Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week they provide a topic and you are free to use that topic and/or variations of that topic to make your top ten list. You don’t have to do all ten. Instead you can do three, five, fifteen, whatever you want. A full list of the weekly themes can be found here.

This week’s theme is Things That Make Me Pick Up a Book. I thought this topic was interesting because there are any number of things that can inspire me to pick up a book and what appeals to me one week may not hold the same draw the next. So, let’s have a chat about some topics that usually grab my interest.

The Main Character

One of the first things I look at when I’m considering picking up a book is who the main character is. The majority of the books I own have female leads. I’m not sure if I got interested in YA fantasy because so many of them have female leads or if I like female leads because I prefer YA fantasy but either way, I’m more tempted to read a book where the main character is female. Here are some books I have read recently with a female lead that I’ve particularly enjoyed.

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Romantic Subplot

Look, I’m not reading a book only for a happily ever after between characters A & B but you can bet your bippy that I want complicated romantic entanglement along the way. And it better not be an easy love story either, oh no. I want enemies to lovers, spontaneous angry sex, something way more complicated than it really needs to be. Obviously when you are first picking up a book you aren’t sure what kind of romantic entanglement is going to be coming your way but it makes me happy when the romance isn’t easy.

The Hype

We all see the books around blogs, social media, and prominent book store displays that get far more attention than others. The hyped books. The ones it feels like everyone is talking about. Personally, I have very little willpower against that hype. Odds are if it is a book within my preferred genres getting hype I will pick it up. Sometimes I enjoy the book, sometimes I don’t but hype sells. Here are a few books I have read purely because of hype, whether I have ended up liking them or not.

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Cover Love

Covers sell books. It isn’t hard to wrap your mind around that. When a book has an eye catching or visually appealing cover it is more apt to draw a browser’s attention whether it is on Goodreads, in a physical shop, or even just scrolling through social media posts. Covers sell. In fact, some of my favorite books came onto my radar because of their covers! These are three books that caught my attention initially because of their cover.

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Recommendation

Along this book blogging journey I have made some wonderful friends that I am very grateful for. When one of those trusted friends recommends a book I will typically check it out. Three bloggers I particularly trust the opinions of are Steffy @LittleBookyNook, Amanda @MetalPhantasmReads, and Swetlana @TheCaffeinatedBookwormLife.

There are certainly other reasons I have picked up books over the years but those are five of the main ones. What are some reasons you pick up a book?