Top Ten Tuesdays #423: Surprising Reads

Posted September 5, 2023 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

Books that Exceeded My Expectations

Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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.

The prompt for this one is “books that defied by expectations” – I decided to talk about some of the books that were surprising for me (in a good way) or exceeded my expectations. I have a shelf for this on Goodreads, as always, so that helped! I decided to go REALLY into the archives for this one so you’ll get some juicy backlist titles on here too.

 

Princess of Thorns // I absolutely loved this book and it completely surprised me. I was liking it enough but kind of slogged through the beginning a little, and then fell in absolute love out of nowhere. I’m still so fucking bitter we never got a sequel because people bullied Stacey Jay off the internet.

Nowhere but Home // This is usually one of the first books that comes to mind when I think of this topic. I started it on a whim on Scribd when I brought my iPad to jury duty and read the entire book basically in one day while I waited my turn. I just will never forget that experience and how much I loved this book.

A Madness So Discreet // I’ll be honest, I don’t remember a lot about this book, but I know I was super surprised by how much I liked it! It’s hard for me to really get into historical fiction books and this one really gripped me. I have very specific memories of reading this too.

We Are the Ants // I was such a fan of this one that I promptly checked out multiple other books by Shaun David Hutchinson from the library… just to be too afraid to read them and be disappointed lol. I just loved this story and his writing style.

All in Pieces // I should never be surprised by loving a Suzanne Young book but she managed to do it for this one! She’d written more dystopian-ish style books before this and that’s how I fell in love with her writing, but this synopsis didn’t really jive with me at first. It ended up being a favorite.

Close Enough to Touch // Colleen Oakley writes really poignant books and I’ve loved the couple I read. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this one but again, it was a pleasant surprise.

The Kiss Quotient // Everyone was all over this book when it first came out and I decided to see what the hype was about. I was surprised by how much I loved it! The other two books in this companion series are also amazing and I’d highly recommend them all.

The Flatshare // It definitely took me a while to get used to Leon’s chapters and how his internal monologue was written… to the point where I didn’t know if I could finish the book. Once I got into the groove, I was absolutely hooked. Totally loved this one and kicked off my voracious reading of all of O’Leary’s books.

The Quarry Girls // Clearly there’s a theme here when I pick up a book on a whim, I end up loving it. I started this one randomly on my honeymoon (not a chill topic at all to read on a sunny tropical island but whatever) and really ended up loving it. The mashup of historical fiction and mystery just really works for me sometimes.

Legends & Lattes // And finally, everyone’s favorite cozy fantasy! Like many other books on this list, I had to see what the hype was about and decided to give this a try. Really loved this quiet story and can’t wait for the sequel!

Leave a Reply

(Enter your URL then click here to include a link to one of your blog posts.)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.