Top Ten Tuesday - Top Ten Books I Liked More/Less Than I Thought I Would

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted at The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten Books I Liked More/Less Than I Thought I Would.

What an interesting topic!  I don't know if I'll be able to remember which books (out of all I've ever read) surprised me in a good or bad way... but here are some of the ones that stand out (click the titles for my reviews):

Top Five Books I Liked More Than I Thought I Would:

5. Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai - This was the first novel in verse that I read and, to be honest, I picked it up only because it was short.  I'm not that interested in historical fiction about fairly recent times, and I didn't know much about Vietnamese immigrants in the 1970s at all.  But I found the voice of ten-year-old Hà engaging and by the end of the book I wanted the best for her and her family.  If I hadn't enjoyed this one as much as I did, I probably wouldn't have discovered the world of verse novels.

4. The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson - I actually kept putting off reading this one, because I'd heard that the beginning was gory and disgusting and I'd be traumatized for life (or something like that).  When I finally plucked up the courage to read it, I found that it wasn't that bad.  Intense and disturbing, yes.  But not intolerable.  And once the graphic depictions of the accident and injuries were over, there was a fascinating story about a flawed man and a mysterious woman who may be more than she seems.

3. The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson - When I put this book on my wish list, I'd seen mostly positive reviews of it.  By the time I got around to reading it, I'd seen some more mixed reviews, and they were enough to make me question whether I'd like this one or not.  The format was a bit different but, other than that, I didn't find much to complain about.  I actually really liked it.  While I guess it's technically a science fiction story (since it's set in the near future), I thought the questions of medical ethics were the real star and they made for an interesting, thought-provoking read.

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë - I had to read this book for a first-year university English course.  I'd heard of it, of course, but at that point I didn't know the story and I hadn't yet seen any film adaptations.  I was surprised at how accessible it was, being written in the first person, and I was genuinely interested in the story.  Stupid professor ruined the ending for me, as I wasn't reading quite as quickly as she would have liked.  So much for slowing down and savouring it.  Oh, well.  It's still one of my favourite classics.

1. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver - I'd heard such good things about this book, but at the time I got around to reading it, I was feeling a little bit jaded, having been misled a few times into reading "amazing" books that really... weren't.  I wasn't sure if I was going to like this one when I started; Sam was not a likeable girl.  But by the time I finished the book, I'd fallen in love with it.  Oliver's writing helped bring those mean girls alive, but in a way that made you care and wonder about the nature of teenage cruelty.

Top Five Books I Liked Less Than I Thought I Would:

5. Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan - I kept seeing this one making the rounds of the book blogs (and getting rave reviews), so I thought I'd give it a try.  It sounded unique and interesting and definitely like something I would enjoy.  While I have no beef with the premise (which is actually a pretty cool one), I couldn't stand the characters -- especially Lily.  She rubbed me the wrong way almost from the get-go.  I never even finished this one.

4. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins - I was so disappointed with this book... especially with the ending.  While I appreciate the sentiment ("war is hell", etc.), much of the last book felt like a slap in the face.  If your main character is going to mope around, hide, and have her raison d'etre pretty much erased, it should be at the beginning of a series... not at the end.  This book was just depressing.  After all the sacrifices Katniss made in The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, she deserved better than this.  Just because things don't always have a happy ending in real life doesn't mean they can't in fiction.  My reaction after reading this final book in the trilogy was to wonder what the point of it all was (if anything).

3. Evermore by Alyson Noël - A tortured heroine, a hot immortal guy, manifesting things out of thin air, and living the high life in Orange County.  What's not to like?  Apparently, a tortured heroine, a hot immortal guy, manifesting things out of thin air, and living the high life in Orange County.  I'd read good things about this book, and it seemed to have the paranormal elements I was looking for, but it was a mess.  Swap out a few character traits, and it was basically Twilight... with worse writing.

2. Basajaun by Rosemary Van Deuren - I went into this self-published book thinking I would enjoy it.  It was supposed to be a magical tale, set in Europe, about a little girl and her rabbit friend defending their town from a religious zealot.  It was supposedly written by a "masterful wordsmith".  I'm sorry, but I wouldn't call someone who doesn't even know how to write technically correct dialogue "a masterful wordsmith".  And simply saying your book is set in Europe doesn't evoke a sense of place... especially when your characters all have American-sounding names and the main antagonist sounds like a reject from the Westboro Baptist Church.  And why can the rabbits talk?  And why does nobody question this?  And how did a six-foot-tall rabbit manage to make his way from Australia without being noticed?  Magic, indeed.

1. The Puzzle Ring by Kate Forsyth - This book has a Scottish setting, a kid who gets to live in a castle, and time travel.  Sounds like a pretty good read... but I was disappointed.  I thought it was too long and drawn out for the target age (the main characters were 13 or so, which probably puts the reading level at middle grade)... but I'm not sure actual middle graders would relate to these characters, either.  At times, they seemed much younger.  I think it could have been a decent book if either the characters' ages and/or reading level had been changed or if the story had been edited a little more tightly.  As it was, it didn't really work for me.  And after all the trouble I'd gone to to procure a digital copy (I had to buy it from Australia)!  I thought I would definitely like it... but I didn't.  Such a disappointment.

Review - The Puzzle Ring

The Puzzle Ring
by Kate Forsyth
Date: 2009
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Source: bought from Dymocks

Hannah, a 12-year-old girl from Australia, discovers that she is the heir to a Scottish title, castle... and curse.  When she was just a baby, her father disappeared, and it was all thanks to the curse that has plagued the family for generations.

Hannah convinces her mother, confirmed skeptic Roz, to travel to Scotland so that she can investigate and perhaps figure out a way to break the curse.  Along with her new-found friends, Hannah journeys back in time to the 1500s in an attempt to find the four pieces of the puzzle ring... because only when they are joined together once more can the curse be broken.  But in her rash decision to try to break the curse, Hannah didn't consider one important question:  How will they ever get home again?

I'm a bit conflicted about this book.  I've been wanting to read it for ages, and when I got an e-book reader, I finally had a chance to do so (the paperback edition is not easy to come by in North America, so I read this book as a PDF).  At first, I thought it was going to be an interesting fantasy, full of fairy myths and legends and historical goodies.  The book did have all of those things (especially in the author's note at the end)... but it just didn't hold my interest, and I couldn't wait for it to be over.

I think the main issue that I had was that, going into it, I thought it was a young adult book.  It's not.  It falls squarely in the middle grade category.  Even then, it wasn't as good as I thought it could have been.  Certain passages had me cringing.  Adverb abuse was obvious.  The characters were one-dimensional, and the foreshadowing was pretty heavy handed.  Aside from Hannah needing to find the pieces of the puzzle ring, she also had to figure out which one of her friends was the "child of true blood".  I figured it out so early that the rest of the book didn't hold many surprises.  I also thought there were too many characters.  Max, for example, seemed like an afterthought, and I often wasn't sure where he was half the time.  I didn't particularly like any of the kids, and Roz's stubborn skepticism was particularly aggravating.

As for the plot, I felt it dragged on for far too long.  I know I should have expected a long story when the plot involves finding four pieces of a ring that were flung in the four directions of the compass, but still...  The sub-plot about Mary, Queen of Scots was almost unnecessary and only added more pages to an already overlong novel.  I think it could have worked just as well as a plain fantasy story.  Include the time travel, by all means, but leave out the political and historical intrigues; they weren't really needed.

I might have loved this book when I was about 11, but reading it as an adult was a bit excruciating.  Some middle grade books can be done really well and show the immaturity of the child protagonists without making you want to slap them.  Unfortunately, this book failed to do so, and didn't live up to my high expectations.  Unless you're actually in middle school and like historical fiction, I'd say give this one a pass.

Plot: 3/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 1/5
Writing: 3/5
Originality: 3/5

Overall: 2.4 out of 5

In My Mailbox (19)

100 Cupboards
by N. D. Wilson

Twelve-year-old Henry York wakes up one night to find bits of plaster in his hair. Two knobs have broken through the wall above his bed and one of them is slowly turning... Henry scrapes the plaster off the wall and discovers cupboards of all different sizes and shapes. Through one he can hear the sound of falling rain. Through another he sees a glowing room – with a man pacing back and forth! Henry soon understands that these are not just cupboards, but portals to other worlds.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox
by Mary Pearson

Seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox has just awoken from a year-long coma—so she’s been told—and she is still recovering from the terrible accident that caused it. But what happened before that? She’s been given home movies chronicling her entire life, which spark memories to surface. But are the memories really hers? And why won’t anyone in her family talk about the accident? Jenna is becoming more curious. But she is also afraid of what she might find out if she ever gets up the courage to ask her questions. What happened to Jenna Fox? And who is she really?

Ever
by Gail Carson Levine

Falling in love is easy...

... for Kezi, a beautiful mortal, dancer, and rug weaver, and for Olus, Akkan god of the winds. Their love brings Kezi the strength to fight her fate, and it gives Olus the strength to confront his fears. Together -- and apart -- they encounter spiders with webs of iron, the cruel lord of the land of the dead, the mysterious god of destiny, and the tests of the Akkan gods. If they succeed, they will be together; but if they fail, Olus will have to endure the ultimate loss, and Kezi will have to make the supreme sacrifice.

The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins

Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place.

The Lost Hours
by Karen White

When Piper Mills was twelve, she helped her grandfather bury a box that belonged to her grandmother in the backyard. For twelve years, it remained untouched.

Now a near fatal riding accident has shattered Piper's dreams of Olympic glory. After her grandfather's death, she inherits the house and all its secrets, including a key to a room that doesn't exist — or does it? And after her grandmother is sent away to a nursing home, she remembers the box buried in the backyard. In it are torn pages from a scrapbook, a charm necklace — and a newspaper article from 1939 about the body of an infant found floating in the Savannah River. The necklace's charms tell the story of three friends during the 1930s — each charm added during the three months each friend had the necklace and recorded her life in the scrapbook. Piper always dismissed her grandmother as not having had a story to tell. And now, too late, Piper finds she might have been wrong.

The Patron Saint of Butterflies
by Cecilia Galante

Agnes and Honey have been best friends for as long as they can remember. But everything is about to change, from their friendship to the only home they’ve ever known: a religious commune called Mount Blessing. Agnes loves being a believer and following the rules of the commune, but Honey has started to rebel. Then, when Agnes and Honey experience the outside world (on the run, no less), their friendship is tested further. After all, when everything you’ve ever known turns out to be a lie, how do you find the truth? A powerful story of faith, doubt, abuse, and above all, friendship.

The Puzzle Ring
by Kate Forsyth

Hannah Rose Brown is twelve years old when she finds out that her family is cursed. Desperate to find the truth about her father's disappearance, she travels to her ancestral home in Scotland, and discover a chain of dark secrets that plunge her into different worlds, timeframes and dangers...

This week's weird mish-mash of genres is the result of finding some fabulous bargains (Ever and The Patron Saint of Butterflies in hardcover for less than $5 each!) and needing to add some more books to my order to get free shipping. So I turned to my wish list. I'm really excited to read some of these!



What was in your "mailbox" this week?



In My Mailbox was started by Kristi of The Story Siren.

On My Wishlist (1)

On My Wishlist is a meme hosted at Book Chick City.

As you can see from the widget in my sidebar (if you're patient enough to watch all the covers cycle through), I have quite a few books on my wishlist. Here are a few that I can't wait to get my hands on:

The Puzzle Ring
by Kate Forsyth

Hannah Rose Brown is twelve years old when she finds out that her family is cursed. Desperate to find the truth about her father's disappearance, she travels to her ancestral home in Scotland, and discovers a chain of dark secrets that plunge her into different worlds, timeframes and dangers...

This one looks so good! And I've heard good things about it, too. At the moment, it appears to be most readily available in the UK. I did find it for sale on Amazon.ca, but it's got one heck of a wait time. So I think I'll wait until it's released in the U.S.A. Does anyone have any idea when that'll be?




Basajaun
by Rosemary Van Deuren

In the world of the rabbits, she is hailed as a savior.
In the world of men, a holy man wants her dead.
She is twelve years old.

In an isolated European farm town in 1906, a Pastor known as 'the rabbit killer' is preaching that the overrun of rabbits is a parallel for sin and corruption. But when Cora - a farmer's daughter - befriends a rogue rabbit named Basajaun, she becomes enmeshed in a hierarchy of sentient rabbit armies and ceremony. Soon the secret behind the rabbits plight is unraveling, and Cora is fighting to save the lives of those she loves - as well as her own.

I'm not usually drawn to self-published books, but this one looks pretty interesting (and the cover's not bad, either). The reviews I've heard are pretty positive, too.




Charlotte Sometimes
by Penelope Farmer

It's natural to feel a little out of place when you're the new girl, but when Charlotte Makepeace wakes up after her first night at boarding school, she's baffled: everyone thinks she's a girl called Clare Mobley, and even more shockingly, it seems she has traveled forty years back in time to 1918. In the months to follow, Charlotte wakes alternately in her own time and in Clare's. And instead of having only one new set of rules to learn, she also has to contend with the unprecedented strangeness of being an entirely new person in an era she knows nothing about. Her teachers think she's slow, the other girls find her odd, and, as she spends more and more time in 1918, Charlotte starts to wonder if she remembers how to be Charlotte at all. If she doesn't figure out some way to get back to the world she knows before the end of the term, she might never have another chance.

This is a bit of an old one (first published in 1969), but I've never read it and it looks really good. I love a good time-travel story.




Brightly Woven
by Alexandra Bracken

When Wayland North brings rain to a region that's been dry for over ten years, he's promised anything he'd like as a reward. He chooses the village elder's daughter, sixteen-year-old Sydelle Mirabel, who is a skilled weaver and has an unusual knack for repairing his magical cloaks. Though Sydelle has dreamt of escaping her home, she's hurt that her parents relinquish her so freely and finds herself awed and afraid of the slightly ragtag wizard who is unlike any of the men of magic in the tales she's heard. Still, she is drawn to this mysterious man who is fiercely protective of her and so reluctant to share his own past.

The pair rushes toward the capital, intent to stop an imminent war, pursued by Reuel Dorwan (a dark wizard who has taken a keen interest in Sydelle) and plagued by unusually wild weather. But the sudden earthquakes and freak snowstorms may not be a coincidence. As Sydelle discovers North's dark secret and the reason for his interest in her and learns to master her own mysterious power, it becomes increasingly clear that the fate of the kingdom rests in her fingertips. She will either be a savior, weaving together the frayed bonds between Saldorra and Auster, or the disastrous force that destroys both kingdoms forever.

This one hasn't been released yet, but it's close. Only a few more weeks to go! It sounds like the type of fantasy story I'd like.

Of course there's more on my wishlist. But I need to save some books for future weeks!