Top Ten Tuesday is a fantastic weekly feature hosted by the The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is “Top Ten Books People Have been Telling Me I MUST Read.” Below is my list compiled of books recommended to me by friends, family, and fellow bloggers!
1) Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks
This book has been recommended to the moon and back by my best friend Andrew. He read it after being disappointed in the lack of feels The Fault in Our Stars, and read this soon after and was heavily impacted. I promised him I will read it soon!
2) A Game of Thrones by George M. Martin
My boyfriend is a huge fan of the A Song of Ice and Fire Series, and really thinks I would love the fantasy series. I’ve heard nothing but amazing things from everyone who’s invested themselves in the series, but I haven’t been able to make the commitment to such a long series and such high fantasy yet!
3) Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
I know, I know, I’m pretty much one of the last YA bloggers to have not read the Anna series, especially with Isla coming out this month! Contemporary isn’t always my favorite sub-genre within YA, but I’ve heard absolutely amazing things about this series, and the recent cover re-designs really call to me as beautiful additions to my bookshelf. I know it’s probably only a matter of time until I read the series!
4) Looking for Alaska by John Green
After my lukewarm feelings toward The Fault In Our Stars, a lot of my friends have suggested giving John Green another try with Looking for Alaska, which many say is better and not a influenced by the hype-monster. While I didn’t love TFIOS, I still enjoyed his writing style and am willing to give Green another shot!
5) Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice
Long before the days of Twilight, Anne Rice was writing what I’ve been told is some of the best vampire fiction out there. My aunt has recommended this title to me on several occasions, knowing my love of paranormal fiction, though she warns me that Rice’s novel was nothing short of terrifying, and that the film adaptation was great! I actually think I own a copy of this somewhere…
This book was recommended to me by one of my favorite fellow bloggers, Becky at Blogs of a Bookaholic. We have a lot of the same tastes when it comes to reading and so I checked this out from the library as soon as I could! I’m hoping to get to it this week during the Bout of Books read-a-thon, and I already skimmed the first few pages and it looks fantastically witty and hilarious.
7-9) The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
Basically every English professor I ever had ever could not believe I have not get read this series given my love of Harry Potter (and my constant quest to utilize HP in every paper I could). I’ve read some of Tolkien theories and essays in my British Literature course in college and he seem truly brilliant and almost unparalleled in world building, and I truly intend to read this series and hope to be swept away with it just as JKR swept me away in her world.
10) Dangerous Boys by Abigail Haas- This novel came out a few days ago and literally every blogger I know is screaming how amazing it is from behind their laptops. No convincing needed here, as I loved Haas’ Dangerous Girls (you can read my review here), and am just waiting to see if I can get my hands on a physical copy (so far I can only seem to find e-book copies available through my normal booksellers).
Do you think I direly need to get my hands on any of these titles? Link back to your TTT in the comments!
I myself did not like the small print in game of thrones and have no immediate desire to read Anna and The French Kiss.
Are all of the GOT books small print? I’m sure it would make sense since they’re all extremely long!
Yeah I think I’ll see if the kindle version isn’t bigger.
Having liked TFIOS, you should read Paper Towns it was much more deep and thoughtful. Read that one first.
I’ve had Paper Towns recommended to me as well! Did you like it better than Looking for Alaska?
Aha! There’s the point, I haven’t read Looking for Alaska, I’ve heard mixed reviews so I just put it off. Paper Towns is awesome though…
I was one of those screaming about Dangerous Boys. I do love Abigail Haas. I liked Anna and The French Kiss, but I didn’t seem to be love it as much as everyone else.
I’m so excited for Dangerous Boys! And I’m really torn as to whether I should purchase Anna or get it from the library, because I’m not sure if I’ll love it and want to add it to my bookshelf, or if it will be more of a “meh” read for me!
I’m been hesitant to pick up Game of Thrones too. It’s such a long series though and I actually don’t watch the TV show, so I don’t feel the pressing need to get started.
My TTT
I haven’t watched the sow either, but I’m actually more tempted to do so than to read the books (which is unusual for me, haha!)
It would definitely be less work than reading the books.
I love Anna and the French Kiss and Looking For Alaska! Anna and the French Kiss is great for a pick-me-up book.
I love the covers for the Anna series!
I like the new covers. Not the old ones. The new ones are just gorgeous.
I too feel totally marooned on an island with a lack of Stephenie Perkins. Her series has totally passed me by, I never had any intention of reading the books but hype is tempting me to change my mind. Now I don’t know whether to go for my gut instinct or give in! After all, I only have so much time to read books and I can’t read them all. *Sigh.* I hope you do decide to give Game of Thrones a go eventually, the books are amazing and it’s good to step out of comfort zone every once in a while. 🙂 Oh, and The Lord of the Ring is EPIC. I’m a huge middle-earth geek (although I must confess that I haven’t read the last book Return of the King). I would start with The Hobbit if you haven’t read it because it’s not quite as dense.
Thanks for the shout out, I hope you enjoy Trouble!
I REALLY need to read The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings (and see the movies!! Can you believe those have passed me by as well?!)
If you haven’t already, I highly suggest reading/re-reading The Hobbit before embarking on the *literally epic* journey that is LOTR. It’s a great way to familiarize yourself with names, places, and people so you can fully appreciate what’s going on in the [much longer and more descriptive] trilogy.
Also, I am one of the (seemingly few) people who doesn’t rave about the Game of Thrones books, so I’ll be interested to see your reviews if you read them!
I agree, a lot of people have advised reading the Hobbit first (was it meant for a younger audience? I’ve heard it described as a children’s book before).
I’d describe the Hobbit, much like Harry Potter, as juvenile literature only in the sense that it was written with an eye toward younger audiences, but they also hold up pretty well as general/classic literature (unlike say, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which is definitely a children’s book.) FWIW, I do think LOTR reads more at a standard YA/Fantasy level.
I feeeeeeel you for the copious amounts of blogging and twitter love-spam Dangerous Boys has been given of recent and I’m just sitting there going “who? what?” (I’m obviously amazing with the ins of what’s being released…) If you’re ever in doubt about the whole high-fantasy shebang, you could always take a gander into the on-screen adaptation for either ASOIAF/LOTR before you delve right in (but then again, my laziness allows me to default to watching them instead haaah.)
Cheers,
joey via. thoughts and afterthoughts
I highly recommend Dangerous Boys, but you clearly don’t need convincing to read that one! I’m actually doing a giveaway for that one up on the blog atm, if you are interested. Trouble is one I own but haven’t got to yet, it looks amazing though and the author is hilarious.
I’ll be sure to check out your giveaway!
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