Top 5 Wednesday was created by gingerreadslainey. Check out her youtube channel! Basically, every Wednesday there is a chosen topic to which you list your top 5. If you want to join, have a look at the goodreads page!
I don’t pick up books that I don’t expect to like. But there are books I don’t pick up for a long time because I’m hesitant. Usually I don’t have high expectations when I read them but I never expect them to not like them at all. So here is my list of books I was very hesitant to read:
5. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
I’m cheating with this one because I have just started with the book and don’t even know yet if I will like it. But I am very skeptical with this book. The first time I had this book in my hands was when it came out and had just been translated into German years ago. The cover looked pretty and I picked it up at a book convention but just reading the first page with its crossed out sentences put me off. In the following years I had Shatter Me in my hands several times but I couldn’t convince myself to buy it. Then I discovered booktube and everyone was raving about Shatter Me, so again I looked into it and again I decided not to read it. In the end it was an impulse buy that I bought the German edition of Shatter Me more or less for free a few weeks ago. And now I am giving it a try…
4. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
This was another book I had in my hands many times. What put me off about this book was the synopsis of the German book. It portrayed a forbidden love story. At that time I was not into romance novels. It sounded cheesy and full of clichés so I did not pick it up. I guess I would have never picked it up if the movie hadn’t come out. If I’m hesitant about a book a movie is always the best way to make me read it. I want to read the book before I watch the movie and usually I want to watch the movie. That’s why I finally decided to buy Twilight in 2007. And I read it and I enjoyed it and I picked up the whole series. This book could have done with a better written synopsis. I would not have hesitated so long.
3. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
I bought this book on a whim and because it was listed as the English Kindle Deal of the month for 1,89 euro. I had heard about Fangirl on booktube and wasn’t too interested. I don’t read a lot of contemporary. But when I saw the price special I decided to load it on my kindle. Just a few days after I bought it I had been away from home and had finished my other book so I started with the only unread book on my e-reader: Fangirl. I loved it. I flew through this book and enjoyed it so much. This was a jackpot without expecting it.
2. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The German Hunger Games covers are quite pretty in my opinion, so of course I had been thinking about buying this book for many times. But unfortunately the synopsis had given me the impression that this book would be kind of like Pokemon. I imagined the arena to be like the old Romains gladiator arenas and I was not very keen on reading a book about something like that. This is again a book I started reading because I heard they started to shoot a movie. In those situations I always have to make up my mind: if I want to read this book I have to read it now. Therefore I started the series quite late and I have been mad at myself for not picking it up sooner. I love this series. (By the way, I had just finished the first book when I saw the first picture of the actress that was supposed to play Katniss. Katniss in the book was described as a dark-haired girl, kind of darker, olive toned skin color, and almond shaped, green eyes, and here I saw a picture of Jennifer Lawrence with her blond hair, extremely pale skin, and blue eyes. I was so mad and I planned on not watching the movie. Let’s just say, I am glad I changed my mind. LOL)
1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone by Joanne K. Rowling
I was eleven when my mum bought me this book for Christmas. At that time Harry Potter was not known outside of Great Britain. My mum had seen a documentary about the starting phenomenon in Great Britain and decided to buy this book for me. Our German equivalent of Barnes&Noble had never heard of Harry Potter and had to order it from the other end of the country. So at Christmas Eve I got this book. I was eleven, I was a girl, and I found this cover just ugly. So of course I read the books I asked for first. At the end of February I had been through all my books and only Harry Potter was left unread. I opened the book and started reading. The rest is history…
What books didn't you expect to like? Have you read any of these? Did you read them before they were hyped?