Recent Books I Liked More & Less Than Expected
Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review.
This is one of those prompts that makes me so happy because I have Goodreads shelves for this! There’s the “pleasant surprise” shelf and the “super disappointed” shelf to keep track of books I liked more or less than expected. I decided to go back as far as 2016 from those shelves but nothing older than that (in terms of read date, not pub date).
Monstrous Beauty | How to Hang a Witch | Cruel Beauty | Down with the Shine | The Leaving
Most of these books were just not ones I expected to enjoy as much as I did! This is mostly genre-related (I don’t read too many books about witches or mermaids or magical realism). CRUEL BEAUTY was a pleasant surprise because I actually DNFed another book by this author. MONSTROUS BEAUTY was a random choice based on a recommendation and I ended up loving it. It just wasn’t a book I’d reach for on my own. Otherwise, yep – just basic not-Lauren books surprising me in a very good way. I don’t read books about witches or anything too creepy, but HOW TO HANG A WITCH and THE LEAVING were pretty addicting once I got started on them. I really just loved DOWN WITH THE SHINE for some reason and it totally kicked off an add-all-the-magical-realism-to-the-TBR binge for me.
Rebound | In Twenty Years | When We Collided | Cold Summer | One Paris Summer
Some of these books just sounded soooo Lauren-y. IN TWENTY YEARS offered up a dramatic reunion of old friends but ended up with just terrible characters I hated. COLD SUMMER had some time travel but the story lacked depth in basically every single area. ONE PARIS SUMMER had some nice international travel but instead offered a suuuuuper annoying main character and a plot I didn’t care about. All of those had me written all over them and just didn’t meet my expectations. REBOUND is the second in a companion series and clearly I enjoyed the first book more than this one; I don’t even remember what happened in it now, looking back. And finally, WHEN WE COLLIDED… sigh. My favorite author. She didn’t let me down per se because the book is very well-written but I just didn’t enjoy reading it at any point. I’m bummed about it still.
Oh man I agree with In Twenty Years. That book let me down so hard!! I just read When We Collided and kind of absolutely loved it. Like it will stick with me. But it is my first book by her so that may have an affect on that.
Ooh interesting! I loved her other three books SO MUCH more. I hope that’s a good sign for you reading the rest of her backlist plus her upcoming 😉
I haven’t read any of these yet, but I’m really curious about How to Hang a Witch and Down with the Shine. I’m happy to see that they surprised you!
They were both definitely out of my comfort zone, and really surprised me!
I actually have In Twenty Years on my list, too! It really sounded like something I could relate to, but those characters were just awful.
Right?! What a great premise with terrible characters haha.
Hi! This is the second list I’ve seen with When We Collided. I haven’t read it yet. Hopefully my lowered expectations will help me enjoy it! 🙂
My TTT
Leslie
I hope so too! If you’ve loved her other books, just know it’s a bit heavier and different!
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