Top Ten Tuesday #1: 10 Books if you like Once Upon a Time

My first Top Ten Tuesday! Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
One of my favorite TV shows at the moment is Once Upon a Time because of its unique way of blending fairytales together and modernizing them.

Top Ten Books if you Like...

 

 

 



   

1. Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson - a prequel to Peter Pan and my current read. While not a modernized fairytale, it's still a retelling so it counts.

2. The Nevermor Trilogy by Lani Lenore - another Peter Pan retelling set in a new dark fantasy world with original characters.

3. The Child Thief by Brom - Okay so I clearly really like Peter Pan. This is another super dark retelling for Peter Pan.

4. The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor - a steampunk-ish retelling of Alice and Wonderland. Be warned though. I absolutely loved the first book but the next two, not so much.

5. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - another Alice and Wonderland retelling this time set in modern London where there's London Above but sometimes you fall into the cracks and into London Below. I really need to reread this. I read it so long ago.

6. American Gods by Neil Gaiman - not so much of a retelling of anything in particular but a blending of all the forgotten mythologies as told by the wonderful Neil Gaiman.

7. Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu - a modernized retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's Snow Queen

8. Cinder by Marissa Meyer - sci-fi Cinderella. Need I say more? I really need to get this off my TBR list and just actually read it.

9. Legend by Marie Lu - not a fairytale at all but in an interview Marie Lu said she thought of her story as a meeting between Sherlock Holmes and Les Miserables and that description kind of stuck with me. It's true to a degree when you think about it.

10. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente - a really long mouthful of a title that's perfectly suited to this new fairy story that Ms. Valente has created. This is not a retelling at all but it's a fairytale of it's own kind with a precocious protagonist and just... more people need to read this.

**Edit 4/30/14**
I totally forgot about this one too. It deserves to be on this list!

Briar Rose by Jane Yolen - a modern retelling of Sleeping Beauty intertwined with a girl's search for truth in her grandmother's haunting past as a victim of the Holocaust.

30 Day Book Challenge

This was a post I got off facebook. Technically, it's supposed to be a challenge where you answer one question for 30 days but hey, I found the question list so why not answer them all in one shot, yeah? I'm going to make it slightly more challenging by not listing the same book more than once.

30 Day Book Challenge

 

1. Best book you read last year (2013)

Eye of the Dragon by Stephen King

 

2. A book that you've read more than three times

Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce

 

3. Your favorite series

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling wins hands down. No questions asked.

 

4. Favorite book of your favorite series

The Order of the Phoenix. I love it even though Sirius dies in it.

 

5. A book that makes you happy
Old Magic by Marianne Curley

 

6. A book that makes you sad

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

 

7. A book that makes you laugh
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

 

8. Most overrated book

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

 

9. A book that you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
The Infernal Devices Trilogy by Cassandra Clare. I loved this trilogy but I could barely get through City of Bones and I won't be continuing that series.

 

10. A book that reminds you of home

Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series by Rick Riordan. Because Olympus is over the Empire State Building and I associate the NYC skyline but mostly the Empire State Building with home.

 

11. A book you hated

Hawkes Harbor by S.E. Hinton. I really wanted to like this book because it's S.E. Hinton - author of The Outsiders! But I couldn't. It was really, really bad...

 

12. A book you love but hate at the same time
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. I love all things Tolkien and Middle Earth but this book is really hard to get through. I wouldn't necessarily say I hate it though. That's too strong a word.

 

13. Your favorite writer
I actually don't think I currently have one.

 

14. Book turned movie and completely desecrated

So many! Both Percy Jackson movies and the Golden Compass. Both series had such great potential to be good movies but they failed miserably. 

 

15. Favorite male character
Samwise Gamgee

 

16. Favorite female character

Hm... toss up between Hermione Granger and Annabeth Chase. Both strong female characters who are smart, funny, and can take care of themselves without feeling the need to rely on a boy.

 

17. Favorite quote from a favorite book

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

 

18. A book that disappointed you

Allegiant by Veronica Roth. If you read it, then you know why.

 

19. Favorite book turned into a movie

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. My only wish for this movie is they should have kept more of the funny Finnick moments in.

 

20. Favorite romance book

Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte. I'm not a big romance reader so I'm sticking to a good classic for this one.

 

21. The first novel you ever remember reading

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling. By novel I'm assuming it means over 100 pages and without pictures. My mom read me the first two Harry books out loud but when the third came out I read it by myself then went back and reread the first two.

 

22. A book that makes you cry

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

 

23. A book you wanted to read for a long time and still haven't

The Giver by Lois Lowry and The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak are both up there on my list.

 

24. A book that you wish more people would've read

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherine Valente

 

25. A character who you can relate to the most
Hard one... maybe Lewis Carroll's Alice or September from Catherine Valente's Fairyland books. Both are slightly awkward girls when it comes to reality because they prefer to live in the worlds of their imagination.  

 

26. A book that changed your opinion about something

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

 

27. The most surprising plot twist or ending
Three endings come to mind: 1. Champion by Marie Lu - I didn't want Day to forget her but I'm glad he didn't really. I really thought they'd find a cure for him. But it was a much more satisfying ending than my number two which is:  2. Allegiant by Veronica Roth - because I didn't see that coming but in retrospect, why else would it be written in two POVs? 3. The Amber Spyglass by Phillip Pullman - I knew that ending was coming but man, the feels. For surprising plot twist: Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan - the fall.

 

28. Favorite title of a book

For the Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund. I don't really have a favorite title but I really like this one. It's a pretty statement of hope in dark times. I should probably read this too...

 

29. A book everyone hated but you liked

The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I remember zipping through this book in two days in high school while the rest of my class complained about it.

 

30. Your favorite book of all time
Not going to lie. I still don't have one. There's too many different books in different genres that i read at different ages that mean different things to me to pick a favorite.