Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Books That Surprised Me (in a good or bad way)!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday book bloggers come together as a community to list 10 books that fit the theme of the week. Fun? Enlightening? You bet!

Surprising books, we've all read them! Whether you love or hate surprises in real life, books can get a little stale without any twists or turns. Here's my top 10 books that surprised me (in a good or bad way)!

Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick

I've only listened to the audiobook of this and everything about it is masterful. It is eerily, suavely, elegantly animal. I adored it (and was sometimes so crept out that I was glad to have a teething toddler for nighttime listening company, to hold my hand whilst my headphones kept me enthralled). I almost didn't use an Audible credit on it because it's not as long as I normally go for with audiobooks (I like to get my money's worth, especially when I have nights of comforting a toddler to look forward to instead of sleeping...) but I am so glad I took a punt. This was a great surprise, from one frayed thread of the tale to the next.

Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb

I will read anything set in the Elderlings universe by Robin Hobb and normally my heart will skip and flutter like a tumbling Fool (heehee!) for the love of her stories. I wasn't a fan of Fool's Assassin, however, because I felt that Fitz had lost his way too much. I get that, to some extent, this is literally the underlying plot of the book. I really do. But Fitz was never stupid, whatever his lack of emotional intelligence, so I don't understand why his realisations about his family tree took him so incredibly long. It was as if some paragraphs were just there to steal minutes of my life. Actually, now that I'm writing this, it strikes me that maybe Robin Hobb was using the book as a conduit for Skilling, sapping my (clearly strong but untrained) natural abilities as I was reading. See? It's still surprising me every time I try to think about it, this one!

Jane by April Lindner

A retelling of Jane Eyre? A plot that seems to mirror the cheesetacular masterpiece that is Music and Lyrics? It should have worked (at least for me!) but it really didn't (again, at least for me). I reviewed it on Goodreads to much the same effect. I read the whole thing, I kept hoping for a twist that would tie the thing together and turn the experience around for me but it just didn't come. Sad.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The first time I read Pride and Prejudice was just before the BBC miniseries came out. This TV series was a pivotal moment in my life for a couple of reasons (not all of them related to my lifelong addiction to the stunning array of sideburns showcased costume dramas): 1) I learned how to use my new VHS recorder to tape the episodes because as they started at 9pm on a Sunday and I had school the next day I wasn't allowed up late enough to watch them, and 2) I was super surprised at how funny the TV series was compared to the book. I hadn't, at 10 years old (I think?) yet got my inner voice tuned in to that tone that 19th century literary classics need in order for readers to get them. Like when you're reading/watching Shakespeare (or whoever your go to pre 20th century playwright is!) and it takes a scene or two before the jokes are funny, or your heart wrenches like a sodden sponge. You know?

A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly

I have a feeling that I picked up a copy of this to read on the 45 minute bus ride home from Canterbury to Westgate-on-Sea (shout out to other 8/88 bus users from the 90s/00s!) and... well, whatever I was expecting (gentle historical coming of age fiction?) I did not get. Let me rethink that, actually: I did get coming of age historical fiction, but I also got so much more than that. I still think about it now, 15 odd years after my first read, and wish I could read it again for the first time to feel everything as freshly as I did on that half-remembered bus journey home when I almost ended up staying on past my stop.

The Unfortunates by Laurie Graham

My mum passed a copy of this to me and I didn't think I'd like it. At all. The cover was a bit twee for the edgy way I was feeling at the time, and - how can I put this - it seemed to be about a mustard heiress. What even is that? Well, now I know and I should, in this as in many things, have trusted Mum's impeccable judgement. This book both made me snort and left me pondering. The pages couldn't fly fast enough.

My Sweet Audrina by Virginia Andrews

Why did I read this as a teenager? WHY? It has mentally scarred me for life. If you haven't read it, I would suggest maybe not doing so... unless you love soap operas and BEING SUPER DISTURBED. My sweet Audrina, indeed!

Dune by Frank Herbert

Full disclosure: I have a picture of Kyle MacLachlan in my kitchen and my husband and I use his name (probably in vain) on a weekly basis at least. Not for nefarious purposes, I swear, but I think because Michael (said husband) used it as a pretend name to illustrate something waaaay back in the sands (see what I did there?) of time and I pointed out the fact that Kyle MacLachlan is a person, not just a random name to be used for whatever it was he was explaining. And, well, 12 years later here we are with a picture of him in our kitchen, and me having read Dune because Michael said I should after we watched the film for the umpteenth time! I'm not really a sci-fi fan in books, but I think that's largely because I don't give the genre as much of a chance as I should. Especially when you consider how much Star Trek: The Next Generation shaped my childhood (tea should always really be Earl Grey, black)... but this book is amazing. It explains none of the interesting words it uses, Frank Herbert seems to expect the reader to just go with things, and I liked that. In fact, I should read it again and then read the other Dune books, because I never have gone on in the series. More than that, I should try more sci-fi books. Recommendations?

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin

Maybe this list should be subtitled "times Beth has been surprised by liking sci-fi", because Dune reminded me of another stellar sci-fi book. I read this as part of a university module on gender, I think. I was the only person taking that module who enjoyed this book at all, so possibly the sci-fi-ness of it wrecks it for other people? I wasn't expecting to like it because I hadn't been fond of this module in general for various reasons, but this book turned it around for me. My preconceptions, of both sci-fi and "gender theory" books, didn't allow me to open this book with excitement but that only goes to show how pre-judging a thing can rob our lives of important experiences.

Pendragon by James Wilde

I've just finished it and I adored it. I was expecting a fairly standard Arthurian tale to chill me out at bedtime, but what I got was something far more visceral and rewarding. There were twists and turns and cannibals and in Corvus and Pavo I found the thing I always hope to be true to be true. A proper review of this is coming very soon.