Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Feel Differently About After Time Has Passed

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week, the theme is ten books that you feel differently about after time has passed. Here’s my list:

1.) We Were Liars by e. lockhart

When I first finished this book, I rated very highly because of the ending. As I kept thinking about the book, I realized I didn’t really enjoy the beginning of the book or writing style that much, so I gradually starting taking away stars on Goodreads.

2.) This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

When I first read This Lullaby, I liked it, but it definitely wasn’t my favorite. After reading it again, it became one of my favorite Sarah Dessen books!

3.) The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg

When I first read The Lonely Hearts Club, I liked the book, but I didn’t really care for the main character. After rereading it a few more times, my opinion changed for the better.

4.) What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen

I liked What Happened to Goodbye, but it didn’t really stand out to me out of all of Sarah Dessen’s books. After rereading it a few times, I definitely enjoy the story more.

5.) Matched by Ally Condie

I remember Matched coming out whenever dystopian young adult books started becoming super popular. It was okay, but once I started reading other similar books, I realized that I didn’t like it as much as I thought I did.

6.) The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey

I really liked The Fifth Wave when I started reading it, but after I figured out the plot twist pretty early in the book, reading the rest of the book felt more like work than fun.

7.) The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth

I really liked the Divergent series when it came out, but I found myself always putting off reading the last book. Then, I was really frustrated with how the series ended. When I started thinking about the series as a whole, I realized that I didn’t really like the world building, which is a major part of the series.

8.) Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

When I first read this book in high school, I didn’t like it, probably because we only talked about symbolism. I reread this book in college and I actually really enjoyed it.

9.) Shel Silverstein

I’m not really into a poetry, so I never wanted to read anything by Shel Silverstein. After reading The Giving Tree, I realized that was such a big mistake! Now, I plan on reading more of his work in the future.

10.) Dr. Seuss

Before, I really didn’t like all the made-up words and creatures in Dr. Seuss’s books. After reading his books again, I love the messages within his books. Some of his books, like The Lorax and Oh! The Places You’ll Go, are definitely in my top ten favorite children’s books.

What book have you changed your mind about?

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Marry, Kiss, Cliff (YA Edition)

Day 8 of Blogentine’s Day.

Today for Blogentine’s Day, I will round up some of my favorite love interests from YA books. I selected nine characters and used a randomizer to sort them into three separate rounds. For each round, I will choose a character to marry, kiss, or push off a cliff (and survive). After three rounds, the winners from each round will compete in one final round. Here are the results:

ROUND ONE: Finnick Odair (Catching Fire/Mockingjay), Cricket Bell (Lola and the Boy Next Door), and Tobias Eaton (Divergent series)

Ugh, this is so hard! I love all three of these characters so much.

Marry: Finnick Odair is absolute perfection. I didn’t care about any other character after he was introduced in Catching Fire. #teamfinnick

Kiss: I love Cricket and it was definitely hard choosing between him and Finnick. I’ll put Cricket at number two because he is more cute/adorable compared to Finnick.

Cliff: I’m going to have to choose Tobias! I love Four, but just not as much as Finnick or Cricket!

ROUND TWO:  Michael Moscovitz (Princess Diaries series), Andrius Arvydas (Between Shades of Gray), and Owen Armstrong (Just Listen)

Okay, this one is a little easier.

Marry: Owen Armstrong, for sure. I love the other two, but some reason, Owen is one of my favorite YA love interests. He’s nowhere near perfect, and usually someone who is slightly pretentious about music would annoy me, but I love Owen more every time I reread Just Listen.

Kiss: Sorry, Michael, but I have to choose Andrius! He showed his kindness throughout the novel and even in such a terrible situation, he made Lina feel safe.

Cliff:  I love the Princess Diaries, but out of these three, Michael isn’t my favorite. I liked Michael in the beginning of the series, but didn’t really feel a strong connection to him by the end.

ROUND THREE: Dexter (This Lullaby), Ryan Bauer (The Lonely Hearts Club), Etienne (Anna and the French Kiss)

Marry: Dexter, for sure! Dexter is so dorky, but has a heart of gold. He’s definitely husband material.

Kiss: I would have to kiss Etienne! Even though I think being in a relationship with him would be a little too dramatic for me, the accent is a definite plus!

Cliff:  I’m going to have to choose Ryan. I really like him, but I feel like he doesn’t have as much depth as the other two characters.

FINAL ROUND: THE WINNERS FROM ROUNDS 1-3

Finnick Odair (Catching Fire/Mockingjay), Owen Armstrong (Just Listen), and Dexter (This Lullaby) 

This. Is. So. Hard.

Marry: Finnick Odair forever ❤  Obviously, I love all three of these guys, but Finnick will always hold a special place in my heart.

Kiss: If I have to choose… Owen Armstrong. Just Listen was the first Sarah Dessen book that I read, so I’ve had a connection with him longer.

Cliff: My heart is breaking. I will put Dexter here, but it is very, very painful.

What would you choose in each round?

#TeenTuesday: Allegiant Review

Even though I pre-ordered a copy of this book, it’s taken me a long time to get around to reading it. My sister learned about the major spoiler in the book and even though I had my guesses, I still didn’t know how it ended until I actually read it. I rated this book four stars (get it?) on Goodreads because the book kept me hooked enough to read it through one sitting, but I’m not sure if I actually liked the book or if I just wanted to find out if my guesses were correct.

One aspect that I enjoyed in this book was learning more about minor characters and their motivations. In the previous books, I felt like a lot of minor characters were thrown at me and I wasn’t sure how to sort them in my head. Even though I haven’t read Insurgent in a long time, after reading several pages, I was able to understand the characters.

I also loved how Tris and Four fought. I think their arguments revealed who they were as people and I enjoyed that their arguments centered around what was important. It made them and their relationship seem very authentic.

There were also quite a few things that I didn’t like. One problem that I had with book was the villain character, David. I didn’t feel like you got to know him enough throughout the book and until the major plot point, you didn’t really have a reason to hate him except for his relationship to characters from the previous books. I wish there was more development of his character and didn’t really care for how his story line ended.

I also really didn’t care for the explanation of their world and I didn’t feel like they were as obsessed with it as all of the characters kept telling me. Maybe I was expecting more, but the whole idea of experiments and resetting didn’t wow me and there seemed to be too many plot holes to make the whole idea believable.

Another problem that I had with book, as well as several other books in this genre, are the unnecessary deaths. I know that it is war and no one is safe, but in these types of novels, it seems an overwhelming amount of characters are killed meaninglessly just to make the reader shocked. In this book specifically, I think it happens to much and sometimes doesn’t reflect how the character typically would respond in the situation.

My reaction after reading this book? I was angry. Very angry. And I still don’t understand why it ended the way it did, so I keep going back and forth on whether I liked it or not.  To me, the series never ends on a happy note. On one hand, I like this because it’s different than other books in the genre. On the other hand, I don’t like endings that make me the think everything leading up to the end was pointless, which this book did.  

Even though I’m not entirely sure on my feelings of this book, I give it four out of five stars for keeping me interested and making me think.

Inside Out Book Tag

Here are my answers to the Inside Out Book Tag and I tag anyone who is reading this!

• A book that brings you joy

Lola and Cricket are one of my favorite couples and whenever I’m looking for a book to make me happy, I reread this one!

• A book that makes you angry

I’m still mad about this.

• A book that makes you sad

These books make me equally sad. The Giving Tree makes me sad because it shows how we use and destroy those who love us unconditionally and don’t realize how much they mean to us until there’s no time left. I almost cry every time I read this book. Even though I don’t almost cry every time I read The Lorax, it makes me sad to see how our selfishness can destroy something beautiful.

• A book that disgusts you

I actually love this book, but reading about the horrors of war and how they affect innocent people disgusts me. It is difficult to stomach that humans could actually treat other people like garbage.

• A book that brings you fear

I’ve never actually read this book, but I just watched the movie on Lifetime, and it freaked me out that someone could come up with a story like this. This was also the only book cover I could find that didn’t creep me out.