Top Ten Tuesday: Books From Past TBRs that I’ve Read

For That Artsy Reader Girl’s Top Ten Tuesday:

This week’s topic was:

September 21: Books on My Fall 2021 To-read List

But I thought instead of making another TBR I’d revisit some old ones again and share what I’ve read. I did this a few times before (here and here) and I’m trying not to repeat books I’ve already updated on other lists:

1. How To Stop Time by Matt Haig from Books I’m Looking Forward To In 2018 – I was really excited for this one but it turned out to be just OK. That’s not bad: I was entertained as I read it, just nothing about it sticks with me a few months later.

2. Celia Garth by Gwen Bristow from Backlist TBR– I’d heard some good things about this revolutionary war set novel. Some people compared it to Gone With the Wind (I suppose because it featured a southern heiress and some romance) but the heroine of this isn’t likeable and we don’t really root for her in spite of it, like we do with Scarlett O’Hara. As a result the book fell flat for me.

3. Bird Box by Josh Malerman from Backlist TBR – I read this before watching the Netflix film. I’d heard really great things about it, so maybe my expectations were too high. I was underwhelmed by the movie too, though the books was better (as it usually is)

4. The Group by Mary McCarthy from Most Recent Additions to My TBR (Jan 2019) This was an interesting read. It was originally written in 1963 and was considered groundbreaking at the time for it’s look at women’s lives, social issues, and sexuality. What may have been shocking sixty years ago is less so now, but it’s amazing that some of the expectations of women, and the prevalence of double standards, haven’t changed. There’s also a film version, which I still haven’t seen, but it’s on my list.

5. Normal People by Sally Rooney from Most Recent Additions to My TBR (Jan 2019) I still haven’t seen the hulu series (I know, I know, I’m getting to it!) but I really enjoyed the book, with one small caveat: quotation marks. I know that writers have reasons for not including them some times, but there are also reasons that they exist in the first place! It makes for a much smoother reading experience if I don’t have to constantly figure out if something is or isn’t dialogue. But I don’t want to make it seems like I didn’t like the book, because I did!

6. Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid from Most Recent Additions to My TBR – Reid tends to be a hit or miss author for me. But the books I was iffy on tend to be her earlier work. Her more recent work, including this and The Seven Husband’s of Evelyn Hugo were really enjoyable. I haven’t read her most recent, Malibu Rising, yet. I was a bit skeptical about the format of this one (interviews with the titular band) but it worked.

7. Roar by Cecilia Ahern from Most Recent Additions to My TBR– This one was a disappointment. I like most of Ahern’s novels, but this collection of short fiction didn’t really work for me. I like a couple of stories, but that’s it. Apparently my opinion is the minority though, it got great reviews and it’s going to be made into an Apple+ series.

8. The Tiger Catcher by Paullina Simons from Spring 2019 TBR – Simons is another author with whom I’ve had mixed experiences. This book got mixed reviews, so my expectations were low, which may be why I enjoyed it as much as I did. It’s the beginning of a trilogy, so I’m looking forward to reading the rest.

9. Time After Time by Lisa Grunwald from Spring 2019 TBR – I felt like I should have liked this historical fiction with touches of fantasy. But the story didn’t really go anywhere, so this was a book where it was sort of important to like one of the two main characters. I didn’t like either of them very much.

10. The Parting Glass by Gina Maria Guadagnino from 10 Most Recent Additions to My TBR (Jan 2019) – I read a review of this (I think it was on goodreads, but I’m not sure) that said it was like Downton Abbey meets Gangs of New York. I thought that description summed it up pretty well. It was a pretty good book, but nothing that I gave too much thought to afterward.

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