TOP TEN TUESDAY | BOOKS I DIDN’T THINK I’D LIKE

This week’s topic is a freebie, so I decided to come up with my own. I’m thinking back over books that, for one reason or another, I didn’t expect to like going in, but that I really, really did. Either they’re a genre I don’t usually enjoy, an author I didn’t get along with previously, I’d heard some negative reviews of them, or I had to read them for some reason. But in spite of the strike they had against them, I ended up loving them. Who knows – maybe you would too!

              

I don’t normally like books about post-apocalyptic situations or zombie type creatures. But somehow The Girl with All the Gifts had so much heart and was told with such great pacing that I couldn’t help but love it. I’m not normally into Sci-Fi or Fantasy either, so the next two I shouldn’t have loved. But The Martian was so brilliantly plotted and wonderfully humorous that I had an immensely great time reading it (I recently re-read it as an audiobook and had just as much fun as the first time). Spinning Silver I never would have picked up on my own, but one of my best friends, Scott, sent it to me, swearing up and down that I’d love it. And guess what? I totally did. It’s brilliant, impossible to put down once you’re immersed, and full of great (strong, mostly female) characters. I nearly chickened out on The Pull of the Stars. Not because of the book itself, but because of the context. It’s set during the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918, and seeing as we’re currently in the middle of a similarly terrifying and deadly pandemic, I didn’t know if I could handle it on the page and in real life. I started it tentatively, but next thing I knew it was halfway done and I had no desire to pause listening, let along put it down. I loved the characters, and there are some great underlying themes (women’s rights, the lack of compassionate care in medicine, LGBTQ2IAP+ romance).

              

I mean, Ducks, Newburyport is a beast. It’s nearly 1,000 pages long, and almost the entirety of that massive page count is stream of consciousness without any punctuation. It’s daunting, to say the least. I had such a hard time getting into it. I tried several times. I then got it in my BookTube Prize round (because of course I did), and had no choice. I downloaded the audiobook, cranked the speed up to double, and lo and behold, I got completely into it. I listened while cooking dinner, while tidying up the house, while scrubbing the bathtub, while plotting activities to keep my bored kid occupied over the next week. It turned out to be not only a fantastic book, but brilliant company. The narrator is so smart, yet her life belies that intelligence. It’s so easy to assume housewives and stay-at-home mums are dull somehow. That they’re doing that because of a lack of other prospects or talents. But that’s not at all the case. This one is well-traveled, well-read, has searing and prescient opinions on society (she even sees the pandemic coming) and is someone I’d love to be friends with. I’m not going to say everyone should read it. But if you are interested in it, well versed in audiobooks and would like to experience a little bit of what happens inside a stay-at-home mum’s head, give it a try. Shuggie Bain is another I had in my BookTube round this year, and though I already had it on my shelf, I found it a bit dark and hard to get into. But I’m so glad I ended up being forced to give it a fair shake, because it’s well worth the effort. Hamnet is historical fiction (not set during WWII, the only historical period I’m regularly drawn to), about yet another pandemic, and a fictionalized account of Shakespeare’s family. None of which particularly appealed to me. And yet… the writing drew me in and held on, and I was so glad I gave it a try (thanks Mum!). I’ve not always gotten on that well with Joan Didion. I’ve liked some of her work, admired her courage in sharing emotionally devastating themes in others, but I’ve also had issues with her dismissal of privilege and seemingly willfully naïve view of life. But this book had a more sharp and critical tone, almost tongue-in-cheek and poking fun at times. It’s got funny moments, and also makes some comments that seem prescient from this side of history. It’s short and punchy and well worth checking out, whether you’re a Didion fan or not.

         

City of Girls is another I had to read for BookTube prize judging in 2020. I had tried reading Eat, Pray, Love and really didn’t get on with it. I had no patience for a White woman whose marriage falls apart and she jets off to spend months traveling to “find herself” and experience food, spirituality and, presumably a fling or two (I gave up on it somewhere around Italian food so I don’t know how it ended). Who does that and then writes a “poor me” book about it? Seriously, who? Most of us can’t even take a break to deal with physical illness, nevermind heartbreak. I’m not trying to minimize her suffering – the failure of a marriage sucks and can cause severe mental health issues. But the whole premise of the book just didn’t appeal to me personally. (A note: I have heard others review this and say that the tone of the book seems more self-aware than I picked up, and can actually poke fun at that privilege that so irked me. I haven’t wanted to re-read it to re-assess, so it’s very possible my view is unfair. It’s just the feeling I had at the time.) So I decided to part ways with Elizabeth Gilbert. I wished her well on her own journey, but had no desire to spend any part of it with her. But this book ended up being so enjoyable and had a depth I didn’t expect. It entertained me and kept me happily flipping pages. She has redeemed herself. Now, I read Circe because it was on the shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and I had decided to try and read the entire list. I’m not into mythology. Like, at all. But I read it, and you know what? I actually enjoyed it. It hasn’t changed my stance on mythology (I also read The Silence of the Girls for the same list, and it was okay, but I didn’t love it), but I’m glad I had an opportunity to give it a go. Daisy Jones and the Six is an odd one for this list. I went into it only having heard great things. I was at least somewhat interested in the premise. I’d heard good things about Taylor Jenkins Reid’s other books. My hesitation was wondering if it would be too much like some of the overly dramatic fiction I’ve read that ends up feeling like a reality show, and not in a good way. But man, this blew me away. The format was original, the characters were complex and flawed, the story had some great twists and turns, and I had no idea where it was going. It still isn’t a book I feel like I should like, and yet I absolutely do.

Okay, that’s it for me this week! I’d love to hear from you guys. Have you read any books that you didn’t expect to like but ended up loving? Have you read any of the ones on my list this week?

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up feature created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week TTT has a different topic, and everyone who links up has to create a link of ten items that fit that topic. To see past and upcoming topics, go here.