Top Ten Tuesday (8)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the Broke and the Bookish where a new top ten list is posted each week. This week is: Top Ten Books I Had VERY Strong Emotions About (cry, laugh, hurl across the room, etc.)

1. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Emotion: Obsession
My year 5 teacher went through a stage where he would read us part of The Hobbit every Friday afternoon. One week he stopped at the part where Golum asked Bilbo the riddle. I desperately wanted to know the answer so badly I grabbed my Mum's copy as soon as I got home and read the entire book (plus Lord of the Rings including the appendices) before school started on Monday.

2. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Emotion: Admiration
I studied this in high school when I was 15. It is the only "school book" I have ever loved and I still think it's an incredible piece of writing a decade later. The dystopian is so well developed it acts as a terrifying reminder of what could happen to our society.

3. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Emotion: Boredom
Following from the best "school book" is the worst. I hated this book and never got more than ten pages in. It's boring and annoying and I really wanted to read 1984 (the other possible set book). I never read it, never even watched the movie and passed the exam using Cliff Notes.

4. Undone by Rachel Caine
Emotion: What the *&!~???
I'v mentioned on the blog before that (a) I'm a huge Rachel Caine fan and (b) this book really annoyed me. It's a great book...as long as you ignore the fact it doesn't have an ending. It just stops with a line saying the story will be continued in the next book. There are cliffhangers and then there is just randomly stopping. This is the latter.

5. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
Emotion: Love
This is my favourite book from childhood and I read it countless times as a kid. Then for some reason I had to take the book back to the library and I promptly forgot what it was called. I spent years looking for a book called Moonacre and only rediscovered it a couple of years ago after my grandparents picked up a DVD called The Secret of Moonacre that seemed incredibly familiar.

6. The Undead Next Door by Kerrelyn Sparks
Emotion: Hysterical laughter
All of her books are brilliant and hilarious, but I picked this one to make the list based on the author's mean streak. She created an amazing French vampire called Jean-Luc and gives him a heroine called Heather...when he can't say H. It's incredibly funny :)

7. Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
Emotion: Awwwwwwww!
I adore this book. I brought it for the cover and put off reading it because I kept seeing it compared to Twilight. As much as I love Twilight, I love this more. Sam and Grace are amazing and their story is truly heartwrenching. Also it gets extra points for the temperatures at the start of each chapter which is both awesome and fits with the story.

8. The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff
Emotion: Abject terror
This is hands down the scariest book I've ever read. I read it in a single sitting despite my original plan to read a couple of chapters before bed. A couple of chapters in I realised I'd need to read the entire book because no way was I going to sleep until I knew how it ended. Even then I was still creeped out :o

9. Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Emotion: All of them
I've been a big fan of the Dark-Hunter books for several years and when I heard Acheron was getting his own book I was really excited. Then I picked it up, saw the sheer size and was a little traumatised. It is a massive book and the whole thing is an emotional rollercoaster. There are sweet moments, funny moments, sad moments and even "oh my gosh, what the heck?" moments.

10. Strange Fate by L.J. Smith
Emotion: Annoyed impatience
This is the last book in the Night World series and I've been waiting for it for about 8 years (don't feel sorry for me - there are people who read the books earlier and have been waiting even longer). The author never seems to finish. First there was family stuff that meant she took a long break from writing (fair enough), then publisher issues (it happens) and now it seems she's focusing on extending the completed series that have become TV shows (annoying). Just finish the Night World already!