Books We Feel Differently About Now That Time Has Passed

For future Top Ten Tuesday topics & info on how to participate, click here!

Ten Books I Feel Differently About After Time Has Passed (less love, more love, complicated feelings, indifference, thought it was great in a genre until you became more well read in that genre etc.)

Lauren's Picks

I've decided to go with books that made me fall back in love with the horror genre. When I was younger, I read the popular authors at that time... such as Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Dean Koontz. I was quickly turned off from the genre for several reasons, but more recently I have fallen back in love with all things that go bump in the night. Here are just a few books that rekindled the fire that ghost stories are shared around.

1. The Parasitology Series by Mira Grant -- This series is so very different from most horror series that seem never-ending. These days I thank I greek gods to find a good standalone book, let alone find a solid series comprised of only 3 books that I like. This series packs a punch and will freak you out. In a good way, of course. But you'll still be left wondering what the hell happened. I highly recommend this series for anyone who wants a nicely paced dive into the horror genre.

2. The Deep / The Troop by Nick Cutter -- I placed these 2 books together just so I could include more authors. :) These are both extremely scary books that will keep you up at night. That sounds like a book blurb, right? Well it is so much more than that. I actually had a couple of nightmares that I can truthfully say were cause by reading these books. They are both amazingly written and will haunt you in the daytime. 

3. Seed / The Shuttering / The Neighbors / The Bird Eater by Ania Ahlborn -- I don't know what it is about this author, but she never ceases to amaze me. She is my #1 favorite horror author and I just can't really praise her books enough. If you think you can handle it, give any of her books a try. I dare you.

Bridget's Picks

I'm going opposite of Lauren for this one. Here are a few books that I liked significantly less the second (or third, or fourth) time around:

4. The Hunger Games Series -- When I was first reading them, I was utterly engrossed. I devoured them incredibly fast and for the most part didn't really stop to think about the less great things about the story. One of the things that bothers me (more) now more than it did during my initial read-through of the series is the ridiculous love triangle—not that it didn't bother me then, but it's even more irksome now, to the point where I don't see myself rereading them due to this. Divergent falls in the same category—I hate that these strong female leads are reduced to the prize for one guy or another to win. Does that ever happen to male leads? NO. (Or at least it's not nearly as likely.)

5. Most of Dean Koontz's Books -- I've been in denial about this for a long time. Some of Dean Koontz's novels are still some of my favorite books of all time: Watchers, Lightning, and Strangers are three books that I still love. But after reading more of them, it's clear that they mostly follow pretty much the exact same pattern: rugged loner guy OR strong independent woman discovers something that might or might not be supernatural. He/she teams up with a strong independent woman OR a rugged loner guy and either a preternaturally intelligent child or possibly a dog to defeat the dark power. They always do, and the man realizes that he needs the woman in his life and vice versa, despite their previous loner/strong and independent statuses. I've pretty much given up on reading any new Dean Koontz because they're almost uniformly terrible, but you can pry my old standards from my cold, dead hands.

Julia's Picks

6. The Outsiders by SE Hinton -- I adored this book when I read it at 13, and I loved it more reading it aloud to my sister a few years later. But when I went back and read it in college, it didn’t have the same spark for me. I still thought it was a great book, but I loved it more in a nostalgic way then how it made me feel.

7. Books by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss -- Back when I was new into Romance, I read her entire backlist. And I mean ALL of it. But as the romance tropes have changed into a more modern aesthetic, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t enjoy these as much as I did the first go round. They are more I like them for how they introduced me to the genre as oppose to ones I would recommend that people read who are trying to get into the genre.


Jamie's Picks

8. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater -- As I was reading this book I was liking it but something just wasn't really clicking. I was REALLY stressed because it was like right before my wedding sooo I probably should have been reading something a little bit lighter to suit that mood. As time went on and I actually THOUGHT about this book I found myself really loving it even more as time went on so much so that I finally started re-reading bits and pieces of it and feel like my 3 star rating I gave it was NOT at all representative of what I really felt about it -- I was stressed and really should have been something that required less of me.

9. Wither by Lauren DeStefano -- I was OBSESSED with this book. So obsessed. I read it VERY early on in my blogging career as an ARC and I just adooooored it especially as it was one of the few dystopian type books I'd ever read. I read the second one and devoured that. I couldn't WAIT for the 3rd. And then I just found myself not moving on to it when it finally came out. I got distracted with all the new books and recently tried to reread it so I could finally finish the trilogy and I just....wasn't as into it. I think it was still very good but maybe not so much what I want to read these days? But at the time...OH MAN..it was looking to be an all time fave.

10. Landline by Rainbow Rowell -- I REALLY loved this one when it came out. It made me think a lot about relationships and stuff, and I'm not saying I dislike it or anything at all, but I read a book a bit after it called After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid that made me think about a lot of the same things and themes and I just loooooooved that one so much more that maybe my feelings towards this one decreased a little bit? Like I still love Landline for what it was but I feel like now After I Do is the one I go around recommending whereas the few months before when I had just read Landline in its place when I wanted to recommend  a great book about marriage and relationships. So it's not like I liked it less? I just thought the other book did it better.


Tell us the books you feel differently about!