Thanks to Rissi at Finding Wonderland for this week’s topic! I started blogging at The Broke & the Bookish in June of 2010 and started recording my thoughts on Goodreads even earlier, so holy moly I’ve been reviewing books for a LONG time. This week I’m sharing the first ten books I ever reviewed (the date my review was posted, along with the outlet it was posted on appears after the title).
I’m excited to see the first ten books you reviewed! Now, these reviews don’t necessarily have to be long, formal reviews. They could just be a sentence or two on Goodreads or a book retail site. Whatever your heart desires. Does anyone else read their old reviews and cringe a little bit? I do!! It’s also kind of crazy to see how my tastes have changed over the years.
1. The Host by Stephanie Meyer (March 10, 2008 @ Goodreads)
I joined Goodreads in March of 2008, and I’m pretty sure this was my first review there.
2. Traitor by Sandra Grey (May 25, 2008 @ Goodreads)
3. Sailing to Capri by Elizabeth Chandler (June 11, 2008 @ Goodreads)
4. Her Good Name by Josi S. Kilpack (May 1, 2009 @ Goodreads)
5. Where Are You Now? by Mary Higgins Clark (July 26, 2009 @ Goodreads)
6. Austenland by Shannon Hale (July 1, 2010 @ The Broke & the Bookish)
My first review ever! Oh, how I agonized over this review. It took me hours and I was so scared to post it!
7. Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder (July 25, 2010 @ The Broke & the Bookish)
8. Finding The Right Man For You: Dating Advice for Women by Lawrence J. Danks (August 15, 2010 @ Amazon)
This book should be fed to the goats. It was SO awful. lol. It made me SO mad (just go read my review). We were getting very few review requests, so I agreed to read this because “Yay! I’m a grown-up blogger who people are noticing!” I’m much more selective with the titles I accept now. I refused to even post this review on our blog, so it became the first review I ever wrote for Amazon.
9. Jane Morris: The Pre-Raphaelite Model of Beauty by Debra N. Mancoff (August 13, 2010 @ The Broke & the Bookish)
This is so not a pick that is characteristic of me and my blog here, but we were trying to review a very wide array of book genres so I threw in this book from an art history paper I was writing in college at the time that I loved so much I went and bought a copy for my own collection.
10. 501 Must-Visit Destinations by David Brown, Jackum Brown, Kieran Fogarty, and Rebecca Walder (September 9, 2010 @ The Broke & the Bookish)
I love travel, and I was still trying to not just read and review YA for TB&TB so I chose to highlight this one!
Ooo! I still haven’t read “Austenland,” but I do really enjoy the film. :) I cringe EVERY SINGLE TIME I read my old reviews. This is why (well, and because the Blogger to WP transfer completely ruined the format) I’m going through, little by little, all of my old reviews and giving them an edit. It’s been tough, but also a good thing! Happy Top Ten Tuesday!
(Thanks for using the topic!)
Isn’t it fun looking back!
Ooh nice! I never did review Poison Study as I read that in my pre-blogging days. I could’ve possibly reread it in the early days but those early days of blogging I had no clue what I was doing! Lol!
Here’s my Tuesday Post
Have a GREAT day!
Old Follower :)
Good topic!
Great list! I think Poison Study was one of the first books I read as a book blogger, but for some reason I always struggled to review Maria V. Snyder’s books. I haven’t heard of a few of these so I’ll have to check them out!
Wow, you’ve been reviewing for a long time! Did you ever watch the film based on The Host?
My TTT.
I have a Mary Higgins Clark book on my list today, too! I used to read her all the time in high school. Her newer books haven’t been nearly as good, but I still read her from time to time.
Happy TTT!
Oh man, such nostalgia at the list haha!
Cora | http://teapartyprincess.co.uk/
I LOVED The Host! I was sad that the sequel never materialized. This was a fun topic. It was nice to reminisce a little. :-)
I completely agree — it’s crazy how my reading tastes have changed since I started posting my reviews on my blog 12 years ago! (It’s also crazy that I’ve been book blogging since 2007. Yikes.)
Austenland is on my TBR.
I like how you talked a little about some of your early reviews, but I don’t cringe when I read most of my older reviews. With mine, I actually think some of them are better than reviews I’ve written recently. When I was starting out, I took days to write a review, and revised it several times before posting it. Between my freelance job and the number of ARCs I’ve had, I haven’t had that kind of time for review-writing in the last several years, and I think it shows in the quality of my review-writing. (I might also be a little burnt-out, TBH.)
However, I did tweak a few of my older reviews slightly as I was looking back and making this week’s post. Usually it was just to put the review into UBB format (I started on Blogger, so most of the first 5 years or so aren’t in UBB) or change things like, “I’m looking forward to the sequel that comes out in August” (10 years ago!), but occasionally I fixed a typo or altered the phrasing a smidgen. The reviews are basically the same as when I first posted them, though.
Wow, you’ve been writing book reviews for a long time! I liked The Host when I read it years ago.
My TTT.
This week’s topic was really fun and a look back on the early days of blogging for me. Thank you.
Man, I’ve only read two of the books here (The Host and Poison Study). I definitely noticed that my tastes have changed since I started writing book “reviews” and boy did those “reviews” make me cringe.