Top Ten Tuesday #286

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these. I had a great time at The Last Five Years last week, it was so lovely to be back in a theatre, the show was amazing and it all felt really safe. It was so nice to just forget about everything going on for a few hours and be absorbed in a really amazing show (the music has been stuck in my head for the past week!). I’m up in Stirling now for a couple of weeks, just for a break from home, obviously haven’t got any real plans whilst I’m here!

Anyway, as it’s Tuesday, I have another Top Ten Tuesday for you all, courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week we’re talking Books I Read Because Someone Recommended Them To Me. I’ll be honest, I’m usually the one doing the recommending rather than getting them, but I did manage to come up with a list of ten books that were recommended to me, so I guess I get them more than I thought! So here we go:

1. Percy Jackson and The Olympians-Rick Riordan

I was recommended the Percy Jackson series by a girl I made friends with after I moved schools in Year 9. I borrowed the first book from the library and then she lent me the rest (honestly I’m pretty sure I ran through them quicker than she could get them to me). That friendship didn’t last past school, but it did form the basis of my friendship with Hannah (who was also new in the same year) and we’re still friends ten years later!

2. Children of Blood and Bone-Tomi Adeyemi

This one was actually a bookseller recommendation, not something I get very often because I generally go in knowing what I want, but this one was definitely a success as I ended up really enjoying the book.

3. The Magician’s Guild-Trudi Canavan

This one was recommended to me by my friend Nicola, and to my shame, I haven’t actually read it yet! It’s on the list, the list is just very, very, long!

4. A Darker Shade of Magic-VE Schwab

I didn’t really get one specific recommendation, this one was just around the blogosphere a lot back in 2015 when I really started to get more involved with the community and as it was one I was seeing around a lot I figured I really had to try it. Of course it ended up being one of my favourite books and I’m now completely obsessed with VE Schwab’s work, so congratulations guys: you created a monster!

5. Everyday Sexism-Laura Bates

My sister recommended this one to me, and got it for me for Christmas a couple of years ago. I actually still haven’t read this one, but since I’ve been really enjoying her latest release, Men Who Hate Women, it’s definitely one I want to get to soon.

6. The Diviners-Libba Bray

My friend Nicola recommended this one to me, and I sped through the first three audiobooks last year before reading the final one when it came out earlier this year. It’s safe to say this recommendation was definitely a success, if you’re wanting a spooky paranormal historical fantasy for your October reading this year, I definitely recommend this one (and do the audio if you can, the narrator is amazing!).

7. Cinderella Is Dead-Kalynn Bayron

Again, I don’t have a specific person that I got this recommendation from, it was on a lot of lists of Black author recommendations earlier in the year which led to me requesting it from Netgalley. I ended up really enjoying it, so another successful recommendation for the blogosphere!

8. The Hunger Games-Suzanne Collins

This was a recommendation from my sister (or at least I borrowed it from her, so I have to assume she recommended it to me, I don’t actually remember!) and of course I loved it, I read this one in like a week and proceeded to race through the other two books in the trilogy over my Easter holidays in 2012.

9. An Ember In The Ashes-Sabaa Tahir

Another recommendation from Nicola, I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy this one as much as The Diviners, it felt kind of flat and I didn’t really love any of the characters. Having said that, I didn’t fall in love with The Diviners till the second book in the series, so I’m hoping the same will be true for this series and I’ll enjoy future books more.

10. Unwind-Neal Shusterman

This was actually an Amazon recommendation, which is not somewhere I usually get my book recommendations! But anyway, it came up in the “Recommended For You” section, I thought it looked interesting and ended up buying it. I ended up really enjoying it and the rest of the other books in the series, so dare I say it? Amazon actually did something right here.

So there we go, those are some Books That Have Been Recommended To Me. Have you read any of these? Did you enjoy them? Where do you get most of your book recommendations? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back next week with our annual Halloween Freebie. I have to admit, it gets harder and harder for me to think of topics for this every year because I’m not a big Halloween fan and it seems like there are only so many things you can do! Since cover topics always seem to be a popular one though, I think I’ll do Top Ten Spooky Book Covers.