Tuesday 28 June 2016

Top Ten Tuesday: I've Changed My Mind

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme held by The Broke and the Bookish.


This week's topic is: A free week; so I decided to go back and do the prompt from May 24th, "Books I feel differently about after time has passed".



Opinion Lowered

Queen of Shadows: Here's the thing, Throne of Glass was my favourite series, until this book. I inhale read Queen of Shadows as soon as it came out. I walked into my bookstore at opening and read, stopping for nothing. I had reactions well reading. I finished, gave it a 5* and wrote a praise-filled review on Goodreads. Went to sleep. Then I woke up, having had the book sit for so many hours I started to realize how mad I was. And I just kept getting madder and madder. And come to realize that I pretty much hate the book. Even 10 months later I'm still angry. Maas took everything I loved and wanted from the series and destroyed it. So that review I have for Queen of Shadows is false. But I like keeping it around to remind me of the few hours I believed I loved that book.

Ruin and Rising: Again, love The Grisha Trilogy and this was another situation where after some time I came to realize how unhappy I was with this finale. What really did it was that my pre-order shipped about two weeks before release date. So I read Ruin and Rising before anybody; that I knew of. Then the day comes where I can actually discuss the book, my friends had read it, and nothing out of my mouth was positive. That's when I had that huh moment. I was actually pretty pissed off with Bardugo for taking the easy way out and not being brave enough. You can probably guess my two biggest issues; hint, I hated Mal from the get-go and loved The Darkling. But much more than that.

Confess: Colleen Hoover is the queen. I eat up her books like I'm starving for some excellent fiction. So I think this was a case of being blind until I close the book. I like Confess, it just isn't my favourite of CoHo's books. After some time had passed, I realized I wasn't thinking about the story or missing it like I usually do. So I had a quick think and yea, Auburn is a massive idiot who needed to grow a backbone. There was a major case of insta-love that not even close to being believable. Ultimately, I have no desire to ever reread it, and if you know me that's really saying something. 

Losing It: This is a case of just realizing there's better out there. Losing It was one of the first NA's I read years ago. And I finally did a reread the other day, for the first time. I still like it. It's fun, cute and enjoyable. But I've massively expanded my NA repertoire these past few years; this includes reading a lot more from Cora Carmack, she's a favourite author of mine. Losing It just hasn't stood the test of time. It's good but not as good as I thought 2-3 years ago. I also know Cora has better books out there.

Twlight: Surprise surprise. Obviously not. What's there really to be said? I still appreciate Twilight for introducing me into the YA genre. But c'mon, it's not the masterpiece I once believed it to be. In fact, it's highly problematic in a lot of  places. So yes, as I've explored and changed as a reader over all these years, Twilight has lost some of what it once was to me. It's not great, and I know that now. But it will always hold a special place in my reader heart.

Opinion Raised

Daughter of Smoke and Bone: I'm not sure if I underappreciated DoSaB when I first read it years ago or if by rereading it recently via audio enhanced my reading experience(the narrator is brilliant). Either way, I changed my rating from a 3 to a 4.5 because this book/series is gold. Sorry, it took me years to figure that out.

The Martian: Watching the movie last year, which I think is on point, brought book feelings forward. Mainly I figured out that the book is even more clever and funny. The movie skipped a few things but also for it to be that good it had to come from great material. So pretty much the movie made me appreciate the book even more; which is some how possible.

Allegiant: Here's a controversial one. Yes, I'm in the minority here; I loved Allegiant. And honestly, after years of it continuously being bashed, I just want to love it even more. I appreciate where Roth took the story. I like the dual POV. And no, I didn't find them to be too similar. Yup, I'm still heartbroken, but also I think that scene made perfect sense and kudos to Roth being brave enough to write her book the way she wanted to.

A Court of Mist and Fury: This might be cheating a little because I don't really think my love for this book can get any bigger. But it's almost been two months and I've yet to go a day without thinking about the glorious epicness that is this GAME CHANGING masterpiece. Best chapter 55 in the history of chapter 55's.

Krista & Becca Ritchie: With every book throughout The Addicted/Calloway Sisters series that I read I gained more and more respect and love for what these twin goddesses were giving me; writing. Their stories are brilliant. Their characters even more so. And becoming a fan of them as authors and people through their books and online presence, well my love for them grows all the time. I want them to succeed so much with every new venture their announce. They deserve so much. I adore them and that grows exceptionally all the time.


Agree or disagree with any of these? Hook up your TTT's below!

Happy reading!

Brittany

17 comments:

  1. Daughter of Smoke and Bone = love. Still my Favourite book 5 years later!
    My TTT

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  2. I've heard that Sarah's TOG series gets a little strange with these later books. If I wasn't nervous about reading the series before (because I feel like the only proper book nerd who hasn't ;D), I certainly am now. I'm also curious about her 'Roses' series but again, I've not read a single book by Sarah. Fun list and topic!

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    1. Well Queen of Shadows just destroyed pretty much all I loved and wanted from the series. I know I'm not alone, but then again a lot of people loved it. But if you're going to try out one of Sarah's books I'd 100% recommend A Court of Thorns and Roses because it's amazing! The sequel alone is one of my favourite books ever now.
      Thanks for stopping by!

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  3. I enjoyed Allegiant much more than I thought after reading some of the reviews!

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    1. That's great! I always love seeing some Allegiant love.

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  4. Maybe I should try to re-read the Daughter of Smoke and Bone? I just couldn't finish it the first time around, but if you say it gets better, I'll give it another whirl. Also, I'll cop here, in public, that I didn't think that Twilight was *awful*. I quite enjoyed it (though cringing at parts) while I read it, and it certainly kept me riveted. Which I guess is the purpose of any good book/series.

    Great list@

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    1. If you're into audio books, then I'd 100% recommend going to audio route for DoSaB. The narrator is amazing and definitely made me love the book a lot more the second time around.
      Lol! I mean Twilight is Twilight right? It's entertaining, like you said. And I still love it. But it's not the masterpiece I thought it was 8-9 years ago. Haha

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  5. It's really bad when you reread a book you loved at ten...and that was---oh my!---fifty years ago. Things change a lot.

    https://readerbuzz.blogspot.com/2016/06/an-absurdly-long-and-quite-random-list.html

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    1. Lol! Things certainly will change. I really hope they do. You don't want to be feeling the same way at 10 and as an adult.

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  6. I understand what you mean about how books can change as you simmer on them. Sometimes I'm so mad about something in a book I want to rate it 1 star but then after calming down I realize it was only that one thing that pissed me off and it should be a 4 star lol! I'm working on ACOMAF now and I'm conflicted on my feelings! My Top Ten

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    1. The heat of the moment definitely changes as it dies down. I guess it depends how much that one thing pissed you off. If it's big enough it certainly can destroy the book.
      I think you'll love ACOMAF. I was raging mad for the first quarter or more of the book. But then things happened and I did a 180 and realized Maas is a genius.

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  7. I didn't like Allegiant, but it wasn't because of the ending, I actually thought that was perfect and fitted really well, I don't see any other way she could have ended it.
    My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/top-ten-tuesday-63/

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    1. I'm assuming you didn't like the story line? I know a lot of people say that it made no sense.
      But yes, that ending was foretold from book one. Sad but it was the right ending.

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  8. Losing It was so cute and fun. But it's far from my favorite by Cora. Within that series I loved Faking It (Cade and Max) much more and overall I feel like the Rusk University series blows the Losing It series away. I've read all three books and lately I've been listening to All Lined Up on audio during my commute. I'm not blind to issues in Confess (Auburn was too passive and the insta-love was crazy) but I couldn't help but love the story as a whole. I've yet to read the DoSaB trilogy. The series has been on my bookshelf for ages but it's just never happened.

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    1. Faking It is my favourite of the series too. Although I'm going to give it a re-read soon to see if that still remains true. Rusk University is a bazillion times better. I've re-read it a couple of time. Is the audio good? I want to reacquaint myself with Silas. Again.
      Auburn was soooo passive. And just kind of stupid. Guh! The insta-love. But you're right, it's hard not to love a CoHo book anyway.
      You should do DoSaB on audio. One of the best audios I've listened to. Narrator is amazing!

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    2. The audio of All Lined Up is a really good one. I actually just finished it up a little bit ago on my lunch hour. I need to check Overdrive and see if my library has the next one. It is sooo hard for me to pick a fave from the Rusk series. I have a soft spot for Dallas and Carson from the first one, I loved Nell and Torres from the third one (he was such a teddy bear underneath the party boy exterior), but if I *had to* choose, I think it would be Silas. As much as he came across as a manwhore in the first book there was so much more going on underneath. He had such a low opinion of himself and I kept wanting to hug him. :)

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