Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish (click the image to visit them) who pick a different topic each week.
This week the topic is: Ten Books I Almost Put Down But Didn’t.
I wasn’t sure whether to interpret this topic as books I wanted to give up on but didn’t, or books that were so good I couldn’t put down. I’m guessing it’s supposed to be the former, so that’s what I’ve gone for, even though it’s a tricky one for me.
I probably struggled because I sort of have some rules when it comes to giving up (or not) on books. If I haven’t enjoyed a book from the off, I give it about 70 pages, and then give up. If I make it past the 150 page mark however,(or about half way through) then I refuse to give up.
So most books that I want to give up on, I usually do earlier rather than later! But here are a few in which I made it past the point of no return therefore had to slog out until the end.
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness: I loved the illustrations in this, but controversially, I didn’t love the story at all! Thankfully it was only a small book so I finished it anyway. I could still take it or leave it. Meh.
The Wildfire Season by Andrew Pyper: I really liked this book in the end so I’m glad I didn’t give up on it, but it was verrrrry slow in the middle and took a lot of effort to get to the end!
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld: Ugh Tally was so annoying in the first book in this series that I almost didn’t make it, but I’m really glad I did. I loved the 3rd book, and I think what Westerfeld was trying to say with this series was pretty epic!
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende: As the title suggests, this book goes on a bit. And in a weird complete 180 to the norm, I think if I didn’t love the film so much I would have never made it to the end of the book.
Cell by Stephen King: Oh Stephen King, I have such a love/hate relationship with you. Like most King books, I was completely hooked with Cell for most of the book (and it’s pretty long), but the closer to the end it got, the more frustrating it was. The ending was so terrible I wanted to throw it at a wall!
The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson: This book involved a present day story, entwined with one from the past. The present day parts I loved so I had to keep reading, but the other one was a bit of a yawn fest, until it all came together at the end.
The Passage by Justin Cronin: I felt like I’d invested too much time in this book to give up on it, but man did I want to. I’m glad I made it to the end though, it was pretty epic, but I never did pick up thew second book!
