I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.
It's been a while since I had time to do a Top Ten Tuesday post! This week we're talking about books we had strong emotions about — any kind of emotion! My list includes books that induced a variety of strong emotions in me.
This book emotionally wrecked me. I'm glad it was so emphatically recommended by so many people because the first half was hard to get through, but the second half was brilliant and devastating.
In my memory I gave this book 2 stars, but apparently I actually gave it 3.5 stars. However, there was one plot point that made me incredibly angry, and I'm especially frustrated that I have yet to see anyone else mention it but continue to see people raving about this book. It's not OK! Why are we all acting like it's OK??
I'm not sure if "emotions" is the right word, but this book completely took over my brain for days after I finished it. Maybe "disturbed" is the closest descriptor of how I felt afterwards? I think what was most unsettling was that it had the tone of a YA romance but the protagonist didn't actually get a happy ending, and in fact one was never really possible for them, which is why it messed me up so much.
I remember being in complete shock at the end of this book. I couldn't believe what had happened, and I definitely went through the stages of grief in coming to terms with the events of this book before we got more context in the final volume.
This memoir of ten Boom's experience living through the Holocaust took me on a rollercoaster of emotions, both laughing out loud and sobbing. The books that can do that are few and far between, and hers was probably the most intense that I've experienced.
I felt so incredibly seen by this book that I haven't been able to stop recommending it since reading it. I will talk at length about how well this book showcases the experience of "passionate 'ally' struggles with exploring her own identity." I am thrilled by the fact that so many people have now read this book on my recommendation and then come back to tell me how much they loved it.
This book has yet to be unseated as my favorite book of all time since I first read it in 2012. It's already a rare feat for a book to make me cry real tears; it's an even more incredible one when a book can do that again, even though I already know what happens. Even now, thinking of the line about moss and motherhood can make me tear up.
What pisses me off so much about this book is that 90% of it is a wonderful depiction of grief and the complicated aftermath of an untimely death, and then the author took the story completely off the rails for no good reason. There is so much about the last 10% of this book that is unnecessary, problematic, unrealistic, and incoherent that it's almost like a completely different book. I can and have ranted about the issues with this book at length and would gladly do so again!
This book had possibly the longest list of critiques that I've ever put in a Goodreads review. It was an absolute mess for a multitude of reasons, but first and foremost the fact that it's an offensive representation of the very experience it's intended to draw attention to. I probably wouldn't be so upset about what a dumpster fire this book is if it weren't one of the few books out there depicting an intersex experience and thus frequently recommended as a way to learn more about that. The fact that the author is a founding member of We Need Diverse Books really bothers me, given that she thought this transphobic and intersexphobic work was OK to put out into the world.
Ending on a positive note, I adore this graphic novel with the fire of a thousand suns. This holds the record for the shortest span of time between me reading and then re-reading a book. My heart may as well have been beating outside my chest for the intensity of the emotional journey that this little book took me on.
Which books have you had strong emotions about?
Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: The 57 Bus, Diary of a Misfit, The Bad Guys in Mission Unpluckable, and McDonald's
Five years ago I was reading: The Trespasser and The Blue Castle
Ten years ago I was reading: The Remains of the Day and Predictably Irrational
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