Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Thought I'd LIke More/Less Than I Did
Stand back everyone – I’m attempting to participate in a meme! Top Ten Tuesday is a great meme created by Jamie at The Broke and the Bookish that combines top ten lists and books. She’s come up with a great list of weekly discussion topics and I hope you’ll join in the discussion by commenting on this post or some of the other ones (you can find the list of participating blogs in this week's Top Ten Tuesday post on her site).
So this week’s topic is Top Ten Books I Thought I’d Like More/Less Than I Did. To be entirely democratic, I am going to list five of each. zOMG this is fun and exciting...I'm all aquiver...okay, here we go:
Books I Thought I’d Like More Than I Did
1. The Night Circus by Erin MorgensternI really wanted to love this book as the set-up is amazing. However, while the writing was lyrical and I can’t wait for Erin Morgenstern’s next book, overall, I just felt like the plot didn’t hold together.
2. Stiff by Mary Roach
I love learning about how stuff works; there’s nothing I love to do more on vacation than go on factory tours (no, really, this is a thing I do!), so I thought I’d love this book. Instead, it just upset me—literally, it made me burst into tears and I just found it very distressing. I think it’s because my mom died not that long ago and that was the first dead body I’ve dealt with and I’m still trying to wrap my head around all of that.
3. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
I try not to hate on books; I know that reading is a matter of taste and opinion and one man’s trash is another man’s treasure when it comes to books, but this book…this book…
This book won the Pulitzer Prize?! WTF?!
This book gives me reading rage. I hated it with the fire of a thousand suns—there were no redeeming characters and I didn’t find it funny enough for it to be satire. Ugh ugh ugh.
4. The Shield of Three Lions by Pamela Kaufman
Historical fiction? BRING.IT.ON. I should have loved this book, but there was just something about it that bugged me—I found the writing needlessly vulgar and crude and just off-putting (for my tastes), which made me sad because the story sounds amazing and it got many good reviews. I think this was just one of those books where I just didn't connect with the voice/style, but that overall is probably a great book.
5. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
I know. I know. Let the pillorying begin. I know this is supposed to be one of the all-time great books, but it just didn’t do it for me. Eleanor was crazy and I felt bad for her, but my spine wasn’t tingled in the least by this story.
::sigh:: I know - I'm a bad person; I just hated on a Pulitizer winner and one of the seminal works of pyschological suspense. Okay, well maybe I can redeem myself with the books I liked better than I expected to...
Books I Thought I’d Like Less Than I Did
1. Left Behind Series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
HOW I ever picked up this book, I don’t know. I don’t read Christian fiction. It is definitely NOT my thing. Somehow, though, (I think I was sucked in by a pretty cover), this book found it’s way home with me and I was hooked. This series is awesome! Right up until the end—I took the overly literal return of Jesus a bit hard to swallow—this series had me staying up all night to find out if the intrepid band of survivors lived, thwarted the forces of evil, and found redemption. The writing, characters, and plotting are incredibly addictive.
2. Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
I ignored/was oblivious to the whole Harry Potter phenomenon until just before the fourth book came out. As the release date for the fourth book crept closer, the number of news stories devoted to this “controversial” series increased until it was impossible for me not to hear the furor over this “children’s book series that was teaching children witchcraft.” Say what?! Inquiring minds had to know just what the freaky-freak was going on, so I went out and grabbed the first one to read. Witchcraft, my hiney—it was damn fine reading! I devoured the next two and then found myself frantically searching bookstores at midnight on the release date of book four (and every book thereafter), desperate to know what happened next to the boy wizard.
3. The Wand in the Word by Leonard S. Marcus
I don’t read a lot of writing craft books; I rarely find them helpful. It’s like diet advice—too much is opinion and too much of what is successful depends entirely on the individual dieter/writer. However, this book drew me—it featured interviews with some of my favorite authors, people who had written the books that had changed my childhood and made me the person I am today. I had to have it. The interviews were delightful beyond expectation and even more surprising—the copies of the writers’ manuscripts, heavy with cross-outs, edits, and notes. Even the greats didn’t sit down and write a perfect story, beginning to end, in their first go. That was the most helpful piece of writing advice I’ve ever received—it’s allowed me to ease up on myself and to stop expecting perfection in the first draft. Easy reading really is damn hard work.
4. Legend by Jude Devereau
My grandmother gave me this book, practically forced me to read it, and as we all know, a romance novel recommended by one’s grandmother…well, yeah, I didn’t really have high expectations for this one. Boy, was I surprised. This book is amazing—not the usual, at all! I still feel a little creepy that I really want Kadie to end up with Cole (not Tarik), but you know...ignoring that, this book is very nearly perfect (to explain why that's creepy would reveal a major spoiler, so you'll just have to read it and get back to me on your thoughts). I recently picked up a hard cover edition at an antiques store for $2, which was awesome (I love it when that happens!). Grandma also turned me onto Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so…yay, grandma! She had good taste.
5. At Home in Mitford/the Mitford books series by Jan Karon
Another series, like the Left Behind books, that is sweet, simple, and religious (though not in the way that Left Behind is) and that I don’t know what made me pick it up, but which I ended up loving (I know, I know - for a woman who says she doesn't read Christian fiction, I sure seem to pick up a lot of it!). I gobbled up this series as well and wish Jan Karon would change her mind and write more. I love these characters so much—they remind me of a lot of people in the town where I grew up.
And there you have it. What about you? What are your thoughts on my list? What books would make your list?
Comments
Defintely, I agree Harry Potter gets better and better as it goes on, which is always better than when a series gets worse and worse until the readers finally give up
Yeah, I thought I had no interest in YA books, especially one about an 11 year old boy - who knew?!