Top 5 Books That Weren’t What I Expected | Top 5 Tuesdays

Hello again! It’s Tuesday, and of course that means it’s time for a Top 5 post. Top 5 Tuesdays and their topics are brought to you by Shanah @ the Bionic Bookworm. Check out her blog, she’s awesome, and this page for the list of topics for February!

Shanah’s picked another thoughtful topic for this Tuesday. I don’t often think about the books that broke through my assumptions and turned out to be something completely different. I feel like many books have done this for me. This has definitely made me really think back on the books I’ve read.

I hope you enjoy the list!

The Testaments – Margaret Atwood

This was a book that I definitely didn’t expect to like. For some reason, in my head, I thought this book would be an unnecessary re-visiting of A Handmaid’s Tale and definitely not as good. But I was pleasantly surprised!

Yes, we go back to the world of Gilead, but Atwood manages to create a whole new experience through the use of varied perspectives, of insider/outsider accounts, and a different focus. While I can still see this book as very much a product of it’s time (in the wake of #metoo and the whole Harvey Weinstein thing), I still felt the powerful pull of Atwood’s words and her clear message of female power. Who runs the world?

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Beartown – Fredrik Backman

When I picked up this book, I was expecting a realistic fiction novel about a hockey town. What I got was so much more than that. Not only does Backman portray the real tensions and drama in a small-town community that lives for it’s main economic output: sports, he also delves into the real-life issues of rape, of money & power structures, of broken families.

This book messed with my emotions and I was wholely unprepared for this. I was torn up – but I was happy about it, because it’s not often that a book really kicks you in the gut. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.

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And the Trees Crept In – Dawn Kurtagich

Unlike the first two books on this list, this book was not what I expected in a negative way. I helped pick this book out for a work-related book club. It was October, we wanted to go for something spooky, and I had this book on my TBR. I thought – this sounds like a cook, creepy, spooky book that will fit perfectly with the season.

Boy was I wrong. This book is not so much creepy as it is a complete abstraction. Half the time, I didn’t even know what I was reading and the other half, I was bored. This book is so repetitive and it’s not scary in the least. There are moments that are very gross, but…it was just a major let-down from what I expected and I’m still not happy about it.

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Asking For It – Louise O’Neill

I’m putting this book on the list because I was exponentially more painful to read than I initially thought it would be. This book, pretty up-front, let’s you know it’s about rape. Going into it, I knew it would probably make me feel strong things, especially since the main character is not believed.

But maybe it’s because of the time that I read this book, when the #metoo movement was really getting going and the whole Brett Kavanaugh vs. Christine Blasey Ford thing – this book got to me, majorly. I was a raging mess while reading this. I wasn’t expecting to be kicked so hard. To this day, whenever I think about this book, all I can think about is how very truly mad at the world it made me feel. I believe women and this book is, for me, a must-read for any teenager.

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Everything, Everything – Nicola Yoon

This book…really pulled the rug out from under me. I definitely did not expect the ending – and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so if you have read it and you want to know what I really feel, click here to see my review of it on Goodreads.

Anyway, I was really digging the story, but once you get to the big reveal…well, I didn’t like it. Not one bit. This book made me mad, and it’s made worse by the fact that I liked it up until that one point. It became something completely different, and even to this day, I see it marketed a certain way, but deep down, I know that marketing is wrong…because of the ending. It’s really unfair and I’m just disappointed. What a missed opportunity and I wish things were different.

Thoughts & Thanks!

What do you think of my selections? What are some books that weren’t what you expected, good or bad? Let me know in the comments!

Thank you for reading this post. And, as always, happy reading!