We have been having fun with Top Ten Tuesday, so we decided we will do one every week. This bookish meme was hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, and has been going since June 2010! Since last January Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is actually Books You DNF’ed too quickly. This is something I’ve only done once in the last couple of years, so needless to say, I can’t do that topic. So Isabelle helped me think of a way to do this differently. Today I will talk about ten books that didn’t meet my expectations.

To make this a bit more interesting, I’m going to split this in two parts. The first part is five books that I was really looking forward to, but disappointed me. The second part will be five books, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to read that I ended up really liking!

Let’s start this off with the five books that I was really looking forward to, but were disappointing.

1. Caraval – Stephanie Garber I have to start off by saying that I did enjoy this book, but my expectations were probably too high. The idea of this world was amazing, but it took quite awhile for something to really happen. I wanted to know more about the game and I feel like we didn’t get enough. Legendary is already sitting on my bookshelf to be read. Caraval was a really hyped book, so I think that’s why it may have made me expect more.

2. Colliding Skies – Debbie Zaken I have mentioned this one in a few other posts and I’m still really disappointed! Colliding Skies sounded really awesome! It made me think of LUX and the alien invasion the book started out with was perfect. Unfortunately, it turned into insta love and an obsessed teenager. Instead of worrying about what was going on around her, the only thing the main character could think of was her realtionship with the alien. The relationship isn’t a bad thing, I mean I love some romance, but this was just too much.

3. Moonlight Sins – Jennifer L Armentrout This is a book I only finished yesterday, but it did disappoint me. Moonlight Sins isn’t the type of book I expected from this author. All of the elements I need in a book are there, but it felt a bit flat for me. I enjoyed reading it though, but I wasn’t impressed like I normally am with this author. I loved the characters, family history and even the mysterious events going on. There was something missing though. Maybe I didn’t connect with the characters enough, because of lack of information. Or the worldbuilding needed more. It could’ve even been the need to know more about the circumstances surrounding the father’s death. I still don’t know how to rate this one.

4. Catching Stars – Cayla Keenan When I first read about this book, it sounds like something I would love. It definitely started out that way for me. There is a lot of worldbuilding which is understandable. It’s a first book about these characters and events, but I think that’s when it got tricky. It’s not clear to me if this will be a series, even though I think it will after how it ended. The characters and world are interesting, but nothing really happens? Sometimes that can be great when a book is setting up for the rest of this series, but I think there were too many unanswered questions in this one.

5. Goodbye, Good Girl – Renee Blossom This book is described as a coming of age story and doing everything for family no matter the cost. Goodbye, Good Girl sounded like just the book for me when I read that. The main character even has the same name as me, haha. What could go wrong? A lot! Kandace does things without really thinking and gets too deep into things too fast. She started off sounding like such a smart person, but made some really stupid decisions. I didn’t like this book.

Now it’s time for the five books I wasn’t sure about, but ended up loving!

6. Scythe – Neal Shusterman I have wanted to pick this book up since it was released, but I heard some bad reviews. Well, the reviews were really mixed. This made me decide not to pick it up right away. That was until a good friend started reading it and loved it! She has the same taste as I do and she made me very curious. So curious in fact, that I picked the book up the next day and couldn’t put it down. Thunderhead is pretty high on my TBR now.

7. The Raven Cycle – Maggie Stiefvater Another series that has a lot of mixed reviews. I still wanted to read them, but they weren’t on the top of my list. Isabelle actually suggested them to our bookbabes and that made me pretty curious. I can now say that I should’ve picked them up a lot sooner. Blue and her boys are so much fun and so interesting. The world is so well written. At the moment I’m halfway through The Raven King, but I don’t want it to be over. We are lucky she is writing a Ronan trilogy though!

8. My Lady Jane – Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, Brodie Ashton My Lady Jane was on my radar and I liked the idea of it enough to put it on my Christmas wishlist. I found it under the Christmas tree in 2016 and it was just sitting there until the beginning of this year! At that moment, I heard a lot of people fangirl about it in different book groups on Facebook, so both Isabelle and I picked it up. This book was nothing like I expected and I loved it. This book had me laughing out loud while on a train full of people, haha. I am now trying to be patient while waiting for My Plain Jane later this month!

9. Six of Crows – Leigh Bardugo This duology is very hyped. I was very afraid that it would be disappointing. The covers were amazing and I did secretly kind of want to read them, haha. Once again, Isabelle was a major fan and told us we wouldn’t be disappointed. She was right yet again. I couldn’t read these two books fast enough. Kaz is an amazing character, even if he’s a morally grey one. I would love more of these characters.

10. You – Caroline Kepnes Thrillers normally aren’t my go to genre, but You was very hyped. I do love TV shows with criminal cases and I like knowing how the criminals think. Criminal Minds is a favorite show of mine for a reason (not only because of the cute detectives, haha). Reading You, you really crawl into the head of the main character. He is so creepy, but I couldn’t stop reading. Before I was finished I ordered Hidden Bodies before I was done. You didn’t disappoint me and I am looking forward to the TV show based on this book.

 

Those were the books that surprised me in a good or bad way. Is there a book that surprised you? It can be in a good or bad way. It’s fun to hear how a book can be so different than you expect.