Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Hesitated to Pick Up But Ended Up Loving

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the team at The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is books that I enjoyed recently that weren’t my typical genre. Now, I don’t really have a typical genre. My favourite genre is contemporary but in the past year, I’ve really started reading more widely and there isn’t anything that I’d really consider out of my comfort zone. The only exception is crime fiction, horror, thrillers, mysteries… anything that’s super suspenseful, I will (and still) avoid like the plague.

Instead of featuring books that were out of my comfort zone, I’m going to feature books that I hesitated to pick up for ages and ages, but ultimately, ended up enjoying a lot in recent months.

1. The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

I had the first three books of the Raven Cycle on my shelf for about 9 months before I finally picked them up and marathoned them in December. I don’t read very much paranormal fiction and I had heard that the pace of this one is super slow, so it just kept sitting on my shelf. I’m glad that I ended up reading them because I absolutely love this series!

2. Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children trilogy by Ransom Riggs

I had wanted to buy and read this series ever since I first heard about it because the photographs in the books really intrigued me. However, I wasn’t sure that it would be my cup of tea because I don’t really like scary things. After some peer pressure (and the imminent release of the finale), I decided to pick them up and give them a go and I was pleasantly surprised by it. I love all three of the books and I can’t wait to see the movie!

3. Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness

Peer pressure also made me finally pick up this trilogy (thanks Joey and Aentee!). I don’t really like reading dystopian fiction so I hadn’t really intended to pick this up… but those around me wouldn’t stop raving about it and I couldn’t not check it out.

4. Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan

I honestly don’t know why I didn’t pick up PJO until December of last year… It was just never really that high up on my list of priorities and I preferred to read YA over middle grade. MY BAD.  I absolutely love Percy and Camp Halfblood! Cannot wait to dive into The Heroes of Olympus soon!

5. The Winner’s Trilogy by Marie Rutkoski

This was another trilogy that I kept hearing about in the community but was never really that interested in. I finally ended up buying the books in October or November, and read them at the very beginning of this year. This is one of my new favourite series. I love the characters, the plot and the political intrigue so much! The third and final book cannot be released soon enough!

6. Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman

I received a really early proof copy of this at a HarperCollins event last year, and after seeing Jeann @ Happy Indulgence DNF it before the halfway point, I was super hesitant to check it out for myself. I finally read it a few weeks ago and actually really enjoyed it! Jeann has also since finished the book and ended up enjoying it too.

7. Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway

This was a contemporary that I bought pretty much as soon as it was released in Australia. But then it just ended up sitting in my TBR pile and I didn’t get around to reading it until December or January, despite constant nagging from many bloggers. I loved the romance in this book and thought it was absolutely adorable! I highly enjoyed this book.

8. What We Saw by Aaron Hartzler

I got an ARC of this book in August of last year, but the book wasn’t released in Australia until December. I just kept procrastinating and not wanting to read it because it was still so far until publication. I ended up picking it up in November and I fell in love with the novel. It was brilliantly written and deals with a serious topic that needs to be discussed.

9. Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin

This one had been on my shelf for two months before I finally read it earlier this month. It’s a book that’s actually right up my alley but I kept hearing nothing but good things about it and was worried that I wouldn’t like it. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case and I ended up loving it!

10. The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer

This one probably isn’t a ‘recent’ read. I think I read it over 6 months ago but I remember having this on my TBR pile for months before I finally read it. It deals with mental illness and schizophrenia and it’s always hard to be in the right mood for a book like this…

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Have you read any of these books and what did you think? I highly enjoyed all 10 of the books/series that was mentioned in this list!