Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s theme was things that make me pick up a book.

Let me just say that I am in LOVE with this topic! I chose to list reasons why I might physically pick up a book or why I might then add a book to my TBR, with real-world examples because why the heck not.

♥ It comes personally recommended: an acquaintance texted me out of the blue with “Umm have you read Big Little Lies? I’m watching the HBO miniseries and holy shit I’m hooked” and her thinking of me made me wonder if the book might be my kind of thing after all.
♥ It has cute illustrations: A story may sound interesting, but if I can’t stand the illustration style, there is no way it’s going on my TBR. I am so in enamored with Cannonball‘s illustrations, though, as well as its coloring.
♥ It comes highly recommended across my corner of the bookternet: I have literally seen nothing but good reviews for The Kiss Quotient and having it consistently get four- and five-star reviews made me want to read it.
♥ It includes time travel: I will almost always pick up a book that includes a reference to time travel, but not all of them get added to my TBR. An Ocean on Minutes made the cut.
♥ It’s a retelling of an old favorite: I went through a good half-year when I basically only read books that were either Pride and Prejudice re-tellings or included the book as a plot point. I fell out of the habit, but then Pride came out and it just sounded so freaking good.

♥ I love the cover: whenever people say “you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover” I think well why the hell not? I do this constantly, and Queenie catches my eye literally every time I come across it.
♥ It flips a trope: I love a good Chosen One Story, but I also love when our Chosen One is off… over there… doing their own thing, and I get to read about everyone else, like in The Rest of Us Just Live Here.
♥ It covers one of my interests: I’m a big fan of 1960s-era NASA, and so I will at least peak at anything that covers it. After watching First Man recently, the topic was on the brain when I saw Shoot for the Moon: The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11 come into my library.
♥ I loved the movie: Arrival hit me real hard when I saw it, so much so that I want to read its source material, a short story in Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others.
♥ It tackles a trope I love: I have a serious ~thing for fake dating and the fact that The Unhoneymooners includes fake fating on a fake honeymoon (stranded in a hotel! sharing one bed! pretending to be newlyweds!) made my alarm bells BLARE.