Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Almost Put Down But Didn’t

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday on The Broke and the Bookish is “Top Ten Books I Almost Put Down But Didn’t.” I really need to start working on these sooner so I give myself more time to think about my answers.

1. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

I think if this hadn’t been so short, I wouldn’t have finished it. Not because it wasn’t good – it was excellent – but rather because I just knew something bad was coming and I was scared. I’m a total literary pussy.

2. Prodigy by Marie Lu

Mostly I had the box set and I didn’t want the trilogy sitting on my shelf staring at me accusingly forever, and I knew that if I didn’t read through it now, no way was I going back and starting again. So it was a now or never sitch.

3. The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow by Rita Leganski

I started this book and then stopped it. Not quite sure why. So every time after that when I picked it up I either tried to start from where I’d left off, which didn’t work because I’d forgotten everything, or tried to start over and got bored because I’d already read that bit. Finally just grabbed it, sat down, and read until I got past the bit I’d read. Then I couldn’t put it down, and it’s now one of my faves.

4. Going Bovine by Libba Bray

This didn’t end up being what I expected. The beginning was great, but then it got all weird and meandery and acid-trippy and vaguely pointless and I got progressively less interested in it. By the end it felt like when I would have to finish a book in high school.

5. Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

I still don’t know what I think of this book. It wasn’t terrible, but there were a lot of bits that nearly lost me. I’m really not sure if I’ll ever get around to reading the rest of the series.

6. The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood

My parents went through this phase where they made me read one book a month that was outside of my normal comfort zone. I think they were worried about Nancy Drew brain damage or something. At any rate, this was before I was really much good at figuring out which books would appeal to me, and I had a lot of false starts. But this one I had to finish. And while I know my parents had the very best of intentions, this is one time they really didn’t do me any favours.

7. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

This book is HUGE. I tried this a few times before I finally made it through. It’s definitely not a genre I’ve come to have a lot of interest in, but I’m still proud that I made it all the way through. But I won’t be repeating the experience.

8. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

It took me a little while to really enter Anne’s world, and I nearly gave up so many times. But I stuck with it, and I will be forever grateful that I did.

9. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

I actually did abandon Atlas Shrugged never return. I did finish The Fountainhead, and I’m glad I did. The thing about Rand is that she was an amazingly talented writer – her books will swallow you whole if you let them. But they’re not really comfortable places to live. They’re a very interesting social representation – unique in my experience – but so cold and unforgiving that by the end of the book I felt kind of like my insides were iced.

10. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

This was the first full-length book I ever read. It was so so hard, y’all. I nearly didn’t become a reader. But I stuck with it, and of course at a certain point that magic happened and I couldn’t put it down. So it’s thanks to this reading experience that I learned to love reading as much as I do.

There are probably better examples, but that’s what I’ve got for this week! What about you guys? Link or share in the comments! //<![CDATA[ var sc_project=10144299; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_security="82f610c9"; var scJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://secure." : "http://www."); document.write("”); //]]>