to change for others. I liked that.

ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS by Stephanie Perkins (+ Isla & Lola)
Goodreads

It has been a minute since I read all of these books. I read them before I had a blog so I have no review to jog my memory of why I liked these books. Heck, I might not even like them today, but they’re colorful and I remember loving them when I read them! Except Lola & the Boy Next Door. I didn’t like that one lol

Have you read any of these?
Did I convince you to add any to your TBR?

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