Top Ten Tuesday – Love to love you

Ten Books I Loved Less/More Than I Thought I Would (recently or all time) — or you could do something like books I liked more/less than everyone else

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

Books I Love & Will Read Over and Over Again

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
   I don’t typically read books for juveniles, but I decided to give this a go; and was pleasantly surprised. It’s probably not destined to be a classic, but it really doesn’t need to be because the message of accepting someone for who they are and not what they look like is better than a classics designation. Read the review here.
2. Persepolis #1 by Marjane Satrapi
   I picked this up because it is one of the most banned/challenged books for the following reasons: gambling, offensive language, political viewpoint, politically, racially, and socially offensive & graphic depictions. Yes all of those things are there but Persepolis is Satrapi’s autobiography. I’ve never understood why folks seek to censor people’s life experiences.
3. The Millennium Series by Stieg Larsson
   A few years ago I soaked up each one of these novels. I found them disturbing on so many levels, but couldn’t stop reading. Recently I tried reading The Girl in the Spider’s Web and that didn’t go over so well. For me, it lacked the same depth as Larsson’s writing and it didn’t flow with the rest of the series.
4. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
   14th century smut! Gotta love it. The Decameron has tales of love, lust, tragedy, death. It’s funny. It’s sad. It’s draw-dropping. It’ll make you blush. It’s better than a Harlequin romance. Really.
5. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
   You’ve seen Jane Eyre pop up quite a few times on my blog and it is by far one of my all-time favorites. I’m not into romance novels, but this one gets me all weepy and makes mushy inside.

Didn’t Like

1. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
   I don’t like to use the word hate. It’s such a strong word, but I hated this novel (the movie was better). I felt this novel was very amateurish and could have been served with a better editor. There were some pretty deep topics that I felt the author didn’t even scratch the surface of. Read the review here.
2. The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom
   When I bought this book a few years ago, I thought I was going to get some classic Mitch Albom. Instead I got. . . Well, I’m not really sure what I got. Read the review here or here.

Didn’t Meet My Expectations

1. The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami
   It only took about an hour to read The Strange Library and it was indeed strange. I expected something different. I will say this I will never look at a librarian or the library or the ‘for internal use only’ books the same way again. Read the review here.
2. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
   It’s taken considerably longer to read this novella. It clocks in at a mere 87 pages and I’ve been reading it off and on for weeks now. The way Capote writes is stellar as usual, but there is something about this book that’s not taking flight for me.
3. Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
   I didn’t like or dislike Where’d You Go Bernadette. I could see what Semple was trying to do, but it fell a bit flat for me. Read the review here.