Top Ten Tuesday #144

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all had a great week since I last did one of these, mine has been rather mixed but it ended on a really good note as I’ve found Critique Partners for both of my WIPs and they’ve given me some really good, constructive feedback so far, so I’m really excited to carry on working with them and turn these stories into the best possible versions of themselves so that one day you guys can all read my work (that day will likely be a very, very long time from now, but one day).

Anyway, since it’s Tuesday, I’m back with another Top Ten Tuesday from Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week we’re talking Books I Can’t Believe I Read. I’m interpreting this in a rather loose way, this won’t necessarily be books I hated, just books that I would necessarily read and am surprised I did, whether I loved them or hated them. So here we go, Books I Can’t Believe I Read:

1. PS I Love You-Celia Ahern

Romance novels are so outside my wheelhouse of fiction, in fact I’m pretty sure this is one of only three romance-centred novels that I have ever read! I only really read it because of the movie (which I love, despite Gerard Butler’s iffy Irish accent), and whilst I liked the premise, it is definitely one of those cases where it’s the sort of thing that works better for me as a movie than a book. Plus I found Holly in the book incredibly irritating!

2. The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants-Ann Brashares
Another one that is kind of out of my usual wheelhouse, I’m not usually the fluffy, summery contemporary type, my adventures into contemporary are usually the slightly darker kind, but I’m actually really glad I read this one, because although it’s not the sort of thing I would read now, as a young pre-teen, it was great to have an example of female friendship like the friendship between the girls in this book. I still can’t believe I dived out of my fantasy hole long enough to read this one, but I’m very glad I did. I even read all three sequels as well!

3. The Princess Diaries Series-Meg Cabot

I’m sensing kind of a theme here……yes, yet again, it’s another fluffy contemporary that I read in my pre-teens/early teens. In some ways this isn’t so much of a stretch as I’ve always loved royalty, but the fact that I read an entire ten book series where romance is a central focus? Yup that I can’t believe. I did like The Princess Diaries at the time, but looking back, Mia was kind of annoying and I much prefer her in the movies, in fact I prefer the movies in general!

4. What Katy Did-Susan Coolidge

For those of you who don’t know, I tend to shun classics, as the ones I have read have left me bored, but my mum loved this book when she was younger, so I read it and actually enjoyed it, to my shock, it was a nice coming of age story and I really liked Katy (although the disability portrayal is quite dated).

5. Lulu Baker Books-Fiona Dunbar

Again, not the sort of thing I would read now, a little bit too cutesy for my liking but when I was a kid, I loved these books, about a girl who got a magical cookbook and would make recipes from it in order to solve problems in her life. There was also a CBBC show based on the books that was quite fun.

6. Heading Home-Katie Flynn

Not only can I not believe I read this one, but I actually enjoyed it? Enough to read it more than once even. And it’s a romance novel? Just goes to show that stepping out of your comfort zone can surprise you sometimes! This really cute story follows the Muldoon sisters as they grow up and navigate pre-war England/Ireland.

7. Lord of The Flies-William Golding

I can’t believe I was forced to read this for school, it was so dull. I get that it’s supposedly considered this big classic and everything but I don’t really understand why, it was so boring. Sure the social commentary is decent, but the characters are totally flat, they all seem like archetypes, the pacing was awful and it’s so blinking predictable. Honestly I wish I could go back in time and force the government to change our English Literature GCSE syllabus, so I could get back the time I spent reading this book!

8. The Fault In Our Stars-John Green

I just can’t believe I gave into the hype on this one. I knew that it wouldn’t be for me, everything I’d heard about it made it sound like something I’d hate, but I wanted to know what it was everyone loved so much about it. It was so predictable, the plot was so slow and incredibly lacking, and the teen voices did not feel at all realistic (I read this in early 2014, I was 17 so around the same age as the characters in the book) and I felt like Gus and Hazel weren’t really developed at all. I should have listened to my gut on this one!

9. To Kill A Mockingbird-Harper Lee

This is another one I had to read for school, and I’m glad I did, although in terms of social commentary on racism, I much prefer Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses. I won’t go as far as saying that I loved this, because that wouldn’t be true, but in terms of school assigned readings, this was actually one of the better ones we got, it felt a lot more accessible than a lot of other classics I’ve read and although it’s very of it’s time, I still feel like it’s an important story.

10. The Time Traveler’s Wife-Audrey Niffenegger

The third of my three romance centred novels, I pretty much only wanted to read this one because my mum and sister were reading it and I asked if I could, surprisingly they agreed even though I’m pretty sure I was only 13/14 at the time! This is so far removed from anything I read today, even with the sci-fi elements, but I’m glad I did, because the romance between Henry and Claire was really beautiful and I thought the concept was quite creative. I remember being really disappointed at the movie-so that just goes to show how much I enjoyed the book, despite not being my usual genre!

So there we go, Books I Can’t Believe I Read, some good, some bad! Have you read any of these? Did you like/dislike them? What books were on your lists this week? And bonus question, if you’re a longtime follower of my blog, then which of these was the biggest shock to you, a book that you never would have thought I would read? Let me know in the comments!

Next week’s list is Books that have been on my TBR the longest and I still haven’t read, aka yet another list of shame. I will be hiding under my covers in embarrassment all week long preparing for this list I’m sure!

In the meantime however, I am hoping to have a new Writing Corner post up this week, my first of the year, wherein I give you the inside scoop on my current WIP, Underground Magicians!