Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’m Not Sure I Want to Read

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is, as the title says, books I’m not sure I want to read. Not books I’ll never ever read — like Fifty Shades of Grey, a book about which I have MANY THOUGHTS — but books I sometimes think I might, but then I’m not so sure. Or books I’ve bought and think I will, but I keep procrastinating about. They could be perfectly awesome books. And one day I might find out.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. Two of my besties on Twitter were raving about this and how amazing it was — without specifics — so I ordered it out of curiosity. But then I heard that the writing was a little…unorthodox. What if I hate it? I don’t usually read literary fiction. What if reading it feels like homework? So, yeah, I’ve moved this down the TBR pile a little. I will get to it, though, just to see what all the fuss is about. I guess if I hate it I can stop.

Torment and Passion by Lauren Kate. These are books two and three of the Fallen series. I originally bought them at Canty’s, an awesome secondhand bookstore here in Canberra. But I hadn’t read the first one yet; Canty’s didn’t have it so I bought it new off The Book Depository. It was okay, but I wasn’t a huge fan of Luce, the main character. She was, well, wet. She needed rescuing a lot and spend an awful lot of time obsessing about boys. The book did get interesting in the last few chapters, and maaaaayybe the sequels will be better. I dunno, but I keep finding other books I want to read more than these, so they sit on my shelf, gathering dust.

The Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb. I loved her Assassins Apprentice trilogy. The Liveships one didn’t wow me as much because I’ve never been a huge fan of ship stories, but it was still pretty good — and the liveships were awesome, I have to admit. Still, this book is the start of another trilogy set in that world, one presumably about dragons. Which I love. The only explanation I have for my reluctance is that my tastes have shifted to urban fantasy over the years, and huge epic fantasy tomes put me off these days.

The Snow Queen, The Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Werewolf by Mercedes Lackey. I used to be a HUGE Mercedes Lackey fan. I own seventy four of her books — including these three I haven’t read. They all set in the Five Hundred Kingdoms. I loved the first book in the series, and rushed out and bought the rest. The second was okay, but then I started getting annoyed at the way the romances seemed forced (one of the main characters should have stayed single, dammit) and some of the storytelling was repetivie. Also, one particuarly bad example of characters reaching an intuitive leap just because it suited the plot in the last book I read made me very cross. Still, The Snow Queen is about the same fairytale that inspired Disney’s Frozen, so that might be enough to bring me back to it one day.

The Iron King by Julie Kawaga. The description sounded cool — I heard about it as I was shopping Isla’s Inheritance and loved the idea of reading a different kind of fae story — but then, I dunno, I just keep finding other books I wanted to read more. And maybe I was scared I’d read it, see similarities and get frightened away from finishing my trilogy. But mine is done now, so I might go back to this series. (Surely I’m not the only neurotic writer that does this, right?)

Are there any of these that you either love or loathe? I’d be interested to hear your opinion, one way or the other. Or do you have other books on your shelf that you’re not sure about?