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Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books We’ve Had A Hard Time With

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish that other bloggers are welcome to join in, to create Top Ten lists on varying topics. This week it’s Top Ten Books We’ve Had A Hard Time With, (Ten Books I Struggled to Get Into But Ended Up Loving or Ten Books That Were A Chore To Get Through or Ten Books I’ve Most Recently Put Down etc etc)

Paein

the false prince shadow and bone A Darker Shade final for Irene Nevernight the fellowship of the ring

1 The False Prince by Jennifer A Nielson

Struggled to get into but ended up loving.

Boy the first time I read this I had such a hard time. I so nearly gave up and I am beyond glad I never did! Chapter 42 is where things change and you’re left thinking “Fluffing hell, how?!” (Books 2 and 3 follow a similar pattern and I was surprised each time, both Sage and Jennifer are geniuses! I’ve re-read it twice since then and both times I’ve enjoyed every minute I so struggled with the first time. Ridiculous right?
Is the pivotal chapter 42 on purpose? I like to think so…

2 The Grisha/Shadow and Bone series by Leigh Bardugo

A Chore to get through.

I think- and hope – the reason I struggled with this so much was because I knew the true nature of The Darkling going into it and it just soured everything. I’d tried to avoid spoilers so much but one was accidentally found and I was just angry at the whole thing. A little scared to read Six of Crows now, but it’s on my November list and hopefully by the time this posts I’ll have read Wonder Woman!

3 A Darker Shade of Magic by V E Schwab

Recently put down.

This is the second series that Ms4Tune loves that I haven’t clicked with which I kind of feel bad about. (The other is Daughter of Smoke and Bone) With this one, I felt that Kell made too many silly/bad choices for a man in his position and I really got annoyed with him. I’m kind of sad about this because I really wanted to join this fandom, it seems amazing!
I have another book by VE Schwab so I’ll be able to find out if it was just Kell’s personality that I objected to or if the writing style just isn’t for me.

4 Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

Struggled to get into but ended up loving.

This as a different kind of struggle than The False Prince, it was shorter and I’m yet to re-read this and see how I feel about the first 50 or so pages. The way the start of this story was presented was new to me and I found it highly distracting, it tailed off though and I really enjoyed it. It’s been accused of being flowery, but flowery to me is without point and this narrator seemed pretty pleased, it had the feel of The Greatcoats series by Sebastien de Castell which I think of as Epic rather than Flowery.

5 The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien

A Chore to get through.

They’re fantastic stories, but the writing style is one of those I like least. I’d tried to read them in the past and given up on the first page of The Hobbit (this was after obsessively listening to the dramatised audio book). I ended up listening to them as audio books and even that was something of a struggle. The excitement of them just seemed muted somehow. I think that I may be more successful attempting to read the books if I ever try again because I know that there are parts I loved between the parts I struggled with and I can skim read around them, after all, foreknowledge is power!

Ms4Tune

Lair of Dreams miss peregrines Dark Matter Fairy Caravan dreams

6 Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

Took forever to finish but thoroughly loved it!

I LOVED this book but boy was it long! It took me forever to read. I blame the fact that I had read The Diviners directly before hand and it felt like I had fried my brain on how awesome this series was. Can’t wait for book three later this year.

7 Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Wasn’t as good as I expected

I thought I would enjoy this one way more than I did. It felt like a hard slog to get through this, it felt slow and underwhelming… strangely I pushed myself through all three books… book three made up for how difficult the first couple of books were to get through.

8 Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Audiobook Issues?

I listened to this rather than read it, so I’m not entirely sure how much that had an effect on my experience of this book but I just didn’t find it that engrossing. I found the swearing and crude moments a little too overbearing and the whole thing just seemed a bit slow.

9 The Fairy Caravan by Beatrix Potter

Too Many Voices, Not Enough Action

This is a recent struggle. I’m reading this to my daughter and neither of us are that invested in it. She likes the guinea pig and the dormouse but we’ve just got to the part where the travelling circus has arrived at a field full of sheep and trying to come up with, what seems like, 20 different Sheep voices, is not fun and Cas isn’t even that interested in what’s going on. If someone has a more entertaining alternative I’d welcome the recommendation.

10 Dream of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor

Just to much to handle

I loved this series, I loved Laini Taylor’s writing but I couldn’t bear the finale to this series. I didn’t want it to end! I was hyper aware that every heartbreaking moment and every page turned, brought me closer and closer to the moment where there would be no more and I would be left broken and alone. It was devastating.

pam id pics paein pam id pics and pam id pics ms4tune

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5 comments on “Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books We’ve Had A Hard Time With

  1. Louise

    I struggled with the start of Nevernight too. There was just so much information, especially with all the footnotes. Once the plot really got going I ended up loving it though.

    My TTT this week.

  2. Poinsettia

    Sorry to hear that Lord of the Rings is a struggle! They are great books. I hope you’re able to come back to them someday. Here is my Top Ten Tuesday.

  3. iloveheartlandx

    I love A Darker Shade of Magic, it’s one of my favourite books/series, but I always say no book is for everyone. I really liked Six of Crows, so it’s a shame to hear you weren’t keen on Shadow and Bone. VE Schwab’s books are all quite different, so if Kell was really the problem for you, then I reckon you might like some of her other books. Which one do you have, out of interest? I really struggled with Nevernight, had to put it down like 50 pages in.
    My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/05/top-ten-tuesday-123/

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