Top Ten Tuesday

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After a few weeks absence, it’s time for another Top Ten Tuesday! I have to start off by apologizing for slacking off for the last few week’s Top Ten Tuesdays. Life has gotten busy and now (hopefully) things will be a little back to normal.

This week’s topic is: Top ten books I almost put down but didn’t.

10. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: This one was definitely not one of my favourites. There was just enough in this book to keep me hooked and have me seeking answers and resolutions, but man this one was a struggle.

9. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: I had a hard time getting into this one at first, but I’m so glad I persevered. This book was a recommendation from a close friend of mine and it turned out to be one of my favourites. If it wasn’t for her insistence that I read it all the way through, I would have never discovered such a beautifully tragic book.

8. Allegiant by Veronica Roth: Gosh, now that I’ve read this book and had time to think it over, I wish I had put it down. I enjoyed Divergent and I kept hoping and wishing that the series would pick up, or that the story would improve just a little bit. It didn’t. This book was a waste of time, in my opinion (sorry to the die hard fans).

7. The Orenda by Joseph Boyden: It took me a long time to get into this book. I carried it around with me, 50 pages read, for days and days and days. It’s a heavy book so you can imagine I tired of lugging this thing with me everywhere. Finally, I gave myself an ultimatum: shelve it or finish it. So, I finished it because I love Joseph Boyden. And he, again, did not disappoint. 🙂

6. The Great Gatsby: When I first picked this one up it was because, at some point way back in high school, everyone started talking about it. Honestly, starting this book was a chore the first time around and I wasn’t too keen on finishing it. But multiple reads later, it’s one of those comfort books for me. I pick it up on a lazy summer afternoon and lose myself in it, if only for a little while.

5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (series) by Stieg Larsson: Gosh these books have dreadfully boring beginnings. Thank goodness I worked in a place where I was permitted to read on my downtime. Having a time where there’s nothing to do but read forces you to get through the tedious bits. These books all turned out to be intense, fast paced, gripping reads. If you can stick it out through the blah at the beginning.

4. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami: I loved the beginning of this book…and then things got weird. I had no idea the hype surrounding this book until weeks after I’d purchased it. You know, it was a decent read. It’s fascinating and I think it definitely deserves a second read to help fill out the story. But about 100 pages in, I almost put it down because the story changed into something I wasn’t expecting and something I didn’t fully comprehend.

3. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: I almost put this book down mainly because of its size. It’s a daunting read. It’s weighty and difficult to open as a mass market paperback. I’m glad I set these thoughts aside though, because to this day, it’s one of the most beautiful books that I’ve read.

2. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare: It took me a little while to get used to the writing style, but in the end, I read the first three books in the Mortal Instruments series. It wasn’t until book 4 that I actually had to put the book down. The first three, although I read them years ago, were very enjoyable, fast-paced, YA reads.

1. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles: This highly metafictive text did not immediately pique my interest at the start. It it wasn’t for the assignments I had to complete on this novel, I don’t know if I would have continued reading beyond the first few chapters. The story was so complicated and detailed that I ended up (surprisingly) loving this book in the end. It’s so aware of itself as a novel and as a work of fiction. This startling text was very enjoyable in the end.