Alli the Book Giraffe

Hello readers! I love today’s topic. It’s about time I make more posts just gushing about books I loved. This week though, we are talking about books I loved, but didn’t expect to. That doesn’t mean I expected to hate them. I just didn’t expect them to become a favorite. Let’s jump in!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that was created by The Broke and the Bookish in 2010 and is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week, you pick your top 10 of the topic provided.

Books That Defied My Expectations (books you thought you would didn’t like that you loved, books you thought you’d love but didn’t, books that were not the genres they seemed to be, or in any other way subverted your expectations!) 

I know I’m the unpopular one here, but I really loved this book. This was going to be my last chance at a slasher book because I’ve read a few others and really didn’t like them.

I like how much this leaned toward 80’s slasher movies! I love 8-s movies, especially horror ones. That really was the best decade of horror movies. I think, if you like that 80s horror cliche vibe, you’ll enjoy this book.

If I didn’t do that post earlier this year where I read the most popular books of 2023 so far, I would not have read this book. I wasn’t even interested in it and wasn’t sure what to expect going in.

I ended up being one of those people who really loved it, which I didn’t expect. I’m happy I did that post because I know I should try books sometimes that I don’t think I would enjoy.

Lord of the Fly Fest has really, really bad ratings on Goodreads and I don’t agree with any of them. This is a retelling of Lord of the Flies in the age of technology. It pokes fun at the rich. I LOVED this book, which is crazy cos I don’t really like Lord of the Flies.

I love the satire in this book, even if it didn’t hit with most people.

At this time, I didn’t read scifi books and went into this one thinking I wouldn’t like it. However, I had to try it cos it’s Brandy Sandy.

I ended up loving this story. It made me think that I can love scifi. I mostly prefer scifi now that is either a thriller, romance, or invloves AI/robots. I still don’t go for space opera, even if this book is a little bit space opera, but I do try more scifi than I ever would’ve before it.

The Night Prince series is part of the Night Huntress Universe. I read this because it was popular on Goodreads. This was before I was in the book community and had no other way to find recommendations.

I genuinely didn’t know smut existed in books before this series. I was freshly 19 and was very sheltered. However, I eventually found the rest of JEaniene Frost’s books and fell in love with Cat and Bones from the main Night Huntress series.

I cautiously read ACOTAR back in 2020 and thought it was okay. I think I rated it 3 stars. I eventually continued with ACOMAF and was so surprised when I loved it.

I was seriously scared of Sarah J Maas for so long because she is so loved. Do you have an author like that? One that you can’t bring yourself to read because everyone loves them? I had a few back then.

The Woman in the Window was my very first thriller and boy was I STRESSED while reading it. I remember finishing this book and thinking I would never read another thriller again because I was so stressed while reading this one.

The thriller genre is another one that I thought I couldn’t like until I did. It turns out that I don’t know what I like. I think I do and then I read something that proves me wrong. The thing is, I don’t mind being proved wrong when it comes to finding books I enjoyed out of nowhere.

Lisa Jewell has to be ones of my favorite authors. Then She Was Gone was my first book by her. The problem was that I didn’t like any of her other books as much as I like that one.

Until I read The Night She Disappeared. I have had some high highs and low lows with JEwells, books, but this one has to be my absolute favorite. I was so surprised to find a book by her that I liked more than Then She Was Gone, but also excited!

I had been trying foodie cozy mystery books for a while before I found this series. I liked the ones I read before this one, but I didn’t LOVE them. I was beginning to think that I wouldn’t find a cozy mystery series I would love, until the Seaside Cafe Mystery series.

Let me know if there are any foodie cozies I should try! I love foodie books.

My dad bought me this book when I was 19 (2013) for Christmas. I really did not want to ever read it, but he bought it for me and has since passed way. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it.

In 2020, I randomly picked it up and started to read it. I was so surprised when I loved it. Now, it isn’t the easiest book to read. It’s like 1200 pages and much of it could be cut out. However, I liked the overall story and I did not expect to. I have yet to watch the movie, though!

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