Top Ten Tuesday #319

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve had a great week since I last did one of these, mine has been fairly quiet, I was mostly doing more training for my job and completing my latest assessment for my intensive Spanish course. I’m going to see my friends this weekend though, our first indoor meeting since lockdown so I’m super excited for that.

Anyway, it’s Tuesday, so that means another Top Ten Tuesday, courtesy of That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is Books I Loved That Made Me Want More Like Them, which is slightly confusing phrasing but basically it means books that you read that made you want to find similar ones after reading them. I love this topic since I think like all readers, when I love a book I want to go out and find similar ones! So here we go:

1. A Darker Shade of Magic-VE Schwab

A Darker Shade of Magic became one of my favourite books after reading it and thus started my love of VE Schwab. Since I read ADSOM in 2016, I’ve now read almost all of both Schwab’s back catalogue and the books she’s released since then. I actually now only have two more of her books left to read (discounting the Everyday Angel books because I feel like they’re a bit young for me!), her debut, The Near Witch and the latest Cassidy Blake book Bridge of Souls. I also have the rest of The Steel Prince comics (I haven’t read The Night of Knives or The Rebel Army arcs yet) and her new ExtraOrdinary comics to read.

2. My Sister’s Keeper-Jodi Picoult

My Sister’s Keeper is definitely not my usual kind of read, but I loved it so much that I then went out and bought most of Jodi Picoult’s back catalogue and her new books usually make it straight onto my pre-order list (barring her upcoming release because it’s about the pandemic and I’m really just not ready to read any pandemic books yet. I’ve watched some shows that have featured it, but by and large, I’m generally staying away from any pandemic related media). She has a huge back catalogue and I haven’t been interested in reading all of her books because some of the subject matter hasn’t interested me, but I’ve read 18 out of her 24 published books so it’s safe to say I’m a fan!

3. The Lightning Thief-Rick Riordan

I may have reached a point where I feel like I’ve outgrown Rick Riordan’s books (though I do want to finish the Trials of Apollo series eventually) but when I first read The Lightning Thief at 14, I devoured the entire PJO series and over the next (almost) decade read as much of his work as I could get my hands on (barring The Kane Chronicles as for some reason they never interested me much). I’d always been fascinated by Greek mythology but Percy Jackson definitely took it to a whole new level!

4. The Hunger Games-Suzanne Collins

This is more of a genre thing rather than an author thing, The Hunger Games was the start of my dystopian obsession: though it was fairly short lived, I think it lasted about 3 or 4 years! But because of reading The Hunger Games, I searched out other dystopian books and read (and enjoyed to varying degrees of success): Neal Shusterman’s Unwind series, James Dashner’s Maze Runner trilogy, Julianna Baggott’s Pure Trilogy, Sarah Crossan’s Breathe duology and Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series. The Hunger Games wasn’t actually the first dystopian book I read, that was Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses, but it was the first one that made me want to go and search out other books like it.

5. Six of Crows-Leigh Bardugo

My first introduction to the Grishaverse and I loved Kaz Brekker’s misfit gang of criminals so much that I immediately searched out all of the other Grisha books that I could get my hands on. Six of Crows is still my favourite Bardugo book, but I’ve happily bought everything that she’s brought out since. I’ve yet to read Rule of Wolves but I’m super excited to do so.

6. Skulduggery Pleasant-Derek Landy

I fell in love with Landy’s magical skeleton detective pretty instantly when I was 12 and over the next six years read every Skulduggery book that came out, plus the Demon Road trilogy. I’ve felt fairly mixed about the more recent additions to the Skulduggery series, I don’t think they’ve been as good as the original series, but I’m still going to be quite sad when the final book of the series is released next year as it will definitely be the end of an era of my reading life-these books have been with me for over half my life now!

7. Matilda-Roald Dahl

I am aware now that Roald Dahl’s views were pretty heinous (antisemitic, racist, misogynist), so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend his books now, but when I was a kid, I really did love them and Matilda was one of the first books that made me feel seen as a young reader, so naturally I searched out his other books after reading it.

8. Code Name Verity-Elizabeth Wein

Code Name Verity remains one of my favourite WWII stories I’ve ever read: it’s all about female friendship, it’s so cleverly woven together (one of the best unreliable narrator books I’ve read), it highlights women’s work in WWII and has a number of heartbreaking plot twists. I’ve read all of Wein’s Verity related books since then (Rose Under Fire, The Pearl Thief and The Enigma Game) and I can’t wait to see what she does next.

9. Dangerous Girls-Abigail Haas

Reading Abigail Haas’ messed up, brilliantly twisty YA thriller definitely made me want more messed up, brilliantly twisted thrillers. I’ve had mixed results, nothing has quite reached the heights of the shocking plot twist of this book, I’ve found some that I’ve really enjoyed and some that have been quite underwhelming but it was this book that made me want to read more mystery/thriller-esque stories.

10. Timekeeper-Tara Sim

Tara Sim’s brilliantly creative Victorian steampunk-esque alternative historical fantasy starring a gay clock mechanic and his pansexual clock spirit boyfriend definitely got me more interested in reading historical fantasy. I’m not sure if this was the first historical fantasy I’ve ever read, but I definitely remember searching out for them a lot more after reading this book. I really recommend this trilogy to everyone, it’s woefully underrated and SO SO GOOD.

So there we go, those are some books I loved that made me want more like them, whether it was books by the same author or in the same genre. Have you read any of these books? Did you like them? What books have you read that made you seek out books like them? Let me know in the comments!

Next week’s topic is my annual Summer TBR list, my Spring TBR did not go very well, thanks to my ongoing reading slump, so I’m hoping that I can do better with my reading over the summer than I did over the spring!