Top Ten Tuesday – All About Books You Read Because of Recommendation

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish meme hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. This week’s theme is All About Books You Read Because of Recommendation. Most of the books I read are on recommendation. I like to know that someone else has enjoyed it before giving it a go myself, so I take recommendations from my friends, family and other bloggers.

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A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

The most recent recommendation I read was from Juliet @ Not Capulet, who kindly leant me her copy of A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. I’m not a lover of fantasy at all, so I was a bit wary, but she assured me I’d love it, and as it was only around 200 pages long, what did I have to lose? To my surprise, this turned out to be one of the best, if not THE best, books I’ve read this year. You can read my glowing review here.

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The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Again, this was on the recommendation of Juliet @ Not Capulet, who leant me the book for me never to return it (sorry!). I wasn’t sure this was going to be my sort of thing at all. I love historical fiction, but I normally prefer it 20-30 years earlier than the 1960s. I absolutely adored it. The story was so moving and brilliantly written, that I couldn’t put it down. 

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The Bronze Horseman by Paulina Simons

This was on recommendation from my mum, right in the middle of my deep historical fiction phase of 2013! I ended up loving it and it’s two sequels so much that I based my final year dissertation on it. Well, in the period and the Siege of Leningrad, rather than Tatiana and Alexander themselves!

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Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

Another recommendation from my mum, this was the start of my love of historical fiction. The first book in the trilogy is really great, entwining historical events with brilliant characters across the globe, during World War One. The second one, Winter of the World (set around World War Two) is also very good, but the final one, Edge of Eternity (Set around the Cold War), really fell flat. It turned into a encyclopaedia with really dull characters.

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The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

Another mum recommendation. I wasn’t sure what to make of this, she just assured me it was brilliant and that I’d cry ugly tears. She was right. This is such a beautiful story, although I know the reviews on Goodreads are quite mixed. I’m looking forward to the film coming out later this year.

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Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

A mixture between my mum and Juliet @ Not Capulet. My mum had told me to read it ages ago, but couldn’t find her copy of the book, so when Juliet’s mum told her to read it, I asked if I could borrow it after her. This is such a good book; I love that it’s not your typical chic-lit, and it deals with some pretty deep and controversial issues. (My review here)

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

My sister recommended this to me when I wanted something short and quick to read on holiday. I’d heard about the Emma Watson film so was quite excited to read it. While not my favourite book ever, there is something so special and precious about it, that will stay with me forever. I love the realness of the characters.

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The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Another sister recommendation for the same holiday. This was just as the hype was reaching its peak, so I felt I should read it. My sister said she loved it, so I assumed I would too. I was so wrong. I have never despised a book as much as I despise this one. I hate everything about it, the unrealistic and quirky characters, the use of illness as a novelty, the disgusting disrespectfulness of that Anne Frank House kiss. I hate it.

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 Two Brothers by Ben Elton

I actually also read this on the same holiday, but this time by my mum’s recommendation. I’ve just been on a trip to Berlin, which made me think a lot about this book. It’s the semi-true story of two brothers, one of them adopted, during the rise of Nazism in Berlin. Despite being raised together from birth, one is from Arayan blood, the other from Jewish. It’s based on Ben Elton’s own family, and is really interesting and moving.

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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

This was recommended to me by my English teacher at school. It was in the middle of our A Levels when the whole class was getting a bit down about the endless Jane Austen. She said that if we wanted something a bit more modern and easy to leisure read, this was the best thing out there at the moment. Who was I to argue with that? She was right by the way, I loved the whole trilogy!

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There’s ten. Make sure you leave links to your TTT in the comments, so I can read them!