Top Ten Books I’ve Gotten At The Dollar Store: Round 2

This week at Top Ten Tuesday is a freebie week, and while I was flailing for ideas, I found this draft on my computer, so let’s go! I did a post like this 3 years ago, and have only found TONS more great books at Dollar Tree since then.

Books most often show up here 3-5 years post-publication, and while many of them are the quality you’d expect, gems turn up with incredible regularity. Each location tends to have somewhat different stock, and there are new options at least every month or two, so it’s always my first stop whenever I go in one. I even decided to make a Goodreads shelf about it, if you’re curious/want more examples. All of the books featured today were either 4 or 5-star reads to me, or ones I expect to be as such.

oops, a tiny pic…click the Goodreads links for better cover images, i guess

1. Alone – Cyn Balog
FANTASTIC Spooky Book. You had me at “when her mom inherits an old, crumbling mansion … with creepy rooms and secret passages” but then you added “a group of teens get stranded near the mansion during a blizzard” so they’re all snowed in together, and then “they find themselves at the mercy of a murderer in an isolated and snowbound hotel”? Did I mention that the house was formerly used was formerly used for very realistic murder mystery games and so it’s full of fake body parts, bloodstains, and assorted creepy haunted-house props to add to the atmosphere? Yeah I LOVED this one from start to finish.

2. We Walked the Sky – Lisa Fiedler
A dual-timeline story split between a 1950s teen who runs away to the circus and her granddaughter in the present day, both tightrope walkers, but the latter of whom has just been pulled out of the circus she and her mom grew up in following the grandmother’s death and a new job opportunity. I was sold on “inherits a box of memorabilia” because I am a SUCKER for that trope, but dang, this is the circus novel I’ve been dreaming of ever since That Time I Joined the Circus. Plus, it’s hard to argue w/ the present day timeline taking place a wildlife rescue/sanctuary.

3. The Foreseeable Future – Emily Adrian
I have not read this one yet, but every summer since I bought it I’ve been meaning to, because a) beautiful cover and b) ohhh how I love YA novels about the year after high school for a teen who hasn’t gone directly to college — in this case, working at a nursing home in hopes of earning enough money to move to Seattle.

4. The Bridge From Me to You – Lisa Schroeder
First of all I love this cover; second of all, I absolutely loved the writing in this and the way it brought the small-town-in-autumn to life. The romance is understated (they’re Just Friends for most of it), and while the girl’s chapters are told in verse, it’s one of the only times I’ve ever genuinely loved writing in verse and thought it enhanced the story.

5. Lifting the Sky – Mackie d’Arge
I thought I put this one on the first edition of the list, but since I didn’t, time 2 rectify! 12-year-old moves to a ranch on a reservation where her mom has just been hired, and there are all kinds of animals and it’s wonderful.

6. A Shroud of Leaves – Rebecca Alexander
This is a fantastic mystery (and actually a sequel, but I read it as a standalone with minimal confusion) — not least because how often do you read a book about a forensic archaelogist? Also a particularly serendipitous find because I’d just watched season 1 of Bedlam with no way to watch season 2, and the cliffhanger had me dying for a properly-concluded British thriller about missing girls, and literally the next day I found this. Honestly, it’s so atmospheric between the grounds in the present day and the historical mystery that I would have given it 5 stars if not for the unfortunate aspect of animal abuse involved w/ the present day mystery. :(

7. How Not to Die Alone – Richard Roper
Found this at DT shortly after randomly reading it from the library — I was interested in both his job (searching for next of kin for those who, well, die alone) and the idea of a quiet, introverted office worker, a character type I feel is comparatively rare when it comes to men in fiction. This made me cry a couple of times in the best possible way, and I got so attached to Andrew and his maybe-just-friends, maybe-someday-more relationship with his unhappily-married colleague,

8. Smothered – Autumn Chiklis
Speaking of unusual life paths, this is the first novel I’ve actually seen about a college grad immediately moving back home afterward (like me!). Except in her case, home is L.A. with a real estate tycoon father and an extremely Real Housewives sort of mother. A mix of journal entries and mixed-media formatting (texts, emails, lists, Instagram posts etc), it’s pretty light and funny, or at least I laughed a lot while reading it.

9. The Possibility of Now – Kim Culbertson
Love her books. This one — about a perfectionist who melts down during an exam and decides to escape the humiliation by moving in/hiding out with her “ski bum” dad in a Colorado resort town for a few months, hoping for a slower pace of life — is another winner.

10. The Battle of Junk Mountain – Lauren Abbey Greenberg
I think I have posted about this one before, but I can’t resist because it was truly such an unexpected treasure of a find! Super-underrated middle grade novel that captures the feeling of summer in Maine, the pain of starting to grow apart from a lifelong best friend, and serves as a great introduction to the concept of hoarding (it’s beginning to take over her grandmother’s life, though the latter does her best to hide it).

P.S. this is just the first of FIVE STRAIGHT WEEKS where I will actually be participating in TTT, because the posts are all written and 90% edited. I may be too busy to comment by the time they go live…but at least I’ll have posts.

P.P.S. I made my first attempt to find a theme I didn’t hate, and have not really finished customizing it to my liking, but at least it’s different and prettier colors now.

• top ten tuesday