Top Ten Tuesday: What a Surprise!

~ Kay @ Hammock of Books

Top Ten Tuesday is a book blog meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is Books That Surprised Me (In A Good Or Bad Way). I decided to include both the good and the bad!

The Bad

1. Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard: Unpopular opinion alert. I did not like this book. I didn’t hate it, but I saw so many good reviews and then it just felt…flat. Cliche. Unrealistic. Bad.

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2. Eliza and Her Monsters by Franscesa Zappia: I was expecting to love this book! I related to the premise of being shy and not telling anyone about my presence online. But I just hated Eliza; she treated everyone horribly and no wonder she had no friends!

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3. The Mediator: Remembrance by Meg Cabot: I love Meg Cabot, and I love The Mediator Series! But I guess good things never do come out of books released ten years later and this one felt stupid; grown adults were still acting like teenagers??

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4. The Heir by Kiera Cass: The original Selection trilogy are some of my favorite books; I love America! But her daughter Eadlyn was so…annoying. I just couldn’t like the last two books. (Hahahaha my computer wanted to autocorrect “Eadlyn” to “deadly” seems pretty accurate).

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5. Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon: I didn’t see the ending coming, and I pretty much hated it. It made the entire book seem so stupid and trivial.

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The Good 🙂

6. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: This one is required reading at my school and I heard so much from older friends about how much it sucked, but I really liked it!

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7. Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi: Juliette annoyed me so much in Unravel Me and I thought this series was going the way of so many before (cough Divergent cough) that just get worse and worse but this one was definitely my favorite in the series Juliette became so badass!

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8. To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han: I heard good things about this one and was expecting to like it as much as any light, fluffy, contemporary. I wasn’t expecting to absolutely LOVE it and have it one of my complete favorites!

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9. My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Medows: I was also expecting to like this one, but I had no idea how HILARIOUS it would be! Like, laugh out loud hilarious!

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10. Harry Potter by JK Rowling: is my all time favorite series. And I was first exposed to the movies when I was, like, six. I’ll tell you, a PG-13 movie is pretty traumatic for a first grader and, consequently, I pretty much hated Harry Potter for being so scary. But by the time I was finally old enough to not run screaming from the back of Quirrel’s head, I absolutely LOVED the books 😀

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Those were my top ten books that surprised me! Comment below and I’ll check out your TTT 🙂

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78 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday: What a Surprise!”

  1. I’m glad someone else thought Eliza was a brat, I couldn’t take how annoying she was at times.

    I was also pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Harry Potter and My Lady Jane. Love your list 😄

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  2. Great list! I read Red Queen a couple of years ago when it first came out, and enjoyed it a lot, but I think if I read it now, I would not have liked it as much. Plus I absolutely DESPISED the second book to that series, and never continued on to the third book 😂

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    1. Thanks, Ashley! I’m glad to know someone else shares my opinion! I’ve been considering giving the sequel a chance since everyone seems to love that series so much, but your comment makes me wanna still not read it 🙂

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  3. I’ve looked at some of Meg Cabot’s books, including “The Mediator” series, but haven’t read anything by her. Sounds like a fun series, but I’d agree: adults acting like teens isn’t the best tactic. Oo! So glad to see Jenny Han (another series I MUST READ ASAP!) and “My Lady Jane” on the list. 🙂

    Happy Top Tuesday.

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    1. Remembrance is pretty much the only Cabot book that I haven’t loved (and I’ve read like 30 of her works lol) so I would highly recommend reading her works! (especially Princess Diaries ❤ <3). Those are great books! Happy reading 🙂

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  5. I agree with you on the ending to Everything Everything! I felt punked! But I guess she felt that way too! I didn’t see the movie because I felt so out of sorts about the ending. I should’ve included that on my bad list! Maybe I’ll go back and edit my post!

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  8. I personally adored Eliza and her Monsters! I could see myself in a lot of her character (but hopefully not the rude part haha).

    I found both America and Eadlyn a little annoying although Eadlyn was a lot more annoying yeah. I didn’t enjoy Everything Everything much either and Wuthering Heights is on my TBR! I’ve only heard good things about it, so I’m excited! I’m sort of iffy on The Shatter Me series because I didn’t like it too much, but KENJI IS FOREVER A FAVE + I really need to read Restore Me haha. I agreee, TATBILB is so adorable and My Lady Jane sounds so good!

    Great post!

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    1. I’m glad that someone could like the book 🙂 Hope you love Wuthering Heights! AND YESSSSS Kenji is legit my favorite part of the series the whole time I was like forget Adam and Warner both just let me have Kenji ❤

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  9. I’ve been so out of the loop with Meg Cabot that I had no idea that she’d written another book for The Mediator! I read all of the original books when I was still in school and loved them but that was quite a while ago now, haha.

    And I feel the same about Everything, Everything. The ending ready did make the whole story seem kind of pointless.

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  11. Harry Potter is my all time favorite series!!!
    I loved the selection series but I never read the one’s about her daughter, they just never appealed to me 😦
    I was also one of those people who were disappointed by the red queen, it just didn’t live up to my stupidly high expectations!

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      1. The Red Queen was such a weird book, like it could be so good the power things was amazing but I hated Mare so bad!!!!
        I do sort of want to read the next book in the series tho? I don’t think I’ll like Mare any better but I want to see what happens sort of :p

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  13. I went into reading The Red Queen after reading all the reviews saying it was tropey, cliche and bland, so I think my low expectations helped me to enjoy the book that much more!

    Ah the back of Quirrel’s head – I’m not surprised that bit scared six-year-old you! HP continually surprised me but I always knew I would love it.

    I didn’t even realise there was another book to the Mediator series. Bad reviews or not, I have to read it now!

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    1. Haha it’s always nice to be pleasantly surprised against low expectations–I just hate it when a popular book doesn’t live up to hype so this is much better xD Yessss on Harry Potter ❤ I hope you like the last Mediator book more than me!! Happy reading, Lucy ❤

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  14. I just started reading HP and it’s just so beautiful and I was so surprised because the movies were the best thing ever imo??? and Wuthering Heights!!!!! sometimes I just reread “I cannot live without my life, I cannot live without my soul.” and allow myself to be emotionally destroyed again ❤

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    1. I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree with you on the movies being the best thing ever because, I mean, they’re the SECOND best thing ever with the books being the absolute best thing ever xD And yesssss that quote gives me so many feelssss ❤ ❤

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      1. *gasp* oh my gosh, I meant I was surprised bc the movies were *not the best thing LOL!! they were nice but not OVERLY nice (was super young though) and then I read the books and the aesthetic was IMPROVED!!!!!! 😀 MY SWEET LEETLE HOGWARTS CHILDREN????????????

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  16. I felt the same way about The Mediator: Remembrance! I absolutely loved that series when it was originally coming out. This one was kind of a let down. I also felt the same way about The Heir. I really didn’t like America’s daughter. And I love Wuthering Heights!! I think we might be book soul mates haha

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  28. I can understand your feelings for Red Queen… While I did like the first book, the sequels are just ugh and I’m not sure I will ever finish the series. Also I really enjoyed Wuthering Heights as well despite my reservations!

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  31. Everything Everything did disappoint me as well! The plot just made the book different. After the plot twist I felt like I was reading a different book.
    And now I don’t know what to feel about Eliza and her Monsters. Great list though!

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  32. Oh my gosh, the cover for Ignite Me is so pretty! I’m glad it was a good surprise. I think I’ll have to read that one. I’ll be reading Everything, Everything this year, too, and now I think I’ll be on the lookout to see how much the ending annoys me, too. xD Great list!

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