Welcome to the Moonlight Library’s 30 Day Book Challenge!
This meme intends to generate discussion, so please feel free to add a comment.
This particular challenge is taken from the 30 Day Challenge Archive on Tumblr.
Day 09 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
I don’t normally read books that I think I might not like, but there are two I read before I started this blog that fall under the category of ‘unexpected delights’ because I was anticipating something not as good.
Let me tell you a story:
One of the first books I read when I really got into YA fiction was Fallen by Lauren Kate. Yes, I know, it’s terrible, rah rah rah. I’d seen the advertisement for the sequel, Torment, in a bookshop, so I bought Fallen and before I even read it I pre-ordered Torment. I mean come on, they are two of the most lushly beautiful Gothic covers ever produced in YA before or since:
Aren’t they beautiful?
I owned both before I read Fallen. I wasn’t impressed, but I felt that I had to give Torment a chance. Torment was even worse, and I gave up on the series.
But before Lauren Kate was handed the reigns of this fallen angel love story, she wrote a ‘mean girls’ book called
The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove
Which, I believe, is based somewhat on the tale of Lady Macbeth? Not sure. Didn’t see the similarities myself, but Macbeth has never been my strongest Shakespeare play.
Anyway, despite the travesty that was Fallen and Torment, I loved it. I love mean girl stories, I love watching their tragic (yet deserved?) demise, I love everything about it.
And even after all that, I still bought Fallen In Love and Passion (in hardcover!!), knowing I probably won’t like them, knowing I probably won’t read them, but unable to resist the beautiful allure of their breathtaking covers.
This also happened to me with another book, Wings by Aprillynne Pike.
I first decided I wasn’t going to read Wings when Aprilynne Pike blurbed the cover of Kiersten White’s Paranormalcy (or Supernaturally, one of them) and said she thought the creepy fairy stalker love interest, the ex-boyfriend that Evie had no interest in, was afraid of, didn’t feel comfortable around and wanted nothing to do with, was sexy. To me, that spoke volumes, and I didn’t want to read a novel by an author who thought that Edward/Patch/Daniel stalking, manipulation and abuse was sexy!
I read reviews from my friends and decided not to read it.
But one day I was in the library and had found nothing to interest me and it was there looking pretty and I had to admit, the mass marketing saturation of the book worked on me and I fell for it, and I borrowed it.
When I read it, I actually enjoyed it. All the problems my friends had with it didn’t really bother me. I didn’t find the love triangle poorly written, nor the fairy love interest creepy. I actually borrowed the second and third books as soon as I finished it. I am yet to read the fourth book, but I do plan to, eventually.
What book has been an unexpected delight for you?
Have you ever read a book expecting not to like it?