Top 10 Lists – SE White Author

My Favorite Things About Being a Reader

2021-02-24

Blogging, Friday Favorites, Silliness, Top 10 Lists

Today we’re doing a listicle, because listicles are so fun. And gifs are even better. Combining the two? The Very Best, even though it makes a silly word (gificle? gifsticle? giflist? Whatever it’s fantastic and I’m going with it). Let’s all celebrate the high points of bookworm life. 1. I have a whole house filled with books. FILLED, I SAY. Floor space? Who needs floor space? Not me. 2. Reading is a ready-made pastime. A book is suitable for any…

Book Tropes: I Can’t Argue With You When You’re Sick!

2021-02-17

SE White

Blogging, Book Reviews, Recommendations, Reviews, Romance Tropes, Top 10 Lists

For this post it’s that trope, nearly always employed in an enemies-to-lovers type situation, where one of the duo gets sick/injured or is suddenly in imminent danger. Ruh-roh, Scooby! Because they are acting like antagonists life conspires to basically FORCE their defenses down in a way the character would probably never do on their own. Isn’t it the best? When they’re happily spatting, all defensive maneuvers deployed, the sarcasm shots launching A+ hard, and then it’s all “Wait, you’re sick?…

Book Tropes: A Mail-Order Happily Ever After

2021-01-13

SE White

Blogging, Recommendations, Reviews, Romance Tropes, Top 10 Lists

Another trope rec post! This time the specific mood I’m in is that carefully arranged, sometimes mail-ordered happily ever after. I’ve always loved mail-order bride books (despite knowing arranged marriage is much more complicated in real life). This isn’t reality, this is fiction, and in fiction picking a partner like you’re ordering an entrée from a menu ends perfectly every time. For this list I’m focusing on the mail-order trope but including some of the more standard arranged-marriage books because…

The Great Reading Wrap-Up of 2020

2020-12-30

SE White

Blogging, Critique, Recommendations, Reviews, Romance Tropes, Top 10 Lists

In the grand tradition of December, let’s do some wrapping up. Wrap some presents. Wrap-up your holiday shopping. Write lots of wrap-up lists. Wrap-up small, misbehaving children Krampus style to mail to . . . haha . . . ooops. Don’t do that. Got carried away there. Number Of Books I Read: 265 Left unsupervised again. Plus, worldwide pandemic, quarantine, and stress-reading to the maximum amount possible. I’m talking reading a probably unhealthy amount from March to May. Number of…

The Great Blogging Wrap-Up of 2020

2020-12-16

SE White

Blogging, Goals and Hopes, Holiday Wishes, Top 10 Lists

Alright, friends. Let’s get to some numbery maths for the year. I’m still at the point where I genuinely enjoy blogging (LET IT NEVER END) and I have a lot of fun breaking my year down in stats. If you’re interested the 2019, 2018, and 2017 breakdowns are linked. Just as a note: I’ve spent zero pennies on marketing of any kind since I started this blog in November 2016. Instead, I’ve focused on blog-hops and building relationships. That means…

Book Tropes: Beauty and the Beast

2020-12-09

SE White

Blogging, Book Reviews, Recommendations, Reviews, Romance Tropes, Top 10 Lists

Yep, it’s time for another trope recommendation post. This one is my very, very favorite, ride or die, auto-buy trope, so this will be a very long rec post. Be warned! Do I know there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of retellings of this fairy tale? Yep. Does that stop me from buying them and hoping more come out? NOPE. Something about seeing through outward appearances to the genuine, worthy, real person within has always caught my attention. You know that…

Book Tropes: The Grovel in The Novel

2020-10-14

SE White

Book Reviews, Recommendations, Romance Tropes, Top 10 Lists

Sometimes I’m in the mood for a super specific, really niche trope. It’s like a food craving, where only that certain brand from that one store will do. In this case it’s a good old grovel. Not the little token apology with immediate making-out, ohhh no. I want the real down-and-dirty, sincere, I-fucked-up, oh-my-god-I-was-so-dumb, dawning realization. It doesn’t particularly matter to me which character (hero or heroine or all three heroes in a reverse harem) is doing the groveling. There…

Book Tropes: I’m A Damsel, I’m In Distress, I Can Handle This. Have a Nice Day.

2020-09-30

SE White

Blogging, Recommendations, Reviews, Romance Tropes, Top 10 Lists

Every once in a while I’m in the mood for a SUPER specific, niche type of trope. In this post, it’s the typical Damsel in Distress situation, but with an atypical damsel. I want the kind of book where: things are going down, it’s getting grim, the odds are against them the hero has literally *just* said something like, “We’ll never make it!” or “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” then the heroine strolls in all unconcerned and takes…

10 Reasons Writers Are Definitely Creatures of the Night; Author Toolbox Post

2020-07-15

SE White

Author Toolbox Blog Hop Post, Blogging, Silliness, Top 10 Lists, Writing Process

We function best with comfy, secluded, darkened spaces. In a house, there was a writing cave. Inside that writing cave, there was a desk. At that desk, there was an author and an empty notebook. Under that desk, there was a blanket fort, and in that blanket fort there was . . . a writer’s block. See? It just works. 2. Random screams into the void have high probability. Also we’ll hiss at our Word program, to assert dominance, after…

SE’s 10 DNF Red Flags

2020-07-08

SE White

Blogging, Critique, Recommendations, Top 10 Lists, Writing Process

Featuring SE, being a Judgy McJudgypants. I’ve been alive for thirty-three years now, and a bookworm for roughly twenty-three of those years. TWENTY-THREE YEARS, friends. By now I know what I like. And, inversely, what I do not like. Any book gets at least a fair try, no matter what, but I admit to being a mood reader who will yeet straight to DNF if I’m not feeling it. And there are a few things which pretty much guarantee I will…